In Miami conference, future Republican Florida House Speaker seeks bipartisan solutions
Ten days after being designated the future speaker of the Florida House, Republican state Rep. Daniel Perez gathered politicians, judges, government administrators and more at the University of Miami on Thursday to share a mission and a message.
Perez, who is in line to become one of the most important lawmakers in the state following next year’s elections, told the crowd that he wouldn’t be a parochial House Speaker. But he said he would lean on the lessons from his Miami upbringing — and on the community where he was raised — to help address Florida’s most pressing challenges.
“There are 66 other counties; it’s not just Miami-Dade,” Perez, 36, said from a stage at the Donna E. Shalala Student Center. “But that being said, I want us to discuss the issues that are important to the whole state, from the point of view of a guy from Westchester.”
That’s how Perez kicked off the Florida’s Future Conference, a gathering that Perez pulled together, he said, to help set priorities for next year’s legislative session and the agenda for his two years as speaker, which begins in November of 2024.
“These are things that we can discuss in any county that you visit, but today is our time here in South Florida for us to be heard and for us to begin to have those discussions,” he said.
The conference, which according to an invitation was sponsored by the Ohana Institute Foundation, a private school in the Florida Panhandle, featured panels on education, the justice system, commerce and housing.
During the education panel the Florida commissioner of education, Manny Diaz Jr., said the state needs to “reinvent” its higher-education programs to train teachers, since “a majority of our teachers aren’t coming [to the profession] from education programs.”
During the panel on the issue of justice, Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez-Rundle, 11th Judicial Circuit Chief Judge Nushin Sayfie and Florida International University Police Chief Alexander Casas spoke about needing more money from the Florida Legislature to help them stay current with new technology and, in the case of the state attorney’s office, retain employees.
Perez, who since 2017 has represented Florida House District 116, which includes Sweetwater, parts of West Miami and South Miami, struck a bipartisan tone when kicking off the event, prioritizing policies over politics.
“I am a Republican, but this is not about being a Republican,” he said prior to inviting Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava, a Democrat, to the stage. “It can matter when the conference ends, but leave all of that at the door. We have to find the solutions and we have to do it as one community and that community to me is and always will be Miami-Dade County.”
Levine Cava said she expected Perez to be a “collaborator.”
“He is going to be for the whole state, but he is never going to forget from whence he came and the issues that are so important to all of us” said Levine Cava.
This story was originally published September 28, 2023 at 3:56 PM.
