Hispanic Americans in Congress, 1822-1995

JAIME B. FUSTER

[Office of the Historian]

Resident Commissioner
Democrat of Puerto Rico

Ninety-ninth - One Hundred Second Congresses
January 3, 1985 - March 4, 1992

Jaime Fuster was born on January 12, 1941 in Guayama, Puerto Rico, where he attended parochial schools. In 1962 he earned a B.A. degree from Notre Dame University, and three years later he received a J.D. from the University of Puerto Rico Law School. In 1966 he graduated with an LL.M. from Columbia University Law School. He returned to Puerto Rico and became a law professor at the University of Puerto Rico from 1966 to 1979. He was the dean of the law department from 1974 to 1978, and was a Law and Humanities Fellow at Harvard University during the 1973-1974 academic year. From 1980 to 1981 he served as U.S. deputy assistant attorney general and then as president of Catholic University of Puerto Rico from 1981 to 1984.

In 1984 Fuster was elected Resident Commissioner to the U.S. House of Representatives for a four-year term and was reelected in 1988. In both terms he served on the Committee on Banking, Finance, and Urban Affairs, and on the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs. In Congress he was a strong advocate for educational and youth programs. He supported numerous laws and bills to give state and local governments assistance for youth service projects and programs aimed at preventing drug, alcohol, and tobacco abuse. He also supported the establishment of a Children, Youth, and Families Administration, as well as the establishment of a federal child care program. He sponsored legislation to increase social security funds for families with blind, aged, and disabled dependents. Fuster resigned on March 4, 1992 to take an appointment as associate justice of the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico.

Publications by Jaime B. Fuster:
Los derechos civiles reconocidos en el sistema de vida puertorriqueña. San Juan: Comisión de Derechos Civiles, 1972.

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