page_title: Marco Rubio
section_title: In the minority
hierarchical_section_title: Marco Rubio / U.S. Senate / Tenure as senator / In the minority
caption_attribution_description: English: U.S. Senator Marco Rubio meeting in February 2013 with Israeli President Shimon Peres during trip to Jordan and Israel.
context_page_description: Marco Antonio Rubio is an American politician serving as the senior United States senator from Florida. A Republican, he previously served as speaker of the Florida House of Representatives. Rubio unsuccessfully sought the Republican nomination for president of the United States in 2016, winning presidential primaries in the State of Minnesota, the District of Columbia, and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico.
  Rubio is a Cuban American from Miami, Florida. After serving as a city commissioner for West Miami in the 1990s, he was elected to represent the 111th district in the Florida House of Representatives in 2000. Subsequently, he was elected speaker of the Florida House, and was Speaker for two years beginning in November 2006. Upon leaving the Florida legislature in 2008 due to term limits, Rubio taught at Florida International University.
  Rubio successfully ran for the United States Senate in 2010. In April 2015, he announced that he would not seek re-election to the Senate, instead choosing to run for president. He suspended his campaign for president on March 15, 2016, after losing the Florida Republican primary to the eventual winner of the presidential election, Donald Trump.
context_section_description: Shortly after taking office in 2011, Rubio said he had no interest in running for president or vice president in the 2012 presidential election. In March 2012, when he endorsed Mitt Romney for president, Rubio said that he did not expect to be or want to be selected as a vice presidential running mate, but was vetted for vice president by the Romney campaign. Former Romney aide Beth Myers has said that the vetting process turned up nothing disqualifying about Rubio.
  Upon taking office, Rubio hired Cesar Conda as his chief of staff. Conda, a former adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney, and former top aide to Sens. Spencer Abraham (R-Mich.) and Robert Kasten (R-Wis.), was succeeded in 2014 as Rubio's chief of staff by his deputy, Alberto Martinez, but Conda remained as a part-time adviser.
  During his first year in office, Rubio became an influential defender of the United States embargo against Cuba, and induced the State Department to withdraw an ambassadorial nomination of Jonathan D. Farrar, who was the Chief of Mission of the United States Interests Section in Havana from 2008 to 2011. Rubio believed that Farrar was not assertive enough toward the Castro regime. Also in 2011, he was invited to visit the Reagan Library, during which he gave a well-publicized speech praising its namesake, and also rescued Nancy Reagan from falling.
  In March 2011, Rubio supported U.S. participation in the military campaign in Libya to oust Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. He urged that Senate leaders bring "a bi-partisan resolution to the Senate floor authorizing the president's decision to participate in allied military action in Libya". The administration decided that no congressional authorization was needed under the War Powers Resolution; Senator Joe Lieberman (I-CT) joined Rubio in writing an opinion piece for the Wall Street Journal in June 2011 again urging passage of such authorization. In October 2011, Rubio joined several other senators in pushing for continued engagement to "help Libya lay the foundation for sustainable security." Soon after Gadhafi was ousted, Rubio warned there was a serious threat posed by the spread of militias and weapons, and called for more U.S. involvement to counter that threat.
  In October 2011, The Washington Post reported that Rubio's previous statements that his parents were forced to leave Cuba in 1959 (after Fidel Castro came to power) were embellishments. His parents actually left Cuba in 1956, during the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. According to the Post, "[in] Florida, being connected to the post-revolution exile community gives a politician cachet that could never be achieved by someone identified with the pre-Castro exodus, a group sometimes viewed with suspicion". Rubio denied that he had embellished his family history, stating that his public statements about his family were based on "family lore". Rubio asserted that his parents intended to return to Cuba in the 1960s. He added that his mother took his two elder siblings back to Cuba in 1961 with the intention of living there permanently (his father remained behind in Miami "wrapping up the family's matters"); however, the nation's move toward Communism caused the family to change its plans. Rubio stated that "[the] essence of my family story is why they came to America in the first place; and why they had to stay."
  Rubio voted against the Budget Control Act of 2011, which included mandatory automatic budget cuts from sequestration. He later said that defense spending should never have been linked to taxes and the deficit, calling the policy a "terrible idea" based on a "false choice."
  The following month, Rubio and Senator Chris Coons, Democrat of Delaware, co-sponsored the American Growth, Recovery, Empowerment and Entrepreneurship Act (AGREE Act), which would have extended many tax credits and exemptions for businesses investing in research and development, equipment, and other capital; provided a tax credit for veterans who start a business franchise; allowed an increase in immigration for certain types of work visas; and strengt
caption: Meeting in February 2013 with Israeli President Shimon Peres during trip to Jordan and Israel.
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