moving back to Miami with his family a year later. He was confirmed and later married in the Catholic Church. Rubio attended South Miami Senior High School, graduating in 1989. He attended Tarkio College in Missouri for one year on a football scholarship before enrolling at Santa Fe Community College (now Santa Fe College) in Gainesville, Florida. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in political science from the University of Florida in 1993 and his Juris Doctor cum laude from the University of Miami School of Law in 1996. Rubio has said that he incurred $100,000 in student loans. He paid off those loans in 2012. Early career While studying law, Rubio interned for U.S. Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. He also worked on Republican senator Bob Dole's 1996 presidential campaign. In April 1998, two years after finishing law school, Rubio was elected to a seat as city commissioner for West Miami. He became a member of the Florida House of Representatives in early 2000. Florida House of Representatives Elections and concurrent employment In late 1999, a special election was called to fill the seat for the 111th House District in the Florida House of Representatives, representing Miami. It was considered a safe Republican seat, so Rubio's main challenge was to win the GOP nomination. He campaigned as a moderate, advocating tax cuts and early childhood education. Rubio placed second in the Republican primary on December 14, 1999, but won the runoff election for the Republican nomination, defeating Angel Zayon (a television and radio reporter who was popular with Cuban exiles) by just 64 votes. He then defeated Democrat Anastasia Garcia with 72% of the vote in a January 25, 2000, special election. In November 2000, Rubio was reelected unopposed. In 2002, he was reelected to a second term unopposed. In 2004, he was reelected to a third term with 66% of the vote. In 2006, he was reelected to a fourth term unopposed. Rubio spent almost nine years in the Florida House of Representatives. Since the Florida legislative session officially lasted only sixty days, he spent about half of each year in Miami, where he practiced law, first at a law firm that specialized in land use and zoning until 2014 when he took a position with Broad and Cassel, a Miami law and lobbying firm (though state law precluded him from engaging in lobbying or introducing legislation on behalf