Overview & History

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"You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness. If we fail, at least let our children and our children's children say of us we justified our brief moment here. We did all that could be done."
President Ronald Reagan – Oct. 27, 1964


The Republican Party of Florida has a long and proud history. Our roots run deep, with a foundation built on the core principles of lower taxes, less government, and more freedom. For well over a decade, the Republican-led Legislature in the State of Florida has focused on innovative ideas to make revolutionary gains in our education system, keep our communities safe, and protect our most vulnerable citizens. Our work, however, started long before that:

1867 Official birth of the Republican Party of Florida
1868 Constitutional Convention meets, Harrison Reed is elected as Florida's first Republican Governor
1873 Marcellus Lovejoy Stearns is named Florida's first Republican Senate President
1966 Claude Kirk elected first Republican Governor since 1872
1987 Bob Martinez sworn in as Governor, marking an end to over twenty years of Democrat leadership in state government
1992 Ander Crenshaw becomes the first Republican Senate President since Reconstruction
1994 Republicans gain control of the Senate, Jim Scott is the first Republican Senate President that serves a full two-year term
1996 Republicans gain a majority in the Florida House, the first time since 1874; Toni Jennings becomes the first Republican woman Senate President; Daniel Webster becomes the first Republican Speaker since Reconstruction; for the second cycle in a row, no incumbent Republican state legislator loses reelection
1998 Jeb Bush is elected Governor, and for the first time ever, Florida enjoys a Republican Legislature, Cabinet, and Executive Branch
2000 John McKay becomes Senate President and Tom Feeney becomes House Speaker
2002 Floridians reelect a Republican Governor for the first time in state history and Senator Jim King becomes Senate President
2002 Johnnie Byrd is elected House Speaker
2003 Former Senate President Toni Jennings, who served a historic two-term presidency, becomes Florida's 16th Lieutenant Governor, the first woman to hold the office in state history
2004 Tom Lee becomes Senate President and Allan Bense becomes House Speaker
2004 Floridians elect Mel Martinez to the United States Senate, where he becomes the only Cuban-American immigrant to serve in the Senate
2006 The people of Florida elect Charlie Crist as the state's 44th Governor
2007 Marco Rubio, the first Cuban-American to serve as Speaker of the Florida House, and Senate President Ken Pruitt continue to lead their chambers

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