There’s Something Different About Gilbert Ray Cisneros Jr.
Gil Cisneros appeared for one of his first town hall meetings at the Diamond Bar Community Center sponsored by the League of Women’s Voters in late 2017. With the auditorium filled, Gil Cisneros sat onstage at the front table with a dozen other candidates who were running for the Congressional 39th District seat in California. Nobody knew much about him at the time, only that he was a Democrat, and he was wealthy.
When his turn came, Cisneros got up and said, “I’m one of you, and I can’t be bought.”
Then Cisneros proceeded to talk about the Affordable Care Act and education. He was a man of few words.
Cisneros wasn’t born into wealth or even acquired it in business. His mother worked in public cafeterias. His father was a Vietnam veteran who suffered from the ravages of Agent Orange. Cisneros joined the Navy out of high school and earned a degree in political science at George Washington University in Washington. He remained in the Navy for 11 years. Later, he married his wife Jacki, left the Navy, had twin sons, and went to work at Frito Lay as a manager. They laid him off in 2010. A few weeks later, he stopped on his way home from jury duty to pick up some Hawaiian barbecue take out for the family with an afterthought of buying some lottery tickets. One of those tickets earned him $266 million, the sixth-largest payout in the Mega Lotto history at that time.
Upon accepting a one-lump-sum payout rather than annual payments, and paying taxes, Cisneros received around 90 million. After donating to their church and other charities and making sure his and Jacki’s parents were comfortable in retirement, he and Jacki took a step further than most lottery winners and put a large percentage of their money back into the community. Along with establishing endowments for scholarships and starting the Gilbert and Jacki Cisneros Foundation to help prepare students for college, Gil and Jacki Cisneros began the annual tradition of hosting the Generation 1st Degree-Pico Rivera Kindergarten Book Giveaway. This program was not to help children learn to read, but to help young children learn to enjoy reading.
All was going well. Gil and Jacki Cisneros were happy to bury themselves in their community and their philanthropy. Then for the Cisneros family, disaster struck. Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election, and immediately he started legislating to remove the Affordable Care Act and implement changes in education, two American institutions that Gil and Jackie held dear to their hearts. Considering the circumstances, Cisneros felt it was his civic duty to run for Congress, much like when he served in the Navy. “If Clinton had won in 2016, I wouldn’t have run for Congress,” Cisneros said.
Ultimately, Barack Obama and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee backed Cisneros. He came second in the primaries with 27,500 votes behind Young Kim with 30,000 votes, a Republican who the retiring incumbent Ed Royce endorsed. The general election would be a face-off between Kim and Cisneros.
For over a week, the general election held Nov. 6, 2018, was declared too close to call. Kandy Fisher, a retired teacher who currently tutors students in reading, and who worked as a volunteer on the Cisneros For Congress Campaign, said, “Without all the ballots counted, Young Kim went to Washington for her Congressional Orientation. She even got her picture taken with the new Congressional members.”
While Kim was in Washington, enjoying the picture taking, white table luncheons, and evening celebrations, Cisneros remained at home. “Election night was rough,” he said. “Then, each day was a test of patience. I was invited to attend the orientation, but I thought it was important that we receive the appropriate results before I joined any events.”
On Nov. 17, Cisneros was declared the winner with a final count of Gil Cisneros: 126,002 to Young Kim: 118,391.
Soon, Cisneros will have to run again in 2020 to retain his seat in Congress.
Jennifer Medina published in The New York Times regarding Kim, who plans to run against Cisneros again in 2020: She frequently distanced herself from the president during the 2018 campaign, though she now says his record is “pretty good,” Medina quoted her as having said. “A lot of people agree that the economy is the number one issue for them, and Donald Trump is doing the right thing in this area.”
In 2018, Cisneros won the 39th District with a simple message and a pledge to fight for the Affordable Care Act. “In many ways, it was a similar feeling to winning the lottery,” Cisneros said. “I was very excited and proud of everyone who helped make it possible, then the sense of responsibility kicked in.”
