DA hires Gallego as director of public outreach
Bexar County District Attorney Joe D. Gonzales has hired a high-profile adviser as his communications director.
Pete Gallego, the immediate past-president of Sul Ross State University in Alpine, longtime Democratic state lawmaker and one-term congressman, became the government relations advisor to District Attorney Joe Gonzales on Feb. 6, earning a salary of $102,000 a year.
Before he took over at Sul Ross, he had worked for Gonzales in 2019, the district attorney’s first year in office, “to help in the transition and organization of his administration,” Gallego, 61, said in an email last week.
“Joe indicated he could use someone with my particular skill set again — and I believe in Joe, believe in the mission of the office, and love working with the entire staff there, from file clerks to attorneys,” Gallego said.
Gonzales said he is “excited to have Pete back in the office” and expects he will help achieve his administration’s goal of transparency and accountability. Gallego’s title and job description are part of an internal restructuring of “key administrative personnel.”
“I created this position to better communicate with the public about what’s going on in the office so that the citizens of Bexar County know that the employees of this office are working hard on behalf of victims of crime to obtain justice,” Gonzales said.
The district attorney said Gallego will manage public outreach, legislative affairs and office communications.
Bexar County has lobbyists representing its interests at the state and federal levels. Gonzales said he sees Gallego as complementing those efforts but not overlapping with them.
“Our office is in constant communication with the county on legislative efforts,” Gonzales said. “Primarily, efforts from the district attorney’s office will focus on legislation impacting the investigation and prosecution of crime.”
On federal matters, Bexar County pays $7,000 per month for the services of Cristina Antelo of Ferox Strategies and $5,000 per month for Walter Serna of Serna & Serna, said Monica Ramos, the county’s public information officer.
The county pays three other consultants for lobbying at the state level: Jennifer Rodriguez at $1,750 per month, Marc Rodriguez at $4,000 per month and Rudy Rodriguez of R4 Strategies at $1,750 per month.
Pete Peña Gallego grew up in Alpine and graduated from the
University of Texas School of Law in 1985. He was an assistant state attorney general from 1986 to 1989, had a brief private law practice, was elected to the Texas House in 1990 and served there for more than two decades.
Gallego represented the 23rd Congressional District in the U.S. House but lost a re-election bid to Republican Will Hurd in 2014.
He said he will celebrate 33 years of marriage this month to María Elena Ramón. They have a son, Nicolás Miguel, 18.
Gallego served 18 months as president of Sul Ross, also his alma mater, but left in June, 2021.
Gonzales, a Democrat who has twice been elected DA on a progressive reform agenda, said Gallego’s job was not to fight legislation aimed at limiting the actions of what conservative lawmakers call rogue district attorneys.
“While the new role will be involved in legislative efforts, it is not in response to any particular issue pending in the Legislature, but about effective efforts to improve the criminal justice system in Bexar County and in the state,” he said.
Gallego concurred. His new job will benefit from his knowledge of the legislative process and his time chairing the House Committee on Criminal Jurisprudence and was “designed to have a broader impact on the criminal justice system by identifying, drafting or shaping existing legislation that is important to the investigation and prosecution of crime,” he said.
Gallego will work with Yudiann Guillen, a former DA’S Office victim advocate, who now has the title of assistant director of communications.
Gonzales said his office would work with the county to formalize the job descriptions, adding that the designation of the roles and the titles are “within the discretion of the district attorney.”