Francisco Domenech

Francisco J. Domenech (born April 29, 1978 in San Juan, Puerto Rico) is a former Director of the Office of Legislative Services of Puerto Rico (2005–2008). Domenech spent part of his childhood, and adolescent years, in Ocala, Florida, having attended Blessed Trinity Catholic School,^[1] and Forest High School.^[2]

Superdelegate controversy and Democratic Party Conventions

Domenech was a Superdelegate to the 2008 and 2012 Democratic National Committee (DNC) Conventions by virtue of the position he held for more than five (5) years with the Young Democrats of America (YDA.) As such, he was one of 796 persons nationwide, seven of which lived in Puerto Rico, who could have been called upon to determine who would have been the 2008 Democratic presidential nominee before Senator Barack Obama clinched the nomination on June 3, 2008.^[3] In 2004 Mr. Domenech was a delegate to the 2004 Democratic National Convention, where he served as one of the whips for the Puerto Rico Delegation.

Politics

In the political sphere, Domenech, is a supporter of admitting Puerto Rico as the 51st state of the United States.^[4] In May 2003 he became the founding President of the Puerto Rico Young Democrats (PRYD). During his tenure as the first President of the PRYD's, Domenech led a team of 14 young Puerto Rican professionals in Central Florida that campaigned for several weeks for the Kerry/Edwards ticket. At the end of November 2004, Domenech also organized and hosted YDA's Fall National meeting in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Mr. Domenech then was elected as a national officer of YDA in 2005 as Vice President for Development and on July 21, 2007^[5] became a member of the DNC, when YDA's national convention elected him as its Democratic National Committeeman. In 2010 he was reelected for his third and last term as YDA's Democratic National Committeeman, before he aged out of the youth organization. During the last years of his active participation in YDA, Mr. Domenech was a co-founder of the YDA Hispanic Caucus.^[6] Mr. Domenech is the only person in the history of the Young Democrats of America to have served as a national officer for seven (7) consecutive years, two (2) years as a Vice President and five years (5) as Democratic National Committeeman.^[7]

Following in the footsteps of many Democratic leaders, such as the young Hillary Clinton who registered Hispanics in Southwest Texas in the 70's, Domenech led voter registration drives aimed at potential Puerto Rican voters in Florida's I-4 Corridor in several election cycles between 2004 and 2010, staffed by YDA Puerto Rico chapter volunteers.

In December 2007 Mr. Domenech was appointed by Senator Hillary Clinton to Co-Chair her presidential campaign's Hillblazers,^[8] a national network of young professionals and students. He also served as Deputy State Coordinator of Sen. Clinton's successful primary campaign in Puerto Rico, where she polled a 68-32 margin over Sen. Obama in the June 1, 2008 presidential primary.

Mr. Domenech served as one of the national co-finance chairs of Ready for Hillary,^[9] and coordinated fundraisers for the super PAC in and out of Puerto Rico, from California to Washington, DC.^[10]^[11] He currently serves on the Finance Committee for Secretary Clinton's 2016 Presidential campaign, is her top fundraiser in Puerto Rico and assisted in organizing her first campaign trip to Puerto Rico in the current election cycle, which took place on September 4, 2015.

Professional background

While practicing law at the age of 27, Domenech argued on behalf of the Puerto Rico Senate before a relatively rare en banc hearing of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in the case of Igartúa De La Rosa v. United States of America.^[12] His participation was hailed by some commentators in the Puerto Rico media as outstanding. He has been involved in complex litigations that have reached both Puerto Rico's Supreme Court, as well as the Federal District Court. He has also appeared before Puerto Rico's Supreme Court,^[13] as well as its Court of Appeals.

In 2005 he was appointed jointly by Senate of Puerto Rico President Kenneth McClintock and Puerto Rico House of Representatives Speaker José Aponte as Director of the Office of Legislative Services of Puerto Rico, the local legislative equivalent of the United States Congress' Congressional Research Service with a staff of about 120 and a budget of $10 million. During his tenure, he streamlined the staff, expanded the Office's Tomás Bonilla Legislative Library, including access to the blind and the physically handicapped, operated a 100-intern Summer program three years in a row, and turned budget surpluses during four consecutive fiscal years.

