James Bordonaro was born September 3, 1963 in Providence, Rhode Island. His father, Albert, is a veteran of the U.S. Air Force and after serving his country he met and married Alice McClure, a native of Ohio who attended Ottawa University in Ottawa, KS on a Baptist scholarship. The second oldest of four children, he grew up in Connecticut and graduated in 1982 from high school in Bloomfield, a suburb of Hartford. James received his undergraduate degree in Liberal Arts from the University of Central Florida in 1989. It was while attending college that James met his future wife, Gaelynn who was pursuing a degree in Fine Arts. The couple was married in 1990. He graduated from Florida State University's College of Law in 1997 and began his legal career as a law clerk with the State of Florida's court system in Panama City, Fl. Gaelynn also had enrolled in a graduate studies program in Art Therapy at Florida State University and, in 1999, was awarded a prestigious year long scholarship through Rotary International to serve as a goodwill ambassador in Melbourne, Australia. Upon returning to the United States, served a stint as a prosecutor for the Florida Board of Nursing before opening his own law firm in 2002.

Upon graduating with her Ph. D. from Florida State, The family moved to Emporia in the summer of 2005 where Gaelynn joined the faculty as a professor of Art Therapy at Emporia State University. Switching homemaker roles, James set about familiarizing himself with Emporia and the surrounding communities and maintaining their home and becoming active in the Lyon County Democratic Party. In 2007, he began substitute teaching with the local school system and followed that up in the spring by starting a small seasonal business in Emporia focusing on retail sales of house plants and garden vegetables. This is his first attempt at elected office.