Welcome to Texas Senatorial District 29.

Included in this sprawling desert district are the City of El Paso and numerous other  communities such as Anthony, Horizon City, Socorro, and Vinton, as well as the Census Population Places of Agua Dulce, Butterfield, Canutillo, Fort Bliss, Homestead Meadows North and South, Prado Verde, Sparks, Vinton, and Westway.

The centerpiece of the district is El Paso, which, with its sister city, Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, combine to form the largest international border population in the world. With downtown areas that are within walking distance of one another, El Paso and Juarez are distinctly urban. Yet, the city, which spreads out over 248 square miles and is divided by the rugged Franklin Mountains into the East Side and the West Side, is a diverse landscape of mountain, business districts, architecturally-rich neighborhoods, parks, museums, farmland, universities and colleges, one of the nation’s oldest military installations, Fort Bliss, and major oil and mineral refining operations. The city is a major transportation hub: Interstate 10 and the railroads combine to make the city a central link in east-west commerce for the nation, and north-south commerce for North America.

The city is distinctly cosmopolitan; seven in ten El Pasoans are bilingual in English and Spanish. Marked by history like few others, in 1981, El Paso marked four centennials – the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the first Spaniards; the 300th anniversary of the founding of the Ysleta and Socorro missions; the 200th of the order establishing the presidio of San Elizario in its present Texas location; and the 100th of the coming of the railroads.

Of course, before all this, native indigenous people lived throughout this rich river valley. El Paso’s history as a meeting place, as a place of collision between cultures, and as the “Ellis Island of the South,” where hundreds of thousands of immigrants from all ethnic backgrounds have made their way into the U.S., lends it a distinct cultural air and a profound cultural heritage. The city is rich in historical treasures, like the Spanish missions that dot the Lower Valley, and cultural jewels, like the fully-restored Plaza Theatre.

The major businesses in El Paso include military, educational, retail and wholesale as well as manufacturing, especially apparel and boots and the ever-important chile, pecan and cotton industries.

El Paso is the home of the Sun Bowl football game, played each college bowl season at the University of Texas at El Paso. Other major teams include the Patriots, a professional soccer franchise; the El Paso Buzzards professional ice hockey team; and the El Paso Diablos, a professional baseball team that plays in Cohen Stadium.

The city boasts the country’s newest medical school,in addition to the University of Texas at El Paso, and El Paso Community College (the fastest growing community college in the State of Texas and the largest grantor of associate degrees to Hispanic students in the nation). Other academic institutions include Howard Payne University, Webster University, and the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center at El Paso. Three fast-growing school districts provide 22 high schools, 33 middle/junior high schools, and 101 elementary schools  . This is augmented by over 25 parochial schools and 50 private schools.

El Paso is the health care center for much of the Southwest and Mexico. The city’s health care facilities include 5 private hospitals, the public hospital, University Hospital, and the William Beaumont Army Medical Center.

No description of District 29 is complete without the inclusion of Fort Bliss, which contributes over $1 billion annually to the regional economy. Fort Bliss is the home of the Air Defense Artillery Center of Excellence. With 1.1 million acres, this post is bigger than the state of Rhode Island and can accommodate every weapon system in the Army. Excellent ranges and training area, coupled with the third longest runway in the nation, make Fort Bliss a premiere facility for training, mobilization and deploying combat forces.

The Challenges

As dynamic as the city and region are, challenges abound. Caught, like other border cities, in the narcotics trade-related turf battles, Ciudad Juarez is reeling from violence in its streets. Thousands, if not more, families are relocating to El Paso to escape its reaches. El Paso, too, struggles with chronic under-employment, too-high high-school drop-out rates, and an economy undergoing a difficult transition to the competition that characterizes the global market. While the city offers an attractive cost-of-living, this is gained too often by labor practices that don’t provide living wages to its employees. The city is currently experiencing a population boom driven in part by the expansion of Fort Bliss, the mass in-migration of Juarez families, and high birth rates. While new inflows will enter the economy, these forces are also expected to stress the city’s education, housing, public health and other social service systems for years to come. Challenges remaining in securing the border while protecting civil rights, and in linking young people to new opportunities in solar and other environmentally-friendly technologies.