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Rene O. Oliveira, the Brownsville native and former state lawmaker, who died suddenly on Tuesday at the age of 68, was proud of what he was able to accomplish during his many years serving in the Texas House of Representatives, according to his son, Rene O. Oliveira Jr.
The elder Oliveira, who served in the Legislature from 1982 to 2019, was a former chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee and also served on the House Business and Industry Committee, State Affairs Committee and Redistricting Committee.
Rene Jr. said his father’s list of awards and accomplishments are “too many to recount.”
“He loved this community and spent his life working and fighting for this community,” he said. “He was proud of being named a champion for children and always fighting for education and all those kinds of things. That was very important to him. I know one of the things that he was proud of and that he worked a lot on was bringing the medical school to the Valley, getting the (University of Texas Rio Grande Valley School of Medicine) here.
“He was also involved in bringing SpaceX down here and really wanted to bring all those jobs to the Valley. Education was always big for him.”
Oliveira, who would have turned 69 in March, also helped create UTRGV and its precursor, the University of Texas at Brownsville.
Rene Jr. said his father was also proud of his chairmanship of the Ways and Means Committee. Oliveira, who earned his law degree from the UT School of Law and served 17 terms in the Legislature, was defeated in the 2018 Democratic primary by Alex Dominguez.
Oliveira and his son had practiced law together at the Brownsville-McAllen firm Roerig, Oliveira & Fisher, where Oliveira had been a senior partner and Rene Jr. is still a partner, until his father formed a solo practice in recent years.
“He wasn’t retired but he was slowing down I guess it’s fair to say, and was just working as much as he wanted to and still helping people,” Rene Jr. said. “He was always a great dad, and when my daughter was born became a great grandpa. He really enjoyed I think being a grandfather these last 7 1/2 years or so. I know his granddaughter’s going to miss him very much.”
Oliveira also leaves behind a daughter, Adrienne Palmer of Houston.
