Daniel Webster didn’t know Valentin Mendez when Webster was elected in 1996 as the first Republican Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives since reconstruction.
He couldn’t have known him – because Valentin hadn’t been born yet. But the designation of Speaker Webster, a result of Republicans taking the majority in the Florida House, would have long-lasting impacts for Valentin, and millions of other Florida students, for decades.
Buoyed by a mandate for conservative principles to be brought to the challenges Florida faced, the new majority began putting into motion an agenda that has stood for the past 25 years. That agenda was what mattered for Valentin, when his mom was able to leverage the school choice programs offered in Florida to get him into a school where he was not the daily subject of bullying, harassment, and assault. Had that shift in power not taken hold in 1996 and had the same power structure beholden to teachers’ unions continued to dictate policy, Valentin would have not been saved.
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