Roy Barrera Jr.

Roy R. Barrera Jr. (January 25, 1952), is an attorney in San Antonio, Texas, who as the Republican nominee nearly unseated Attorney General Jim Mattox, a Democrat, in the 1986 general election. A 1975 graduate of St. Mary's University Law School in San Antonio, Barrera practices in the firm Nicholas and Barrera.
Barrera is the second of five children of Roy Barrera Sr. (born January 30, 1927), and the former Maria del Carmen Zendejas (1924-2015), who was born at what is now the Quarry Shopping Center in San Antonio.
The senior Barrera served in 1968 as the Secretary of State of Texas under appointment of then Democratic Governor John B. Connally Jr., who switched parties in 1973.
Before the attorney general's race, Barrera Jr., served as a state district court judge from 1982 to 1986. Along with Tom Rickhoff, David Peeples, and David Berchelmann, Barrera was the first Republicans in Bexar County elected to state court judgeships since Reconstruction. From 1992 to 2004, Barrera was the chairman of the Bexar County Republican Party and was allied with former U.S. President George W. Bush. He had been a fundraiser for the San Antonio GOP.
Mattox only narrowly won a second term as attorney general. Though Barrera is Hispanic, a majority of Hispanics voted for the Anglo Democrat Mattox. Webb County (Laredo), for instance, one of the most Hispanic and Democratic enclaves in the state, supported Mattox.
In 2007, Barrera endorsed Francisco "Quico" Canseco, who sought the Republican nomination to challenge Democratic U.S. Representative Ciro D. Rodriguez of San Antonio. Canseco lost the primary in 2008 to Lyle Larson, who was then defeated by the incumbent Rodriguez. In 2010, however, Canseco won the Republican nomination and then narrowly unseated Rodriguez in the general election. He served only one term until his own defeat in 2012 at the hands of Democrat Pete Gallego.

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