Name Liza Ortiz | ||
Liza M. Ortiz-Camacho (born September 8, 1974) is a Democratic and Popular Party (PDP) politician in Puerto Rico who is being considered as the PDP's candidate for Puerto Rico's non-voting seat in the United States House of Representatives.
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Education
Ortiz graduated Cum Laude from the University of Puerto Rico in 1996, where she obtained a B.A. majoring in political science. She obtained her Juris Doctor Magna Cum Laude from Interamerican University of Puerto Rico School of Law in 1999, after spending a summer at the International Studies Center at the José Ortega y Gasset Foundation in Toledo, Spain studying European Community Law and Comparative Spanish Family Law. In Spain, she obtained a Master's degree in Political Studies and completed doctoral studies on Constitutional Law at the Complutense University of Madrid School of Law.
Professional life
At the age of 19, she became a legislative advisor in the Puerto Rico House of Representatives to Rep. Aníbal Acevedo Vilá. In 1997 she served as his Legislative Advisor when Acevedo became the House Minority Leader. He would later become Puerto Rico's non-voting delegate to Congress and, in 2005, the eighth elected Governor of Puerto Rico. In 2001, newly elected Governor Sila M. Calderón appointed Ortiz, at the age of 26, as Executive Director of the Government of Puerto Rico's Commercial Office in Europe, locales in Madrid. In 2002, Ortiz joined the Governor's staff as Advisor on Legislative, Municipal and Public Affairs. At the conclusion of her government service, she joined one of Puerto Rico's largest law firms, Martínez, Odell and Calabria in San Juan, where at the age of 33 became its youngest proprietary partner. In 2009 she co-founded EDGE Legal Strategies, PSC, where she is a partner and directs the Capital Finance division, focusing on mergers and acquisitions.
Political life
In 1999, she served as then-congressional candidate Acevedo Vilá's Communications and Media Director. She has attended two Democratic National Conventions, in 2004 as a delegate and in 2008 as Executive Director of the Democratic Party of Puerto Rico. She was elected in 2011 as Puerto Rico's Democratic National Committeewoman, a position once held by the legendary longtime mayor of San Juan Felisa Rincón de Gautier and Nívea Hernández de McClintock, the late mother of Puerto Rico's current Secretary of State. She has been mentioned as a potential running mate of PDP gubernatorial candidate Alejandro García Padilla.