Vicente Gonzalez Jr.[1] (/vɪˈsɛnteɪ/; born September 4, 1967) is an American lawyer and politician serving as the U.S. representative for Texas's 34th congressional district since 2023.

Gonzalez's South Texas district stretches from the Mexican border in Brownsville to Corpus Christi along the Gulf Coast.

[7] He continued his education at Embry–Riddle Aeronautical University on the Corpus Christi Naval Air Station, where he earned a Bachelor of Science degree in aviation business administration in 1992.

[7] Gonzalez, a political newcomer, announced his candidacy for the U.S. House of Representatives in Texas's 15th congressional district in 2016 following the retirement of incumbent Rubén Hinojosa.

[10][11][12] In the November general election, Gonzalez won with 57.3% of the vote, defeating Republican nominee Tim Westley, who received 37.7%.

[14][15] Following Texas’s redistricting based on the 2020 census, Gonzalez announced in November 2021 that he would seek reelection in the newly redrawn 34th congressional district.

The incumbent representative, Filemon Vela Jr., had previously announced that he would not seek reelection and endorsed Gonzalez regardless of which district he chose to run in.

Soon after, Vela resigned from Congress on March 31, triggering a special election to fill the remainder of his term under the district’s previous, more competitive boundaries.

Flores, however, entered the race and won the June 14 special election with 50.9% of the vote to Sanchez’s 43.4%, briefly flipping the seat for Republicans.

[24] In his first year in Congress, he introduced the Repatriate Our Patriots Act, which would have allowed U.S. military veterans who are not citizens—and who had been deported for certain nonviolent offenses—to return to the United States.

[28] In August 2021, he was among a group of conservative Democrats, known as "The Unbreakable Nine,"[29] who opposed supporting the Biden administration's $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation package[30] unless the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act was passed.

[35] After the election, he criticized Democrats for being "lazy" and "out of touch" on abortion issues and urged the party to moderate its stance on transgender policies.