Political Career
Prats began working in his early twenties with the Government of Puerto Rico. He worked closely with Sila M. Calderón, then Mayor of San Juan, being the city's Public Affairs and Federal Relations Advisor.
In the 2000 elections, Prats was elected as an at-large Senator, becoming the youngest at-large member that year of the Puerto Rican Senate. During his tenure, Prats pushed legislation that sought to help low-income people, environmental statutes and transportation legislation, and was considered a consensus-builder.
In 2003, Sila M. Calderón announced she would not seek a second term as Governor. The Resident Commissioner of Puerto Rico, Aníbal Acevedo Vilá was chosen to run for Governor in the elections of 2004. Senator Roberto Prats became the Popular Democratic Party's nomineee for Resident Commissioner for the upcoming elections, which he lost to Luis Fortuño, despite a big boost for his congressional campaign, when the Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chairman Terry McAuliffe endorsed him in March 2004. He subsequently was elected State Chair of the Democratic Party in Puerto Rico, a position he currently holds, under DNC Chairmen Howard Dean, with whom he also has a close relationship, Tim Kaine, the former governor of Virginia and Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz. In the summer of 2012, he was elected to a third term as State Chair of Puerto Rico's Democratic Party.
One of Puerto Rico's "superdelegates", Prats announced his support in January 2008 of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential bid and served, along with then-Puerto Rico Senate President Kenneth McClintock, as co-chair of her Hispanic Leadership Council, in spite of his former running mate's (Gov. Acevedo Vilá's) endorsement of Sen. Barack Obama. Prats and McClintock co-chaired Clinton's successful June 1, 2008 primary campaign in the U.S. territory.
In 2009, Prats was elected a member of the DNC's Executive Committee, the highest ranking Puerto Rican within the Democratic National Committee.
In November 2010, he coauthored a book on the 2008 Hillary Clinton campaign in Puerto Rico with McClintock, now Secretary of State.
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