[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 10]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page 15017]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




          RECOGNIZING THE LEADERSHIP OF SENATOR EDUARDO BHATIA

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. ALAN GRAYSON

                               of florida

                    in the house of representatives

                     Wednesday, September 17, 2014

  Mr. GRAYSON. Mr. Speaker, I rise today, in honor of Hispanic Heritage 
Month, to recognize Eduardo Bhatia. Mr. Bhatia is a Puerto Rican 
politician and Senator.
  Bhatia obtained his Bachelor's degree in Government and Public Policy 
from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs in 
1986. In May 1986, Bhatia was awarded a Fulbright scholarship to study 
law, economics and politics in Santiago, Chile for one year. He 
graduated from Stanford Law School in June 1990 where he founded and 
edited the ``Stanford Journal of Law and Policy'', an academic 
publication with an emphasis on the development of new laws and public 
policy. He is admitted to practice law in Florida, Washington D.C. and 
The Commonwealth of Puerto Rico.
  After graduating, Bhatia worked for a year as a Judicial Officer for 
Judge Levin H. Campbell, at the United States Court of Appeals for the 
First Circuit in Boston, Massachusetts. From 1991 to 1992, he was the 
Chief of Staff for the Resident Commissioner of Puerto Rico, Jaime 
Fuster, in Washington, D.C. Bhatia is also the former Executive 
Director of the Puerto Rico Federal Affairs Administration in 
Washington D.C. As the Executive Director, he officially represented 
the Governor of Puerto Rico on important issues affecting the 
Commonwealth.
  Bhatia was elected as an official Senate candidate in the Popular 
Democratic Party (Partido Popular Democratico or PPD) primary on March 
9, 2008. At the 2008 general elections, Bhatia won one of only five 
Senate seats obtained by his party.
  At the 2012 primaries, Bhatia won the most votes, securing his spot 
for the general elections. He then won the most votes of all the PPD 
candidates to the Senate. After the win, Bhatia was elected by his 
colleagues as the fifteenth President of the Senate of Puerto Rico.
  In 2013, Bhatia served as Co-Chair of the Eastern Regional Conference 
of the Council of State Governments (CSG-ERC). Later that year, he was 
elected as President of the National Hispanic Caucus of State 
Legislators (NHCSL), becoming the first Senate President to hold the 
title. Bhatia is also a board member of several organizations, 
including the Council of State Governments (CSG) and the National 
Association of Latino Elected Officials (NALEO).
  I am honored to recognize Senator Eduardo Bhatia, during Hispanic 
Heritage Month, for his leadership and commitment to serving the Puerto 
Rican and Hispanic-American communities.

                          ____________________