Marty Rendon announces bid for RD14

Reboboth Beach resident Martin “Marty” Rendon has announced a campaign for Representative District 14, a seat held for 20-plus years by Pete Schwartzkopf, who recently announced his retirement. 

Rendon, who moved permanently to Rehoboth in 2018, is a commissioner on the Delaware Human and Civil Rights Commission and chairs the commission’s legislative committee. He was appointed to the commission in 2019 by Gov. John Carney. As chair of the legislative committee, Rendon has lent the commission’s support to Delaware legislation relating to issues such as the right to counsel for tenants, no-excuse absentee voting, constitutional protection for the LGBTQ community and people with disabilities, prohibiting discrimination based on sources of income, a bill of rights for those experiencing homelessness, reform of the state’s expungement law, alignment of the Delaware Equal Accommodations Law with federal protections, legislation to address hate crimes, transparency for law enforcement disciplinary records and clarification of the state law banning discrimination based on religion in public accommodations.

As legislative committee chair, he successfully worked with the Delaware Senate and House to pass a bill to rename the Human Relations Commission as the Delaware Human and Civil Rights Commission, and the Division of Human Relations as the Division of Human and Civil Rights. The bill passed both chambers unanimously and was signed into law in 2022.

In 2018, Rendon retired from working in Washington, D.C., for 25 years as vice president for public policy and advocacy for UNICEF USA. In running Congressional relations for UNICEF, he succeeded in getting Congress to approve the funding requested by UNICEF every year. Under his leadership, UNICEF received more than $2.9 billion in regular resource contributions from the U.S. government for its programs to save and improve the lives of the world’s children. He also advanced a wide range of policy initiatives on global issues affecting the survival and well-being of vulnerable children, including child and maternal health, clean water and sanitation, basic education, children caught in emergencies, child soldiers, child trafficking, child labor, violence against women and children, and rights for children. At the same time, he led UNICEF USA’s efforts to build a network of advocates and activists across the country to fight to make children a U.S. foreign policy priority.

Prior to working at UNICEF, Rendon worked for more than two decades on Capitol Hill, including serving as legislative director to four members of Congress, working for eight years on the associate staff of the House Rules Committee, and capping his Hill career as staff director of the House Select Committee on Hunger. His first job on Capitol Hill was as a paid intern to Sen. George McGovern (D-South Dakota).

At the Select Committee on Hunger, he oversaw the drafting of the Freedom from Want Act, a blueprint to fight hunger in the United States and around the world. While he was staff director, the Select Committee on Hunger received the 1992 Silver World Food Day Medal from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Throughout his years as a Congressional aide, he focused on global humanitarian and human rights initiatives. He served as the principal House staff contact for Congressional Friends of Human Rights Monitors. He was invited to the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in Oslo in 1996 for his Congressional human rights work on East Timor (Timor Leste).

Rendon has a bachelor of science degree in foreign service from the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service and a juris doctor from the Georgetown Law Center. He spent his junior year at the University of Madrid. He also has a diploma and certification from the National Personal Training Institute and worked for six years as a part-time personal trainer for the Prince William County Virginia Park Authority. Rendon grew up in Springfield, Ohio. He was valedictorian of his class at Catholic Central High School and was admitted to that school’s Hall of Honor in 2014.

He served on the board of Delaware Stonewall PAC from 2020-22.

He is a professed Secular Franciscan and vice minister of the St. Clare Secular Franciscan Fraternity at St. Edmond Catholic Church in Rehoboth Beach.

He has owned property in Sussex County since 1985 and has lived at his current residence since 2005.

Editor’s note: This is a press release.