Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart (R)
Florida’s 25th Congressional District

After serving 14 effective years in the Florida State Legislature, Mario Diaz-Balart was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2002 to represent Florida's 25th Congressional District, which includes part of Miami-Dade, Collier and Monroe Counties. He is now serving his third term.
 
Diaz-Balart is a member of the Budget Committee, the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, and the Science and Technology Committee.  He is an Assistant Whip and Vice Chair of the Congressional Hispanic Conference.  He is also the founder and co chairman of the Everglades Caucus, a group dedicated to Everglades restoration and conservation.  In his first term Diaz-Balart authored two amendments to protect Everglades restoration funding, which were successfully passed.  He continues to actively work toward securing additional funding under the Water and Recourses Development Act (WRDA).
 
Diaz-Balart is a strong proponent of improving transportation and as a member of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee has helped deliver millions of federal dollars for the I-75 widening project and Miami-Dade Transit.

Public safety is also a priority for Diaz-Balart.  Since his arrival in Washington, Diaz-Balart has been a strong proponent of promoting hurricane preparedness and ensuring federal relief for Florida in the aftermaths of Hurricanes Katrina, Wilma and Rita.  Most recently, in 2007, Diaz-Balart launched the Protecting Families Online initiative, to help parents and families protect themselves against online predators and ID theft.
 
As a member of the Budget Committee, Diaz-Balart is pushing for a responsible federal budget that keeps taxes low on hard-working families.  And when he came to Congress, he was a founding member of the Washington Waste Watchers, a group dedicated to combating government waste, fraud and abuse.  This Congress, Diaz-Balart introduced the Tax Relief for Families Act (H.R. 411), which would make permanent the state and local sales tax deduction, the child tax credit, the marriage penalty relief, the college deduction and the school teacher expense deduction and would repeal the death tax.

Diaz-Balart began his political career in 1988 in the Florida House of Representatives, and in 1992 he was elected to the Florida Senate where he served as Vice Chair of the Rules Committee and chaired several other committees including the Combined Appropriations/Ways and Means/Finance and Tax Committee, the Criminal Justice Appropriations, Banking and Insurance Committee, and Children and Families Committee. In 2000, Diaz-Balart returned to the Florida House where he served as Chair of the Congressional Redistricting Committee and Vice-Chair of the Procedural and Redistricting Council.
 
Diaz-Balart was born in Ft. Lauderdale, FL on September 25, 1961. He attended the University of South Florida in Tampa where he studied Political Science before beginning his public service career as an aide to then City of Miami Mayor in 1985. The Congressman lives in Miami, FL with his wife and son.