Giovanni Capriglione

Giovanni Capriglione (born March 8, 1973) is a Republican member of the Texas House of Representatives, having represented since 2013 District 98 in Tarrant County, Texas.

Capriglione lives in Southlake in suburban Tarrant County.

Capriglione studied for a Bachelor of Science in physics at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Worcester, Massachusetts, and then a Master of Business Administration at Santa Clara University in Santa Clara, California.

He and his wife, Elisa, whom he married in 2000, have three children who attend schools in the Carroll Independent School District.

Capriglione owns a private equity management company focusing on businesses located in Texas. He has also worked as a vice president of a private equity firm and prior to that was employed by various computer engineering companies.

In the 2012 Republican primary election, Capriglione, with 55.6 percent of the vote, unseated the incumbent Vicki Truitt of Keller in Tarrant County. Truitt, who had held the seat since 1999, polled the remaining 44.4 percent of the ballots cast.

In 2012, Capriglione won the general election with 85.6 percent of the vote. The Libertarian Party candidate, Michael Goolsby, polled the remaining 14.4 percent.Capriglione went unopposed in the 2014 primary and general elections.

During the 83rd Legislative Session, Capriglione caused controversy by voting "nay" on HB 950 also known as "the equal pay for women act".

In the 84th Legislature Giovanni Capriglione sits on three committees: the House Appropriations Committee, the Investment and Financial Services Committee and the Local & Consent Calendars Committee.Rep. Capriglione also serves as the Chairman of the Sub-Committee on State & Local Debt.In 2015, Rep. Capriglione was elected Secretary of the House Energy Caucus and is a member of the Innovation & Technology Caucus.In the 83rd Legislature, Rep. Capriglione served on two committees: Government Efficiency and Reform and International Trade and Intergovernmental Affairs.

Capriglione is an advocate for greater accountability and transparency in state government. He announced in 2015 that he will seek further ways to make public information more readily available to the citizenry. In 2015 he passed HB 1295, a new law that dramatically improves public access to government contracts given to elected officials.His bill was described by the San Antonio Express-News as the most important ethics bill of the 84th Legislative Session.Rep. Capriglione also passed HB 483 authorizing the creation of the Texas Bullion Depository to insure that Texas has first rights to its gold.

During his tenure, Capriglione has earned a variety of awards and honors including: Champion of Free Enterprise from the Texas Association of Business, Consumer Protection Watchdog Hall of Fame, a 100% Pro-Life Ratingand the People's Champion award from Texans For Accountable Government.

Bills of note:

Capriglione and Senator Watson passed transparency bill that would open up once secret records on how taxpayer dollars are spent.

Capriglione passed the Texas Cybersecurity Act which improved cybersecurity requirements for state agencies, adds cybersecurity as part of the sunset review process, creates and creates a cybersecurity council.

Capriglione passed the "Gold Bullion Bill" and created the world's first non-national, government run bullion depository.

Capriglione in 2017 sponsored legislation that would forbid lobbyists from running for office in Texas on the grounds that they pose either a "perception of conflict of interest" or an actual conflict. The San Antonio Express-News called for "transparency in government" and opposed Capriglione's bill on the grounds that one should not be banned from office based on occupation. Other opponents claimed that the billwould drive lobbyists underground and discourage them from registering with the Texas Ethics Commission.

In the general election held on November 6, 2018, Capriglione won his fourth legislative term. With 56,694 votes (68.3 percent), he defeated the Democrat Mica J. Ringo, who polled 24,294 (29.3 percent). Another 2,002 ballots (2.4 percent) went to the Libertarian Party choice, H. Todd J. Moore.