José Granados

José Granados Navedo, born in 1946, is a former Speaker Pro Tem of the House of Representatives of Puerto Rico who was later convicted in U.S. District Court of campaign finance violations. Married, with three children, he currently lives with his family in Florida.

Granados initiated his political career as a student leader at the University of Puerto Rico campus in Río Piedras, along with future House Speaker Edison Misla Aldarondo, future Senator Oreste Ramos, Jr. and future Senate Vice President Orlando Parga, Jr. In 1968 he was an unsuccessful candidate for elective office under the Statehood Republican Party (SRP) banner, as most statehooders switched their allegiance to the New Progressive Party (NPP), an offshoot of the SRP, which went on to win that year's general election. As Secretary General of Acción Progresista, a pro-statehood student organization, he founded the longest lasting pro-statehood newspaper weekly, Decisión, in 1971. In that year, he was elected president of the New Progressive Party Youth organization and was nominated as one of that party's candidates for an at-large seat in the House of Representatives of Puerto Rico. Elected at the age of 26, he became one of PDP Governor Rafael Hernández Colón's biggest thorns among the legislative minority, exposing multiple scandals in the administration. After the Governor's defeat in 1976, Granados was elected in 1977 as the Majority Leader in the House. In 1981, after the NPP lost control of that legislative body, he became outgoing Speaker Angel Viera Martínez' Minority Whip. When Viera Martínez bolted the NPP to join the Puerto Rico Renewal Party (PRP) in 1983, Granados became House Minority Leader, a position he held until 1988.

In 1981, Granados founded the Puerto Rico Statehood Commission, a grassroots non-partisan organization dedicated to research and education on Puerto Rico statehood. The organization operated until 1986 and included among its leaders a wide array of prominent statehooders, such as attorney Zaida Hernández, who subsequently served as House Speaker and is currently an appelate court judge, attorney Nélida Jiménez Velázquez, also an appellate judge, then Senator Oreste Ramos, Jr., Sol Luis Descartes, a former Treasury Secretary under PDP Governor Luis Muñoz Marín, current Senate President Kenneth McClintock and attorney Luis Dávila Colón, currently Puerto Rico's most prominent political analyst.

In 1988, when San Juan Mayor Baltasar Corrada del Río ran for Governor, he ran for the mayoralty, but both lost in that year's PDP landslide.

Jose Granados made a political comeback in 1992 when he was returned by the people to the House, where he became Majority Leader. In 1997 he became Speaker Pro Tem until his resignation from office. He was later indicted in federal court, although not convicted, for wrongdoings of intervening in the process leading to the construction of Puerto Rico's North Coast Superaqueduct during Governor Pedro Rosselló's administration.