Antonio Villaraigosa

At 71 years old, Antonio Villaraigosa has this physical status:

Antonio Ramón Villaraigosa (né Villar Jr., 1953) was an American politician who served as the 41st Mayor of Los Angeles, California, from 2005 to 2013. He served as the Democratic leader of the Assembly (1996–2000) and Speaker of the California State Assembly (1998–2000).

Villaraigosa, the Speaker, was a champion for working families and was instrumental in the drafting of bills on climate change, expanding healthcare coverage, and increasing funding for public schools. In 2001, he ran for mayor against Los Angeles City Attorney James Hahn, but lost in the second round of voting.

In 2003, Villaraigosa ran for and was elected to the Los Angeles City Council.

He ran for mayor in 2005 again in a rematch against Hahn that he defeated.

During his time as mayor, he gained national recognition for his work and was included in Time's article on the country's 25 most influential Latinos.

He was the first Mexican American to serve as Mayor of Los Angeles in over 130 years.

Villaraigosa, the mayor of Los Angeles, was one of the first to introduce student achievement in the Los Angeles Unified School District, reduce city and highway traffic, and raise public safety. Villaraigosa's continued to be involved in education, civic involvement, water, immigration, mobility, and economic growth issues since being out of office in 2013.

He speaks nationally and throughout California on these topics. Villaraigosa, a member of the Democratic National Convention in 2008, was a national co-chairman of Hillary Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign, a member of President Barack Obama's Transition Economic Advisory Board, and chairman of the 2012 Democratic National Convention in September 2012.

Villaraigosa came in third in the blanket primary election in June 2018, losing to Gavin Newsom and John Cox.

Early life and education

Antonio Ramón Villar Jr. grew up in the City Terrace neighborhood of Los Angeles County's Eastside, and attended both Catholic and public schools. His father moved to the United States and became a successful businessman, but during the Great Depression, he lost his money. At this time, his young wife left him. When his father was 5 years old, he died and a benign tumor in his spinal column hemmed him from the waist down for a short period of time, limiting his ability to play sports. His grades at Cathedral High School plummeted, and the next year, he was barred from the Roman Catholic church after being caught in a brawl after a football game. He later graduated from Theodore Roosevelt High School in Boyle Heights after attending adult education classes at night, with the support of his English teacher, Herman Katz.

Villar went on to attend East Los Angeles College, a community college, and later moved to University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in History in 1977. He was a leader of MEChA, a group that aims to advance Chicano unity and democracy through political activism, but he resigned from his membership in the organization later citing the group's turbulent stances on race. He went by the short form of his given name Antonio at this time. Villar attended the People's College of Law in Berkeley (PCL). He began law school and then failed the California bar exam four times, but he became a field representative/organizer with the United Teachers Los Angeles, where he supervised teachers and was known as a gifted advocate. He later served as president of the American Civil Liberties Union and the American Federation of Government Employees in Los Angeles. On his marriage with Corina Raigosa in 1987, he adopted the blended surname Villaraigosa.

Personal life

Marisela Villar, Villaraigosa's first of four children, was born in 21 years. Prisila Villar, his second child, was born four years ago.

Antonio Villar, a young boy from Corina, married Corina Raigosa in 1987 and adopted a combination of their last names as his family name. Natalia and Antonio Jr. were the couple's two children. Villaraigosa declared his estrangement from his wife Mirthala Salinas, citing irreconcilable differences in the Los Angeles Superior Court on June 12, 2007. Villaraigosa revealed on July 3, 2007, that he was in a relationship with Salinas. Salinas was suspended by her employer, Telemundo, and against her will was relocated to Riverside, after which she resigned. Villaraigosa admitted that he and Corina had had problems with the marriage's course in a New Yorker interview shortly before the divorce. "There are ups and downs in a twenty-year marriage," Villaraigosa said. Villaraigosa had been involved with the wife of a close friend in 1994, according to the same New Yorker story. As a result, his wife filed for divorce, and the couple was separated for two and a half years.

In March 2009, Villaraigosa had a relationship with Lu Parker, a local television news anchor and 1994 Miss USA. Parker's publicist told the Los Angeles Times in July 2012 that the couple's friendship had ended on May 25, 2012.

Patricia Govea was married in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, on August 6, 2016.

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Early political career

Villaraigosa was appointed to the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation Board in 1990, where he served until 1994. He was elected to the California State Assembly in 1994. He was elected to serve as both a Democratic Assembly Whip and Assembly Majority Leader within his first term. Villaraigosa was selected by his peers in 1998 to be the Speaker of the Assembly, the first from Los Angeles in 25 years. After serving three two-year terms, he left the Assembly in 2000.

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