Susan Valdés named No. 2 of powerful budget committee just days after party swap
House Speaker Daniel Perez, a Miami-Dade resident for more than 30 years, doesn't appear to be showing favoritism to his home county in his new role as House Speaker.
He's assigned four Representatives from Miami-Dade to Chair positions for the 2025 Legislative Session.
Five will serve in Vice Chair capacities.
And unlike his counterpart in the Legislature's upper chamber, Senate President Ben Albritton, Perez handed no committee leadership positions to Democrats.
Atop the list of incoming Chairs, alphabetically, is Coral Gables Rep. Demi Busatta Cabrera, who will helm the newly formed Higher Education Budget Subcommittee.
Miami Lakes Rep. Tom Fabricio also scored a Chair seat, but it's an on-again/off-again one. He'll serve as Alternating Chair of the Joint Select Committee on Collective Bargaining, sharing the duty with Palm Bay Republican Sen. Randy Fine.
Fabricio is the only incoming Chair also to receive a Vice Chair assignment from Perez. He'll sit beside Jacksonville Republican Rep. Wyman Duggan in the influential Ways and Means Committee.
Perez, who took the House gavel last month, has implemented or announced several changes ahead of the coming Session. He vowed to make the chamber "leaner" and more forward-looking with new panels on information technology investment and threat assessments, loosened some restrictions on member activities, and unveiled plans for a new website and interactive bill analyses.
The 2025 Legislative Session commences March 4 and runs through May 2. Click here to view the full list of House committees and their members.