Gilberto Hinojosa is running for chairman of the Texas Democratic Party, a venture that would put him at the helm of a political organization that hasn’t won a statewide election in 18 years. Even so, the lifelong Democrat seems eager to take the reins.

A little history: Hinojosa was raised in the Rio Grande Valley, educated at what is now the University of Texas-Pan American, earned a law degree at Georgetown University, and then worked as a lawyer for the Washington, D.C.-based Migrant Legal Action Program. He has served as a Brownsville school trustee, a state district judge, a justice on the state’s 13th Court of Appeals, on the Texas Board of Criminal Justice and as Cameron County Judge. He now practices law in Brownsville.

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