As the dean of Arizona’s congressional delegation—and the state’s first Hispanic American elected to Congress—Ed Pastor set many milestones during his career. But while he acknowledged the gains made in the House, Pastor stayed focused on the task before him. “The fact is I am Hispanic, the fact is there is a lot of pride in the Hispanic community. And I join the enthusiasm,” he said after first winning election in 1991. “But as an elected official you represent the entire community.”1
The oldest of three children, Ed López Pastor was born on June 28, 1943, to Enrique and Margarita Pastor. He grew up in the copper mining town of Claypool, Arizona, and attended the public schools in nearby Miami, Arizona.2 Pastor received a scholarship to Arizona State University in Tempe and became the first in his family to go to college, earning a bachelor’s degree in chemistry in 1966. After graduation, he taught at North High School in Phoenix, but left in 1969 to become deputy director of a community non-profit. He served as vice president of a legal aid society in 1971 and returned to school, earning his J.D. in 1974 from the Arizona State College of Law in Tempe. He then joined the staff of Arizona’s first Hispanic governor, Raul Héctor Castro, where he worked on civil rights and equal opportunity issues. Pastor married Verma Mendez, and they had two daughters, Laura and Yvonne.3
In 1976, Pastor—seeking to build on his time with the governor’s office—won election as a Democrat to the Maricopa County board of supervisors. When 15-term Congressman Morris Udall resigned from the U.S. House of Representatives in May 1991, Pastor stepped down from the county board to enter the race for the open seat in the 102nd Congress (1989–1991). Facing four other challengers, including Tucson Mayor Tom Volgy, Pastor won the special Democratic primary that August with 37 percent of the vote. He then defeated Republican Pat Conner in the special election on September 24, 1991, with 56 percent of the vote.4 As the first Hispanic elected to Congress from the state of Arizona, Pastor remarked in his victory speech, “It’s a moment of glory for all of us because we are making history together.”5 Despite redistricting after the 2000 Census, Pastor won each of his 11 succeeding elections for the Phoenix area district with more than 62 percent of the vote.6
With less than three months left in the 102nd Congress, Pastor landed on the Education and Labor Committee, the Small Business Committee, and the Select Committee on Aging. In the 103rd Congress (1993–1995), Pastor received an assignment on the Appropriations Committee, a post he held for most of his tenure (103rd; and 105th–113th Congresses, 1997–2015). In the 104th Congress (1995–1997), he temporarily lost his Appropriations seat when Republicans assumed the majority; Pastor transferred to Agriculture and the House Oversight Committees. In the 105th Congress (1997–1999), Pastor returned to Appropriations and joined the Standards of Official Conduct Committee (105th Congress–107th Congresses, 1997–2003). He later served on the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (113th Congress, 2013–2015).
Outside his committee duties, Pastor served as chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) in the 104th Congress. During Pastor’s chairmanship of the CHC, the Republican reforms of the caucus systems eliminated budget, staff, and offices for service organizations. Despite the difficulties, Pastor kept the CHC intact and hired a shared employee to assist with the caucus’s needs, stating, “We think to be effective in advocating on behalf of the Hispanic community, we need the additional flexibility of having additional people.”7
In 1999, Democratic leaders tapped Pastor to be one of the party’s chief deputy whips—a leadership position he held for the rest of his tenure. A party loyalist, Pastor voted with Democrats more than 90 percent of the time throughout his career.8
Pastor’s post on the Appropriations Committee allowed him to provide funding for many Phoenix based projects. In his more than two decades in the House, Pastor supported numerous projects in his district. As a senior member of the Appropriations subcommittees on Transportation as well as Water and Energy, Pastor championed infrastructure projects in his home state, especially those concerned with energy development, water access, and mass transit.9 “Whatever my constituents ask for, I try to meet their needs,” he told an Arizona newspaper in 2009. “When you’re an appropriator, obviously, you are able to do things, so I try to help as much as I can.”10 He supported many of the Southwest’s environmental programs, and was a frequent advocate for Arizona’s American Indian communities.11
In one of Pastor’s first difficult votes, he backed the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1993 (Public Law 103–182). Some of his union supporters were angered by the trade agreement, but Pastor choose to support it stating, “we cannot survive, let alone compete, if we become protectionists and isolationists.” Pastor added, “We must face our future with hope, demonstrating confidence in the American workers ability to compete with the rest of the world.”12
On the national level, immigration and education reform were two of Pastor’s most passionate issues. He advocated for the Development Relief and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act. The bill, he said on the House Floor in 2010, “would create a pathway to citizenship for undocumented young people, who were brought to the U.S. as children, raised in this country, have excelled in our education systems, and have expressed a clear commitment to pursue higher education or military service.”13
Pastor supported universal health care throughout his congressional career. In 1993, he introduced H. Con. Res. 56, “Expressing the sense of Congress that access to basic health care services is a fundamental human right.”14 While the resolution never moved in committee, it set the tone for Pastor’s position on health care. He later supported the Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2009 (Public Law 111–3), and the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (Public Law 111–148). Pastor continued his support, rebuffing attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act. “With our economy struggling to get back on track,” he insisted, “repealing health care will deny hundreds of small businesses and thousands of families in my district crucial tax credits to help offset the cost of coverage.”15
In February 2014, Ed Pastor announced his retirement at the end of the 113th Congress in early 2015. “After 23 years in Congress, I feel it’s time for me to seek out a new endeavor,” Pastor said. “It’s been a great honor, a great experience and a great joy for me to serve in Congress. I think it’s time for me to do something else.”16 Upon hearing news of the longtime Congressman’s retirement, President Barack Obama remarked, “The first in his family to graduate from college, and the first Hispanic Congressman ever elected from Arizona, Ed Pastor has spent his life fighting to give every American the same chance to work hard and get ahead that this country gave him.”17 Ed Pastor died on November 28, 2018, in Phoenix, Arizona.18
View Record in the Biographical Directory of the U.S. Congress
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