Florida House of Representatives
Perez defeated Jose Mallea in a special Republican primary held on July 25,2017,winning 54.8% of the vote. [1] In the September 26,2017 special general election,Perez won 65.8% of the vote,defeating Democrat Gabriela Mayaudon. [2]
Seeking election to his first full term in 2018,Perez defeated Frank Polo in the August 28,2018 Republican primary,winning 80.5% of the vote. [3] In the November 6,2018 general election,Perez won 57.32% of the vote,defeating Democrat James Harden. [4]
In 2022,Perez defended Republican efforts to add elaborate requirements for voters to vote by mail. These included forcing voters to put their double-enveloped ballots inside a third envelope and to mark the last four letters of their identity numbers. Election officials characterized the requirements as a "recipe for disaster" while voting rights advocates characterized the efforts as voter suppression. Perez defended the measures,saying "the process is actually going to be simpler... and at the same time it would be safer." [5]
In September 2023,Perez was nominated Speaker-designate of the Florida House of Representatives by his caucus. After the 2024 elections,he succeeded Paul Renner as Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives. [6]
In January 2025,Perez alongside other Floridian Republicans including Florida Senate president Ben Albritton helped to bring down an attempt by governor DeSantis to call a special session on the topic of illegal immigration. Perez claimed that the call for a special session should "... be used sparingly and not be stunts used to generate headlines.",as well as calling the governor's proposals "bureaucratic". [7] As a replacement,Perez and other Republican state legislators have pushed through and passed the "Tackling and Reforming Unlawful Migration Policy Act" (TRUMP Act) which DeSantis has criticized for being "substantially weaker" than what he had pushed for and threatened to veto the bill. [8] [9] [10] Perez has also split with the governor on the issue of the budget,helping to override a veto on funding for legislative operations,reporting that "This veto was at best a misunderstanding of the importance of the appropriation,or,at worst,an attempt to threaten the independence of our separate branch of government." [11]
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