In early 2013, the Puerto Rico Supreme Court in Domenech Fernández v. Integration Corporate Services, et al^[14] ruled unanimously in his favor in a case arising from a shareholders' dispute within the firm for which he had previously worked. In the Supreme Court's Opinion, in which the Court for the first time interprets Puerto Rico's 2009 Corporations Law, it ruled that whenever fraud or irregularities are alleged in the keeping of a corporation's records, as Domenech alleged, evidence extraneous to the corporate records will be admitted.^[15]

He currently maintains a bipartisan governmental affairs practice in Puerto Rico, Politank*,^[16] which hired Puerto Rico's former Secretary of State and Senate President Kenneth McClintock and Guillermo San Antonio-Acha, former Legal Counsel to the Governor during Governor Aníbal Acevedo Vilá's administration and who was appointed to be the Popular Democratic Party of Puerto Rico (PPD) Electoral Commissioner.

He has managed two successful presidential campaigns within the Puerto Rico Physicians Association,^[17] the statutorily-created organization to which the islands' approximately 11,000 physicians mandatorily belong, to elect in 2014 and reelect in 2016 the organization's current president, Dr. Víctor Ramos. The reelection of Ramos on April 10, 2016 resulted in a majority of 71.6% in a three-way race.^[18] ^[19] A member of the same generation as Domenech at 43, Ramos became the youngest elected, as well as reelected, president of the association.

Mr. Domenech is a regular commentator in Puerto Rico media such as El Nuevo Día, El Vocero, Puerto Rico TV (Channel 6), Wapa America (Channel 4). Mr. Domenech is also frequently quoted in Puerto Rico's main media outlets.

Philanthropy

Both individually and through his lobbying firm Politank*,^[16] Mr. Domenech has actively supported through the years various philanthropic endeavors. These include:

Clinton Foundation^[20] Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute^[21] Museum of Art of Puerto Rico^[22] Museo de Arte de Ponce^[23] The Washington Center for Internships and Academic Seminars^[24] Hispanic Heritage Foundation^[25] Tasis Dorado Scholarship Fund ^[26]

Education

A twice graduate of the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras campus, (UPR) first in 1999 when he obtained his Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science, and then in 2003 when he obtained his Juris Doctor degree from UPR's School of Law. During his years at UPR, Domenech was President of the General Student Body Council during the 1999-2000 academic year, a position that had never been held by a statehooder before or since him.^[27] During that same year he also served as an Academic Senator before the UPR Río Piedras campus Academic Senate. Prior to that, from 1998 to 1999, Domenech was UPR's College of Social Sciences Student Body President.

Academically, Domenech was a twice participant (2002 & 2003) in the international rounds of the Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition ^[28] on behalf of UPR's School of Law. He ranked in the top 15% of oralist.^[29] Since then he has served as a judge at the international round levels of the competition held in Washington D.C. Additionally, Domenech has lectured on the right to freedom of expression both under US and international law, research prior to drafting a bill, how to draft a bill, how a bill becomes law, and the Puerto Rico legislative process.

Family history

He is the great grand nephew of Manuel V. Domenech, an engineer, who was a member of the first Puerto Rico House of Representatives after the Spanish American War of 1898, and was reelected in 1902 and 1904. During 1904 he served as Mayor for the city of Ponce, Puerto Rico. In 1914 he was appointed to serve as Commissioner of the Interior, becoming one of the first Puerto Ricans to hold an officer's position in the Cabinet which was appointed by President of the United States. Also, he was later appointed as Treasurer of Puerto Rico serving in this capacity from 1930-1935. Unlike his great grand nephew, Manuel Domenech was a very active member of the Republican Party of Puerto Rico attending the 1928 Republican National Convention as an alternate delegate.

Mr. Domenech is also a second cousin of the former Commonwealth of Virginia's Secretary of Natural Resources,^[30] Douglas Domenech who served in the Bush Administration as Deputy Chief of Staff for the United States Department of the Interior.^[31]

References

External links

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