Rep. Hillary Cassel turns into the second one Florida lawmaker to take action in contemporary weeks.
Florida state Rep. Hillary Cassel on Friday become the second one Florida consultant on this legislative consultation to modify events from Democrat to Republican, consistent with a statement she made on social media.
“This choice used to be now not made frivolously however comes from a deep sense of accountability to my constituents and my dedication to the values that information my provider. I can be becoming a member of the Republican Convention of the Florida Space of Representatives as a result of I imagine of their imaginative and prescient for a greater, extra filthy rich Florida. As a mom, I wish to assist construct an international the place our youngsters are judged on their personality and their movements, now not on their labels.”
Cassel, partly, cited what she described because the Democratic Birthday celebration’s “failure to unequivocally improve Israel and its willingness to tolerate excessive modern voices that justify or condone acts of terrorism” within the Israel–Hamas war, additionally noting that she is a “proud Jewish girl.”
“I’m repeatedly through the lack of the present Democratic Birthday celebration to narrate to on a regular basis Floridians,” she mentioned. “I will be able to not stay in a birthday celebration that doesn’t constitute my values.”
“Welcome to the crew,” he wrote on X.
“I like my group, and I can proceed to struggle on a daily basis to learn the folk of West Tampa, Hillsborough County, and the state of Florida,” she mentioned in a Dec. 9 remark. “And in my center, I do know the easiest way to try this is to face with Speaker Perez and sign up for the Republican supermajority within the Florida Space of Representatives.”
Perez additionally re-posted Valdes’s remark on X and welcomed her into the Space. On the time, Space Democratic Chief Fentrice Driskell mentioned she used to be shocked and disenchanted through Valdes’s announcement.
Valdes and Cassel’s transfer to the Republican Birthday celebration will increase the GOP’s supermajority within the state Space of Representatives. Republicans have managed the governor’s administrative center and each branches of the Legislature since 1999.
Space Democratic Chief Fentrice Driskell has now not but commented on Cassel’s transfer to the GOP, however she lamented Valdes’s choice in a remark to information shops previous this month.
She claimed on the time that Valdes had “increased her personal aspirations above the wishes of her district” and used to be “elected through her constituents as a Democrat to struggle for our shared values right here in Tallahassee and has persistently and publicly shared that she feels the Republican Birthday celebration does now not adequately constitute her constituents or her ideals.”
The Epoch Instances contacted Driskell’s administrative center for remark however gained no answer through e-newsletter time.
The Related Press contributed to this record.