Miami’s Community Newspapers endorses Senator Miguel Diaz de la Portilla in his run for re-election to the Florida State Senate.
Diaz de la Portilla is the Republican Senator currently holding the District 40 seat. He is running for reelection to the Florida Senate for the newly drawn District 37 which includes part of the City of Miami; and all of Cutler Bay, Palmetto Bay, Pinecrest, South Miami, Coral Gables, and Key Biscayne.
In the Florida Senate, he has spearheaded measures that have lowered taxes, created jobs, improved education, reduced crime and protected the elderly. As a leader in the Florida Senate, he has fought to clean and revitalize the Miami River. Diaz de la Portilla fought for and delivered an unprecedented $458 million increase in K-12 funding, while lowering taxes every year. This year he passed landmark legislation that expands the authority of courts to use treatment-based mental health and substance abuse treatment programs and specifies minimum requirements of those programs.
A lifelong resident of Miami Dade County, he understands the importance of protecting our natural environment and successfully led the fight for legislation protecting Florida’s fragile wetlands (SB 1176) and was a leader in the passage of the Legacy Florida Act, creating a dedicated source of funds for years to come for environmental restoration.
As a Miami-Dade County Commissioner, Miguel created the Office of Inspector General, the South Dade bus lane; chaired the committee which expanded the Metro Mover into Brickell and the Omni; and sponsored the School Impact Fee Ordinance, which forced developers to pay for schools and helped reduce school overcrowding. Long before it was popular, he fought for and passed one of the nation’s first Living Wage ordinances. Miguel’s ability to put community needs before partisan politics led Governor Lawton Chiles to appoint him to the Governor’s Commission for a Sustainable South Florida to help restore the Everglades.
Diaz de la Portilla is a graduate of Miami’s Belen Jesuit Preparatory School and he went on to earn his Bachelor’s degree and Juris Doctorate at the University of Miami. He has been a practicing attorney in Miami Dade County since 1987 and is AV Preeminent rated by Martindale Hubbell.
Diaz de la Portilla has established himself as a freethinker whose voting record in the Florida Senate shows that he puts our community first. He has a proven record of standing up for Miami Dade residents against Tallahassee’s most powerful special interests. That’s what true leadership is all about.
Diaz de la Portilla has been endorsed by the United Teachers of Dade; the Police Benevolent Association and Fraternal Order of Police; the Florida Professional Firefighters, Miami Association of Firefighters, Coral Gables Firefighters, and Metro Dade Firefighters; Associated Industries of Florida and National Federation of Independent Business; Florida Medical Association and Dade County Medical Association; American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees; and the United Faculty of Miami Dade College.
Miami Dade County will be well served by sending Senator Diaz de la Portilla, who is slated for a key leadership position, back to Tallahassee. Our community needs this proven leader with an independent streak in the Florida Senate. We wholeheartedly endorse Senator Miguel Diaz de la Portilla for reelection to the Florida Senate.
