Full Biography

Congressman David Rivera (R-FL) was elected to represent Florida’s 25th Congressional District in 2010, becoming only the second person to represent the district.

Florida’s Congressional District 25 includes western Miami-Dade County and portions of Collier and Monroe counties in Southern Florida.    Rivera has been appointed to serve on the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and the House Committee on Natural Resources.

Rivera’s legislative career began in 2002 when he was elected to represent District 112 in the Florida House of Representatives.  He was subsequently re-elected three times.  During the 2010 legislative session, Rivera served as the Chairman of the House Full Appropriations Committee that oversees the state of Florida’s budget in areas such as education, transportation, housing and economic development.  As a State Representative he worked to balance Florida’s budget eight times.  He also served as the Chairman of the Rules Committee during his tenure in the Florida House.

Aside from his work on budgetary issues, Rivera brought much-needed insurance reform to Florida in the wake of several catastrophic hurricanes.  He helped overhaul the property tax system by easing the tax burden on Florida’s taxpayers.  Rivera also helped strengthen laws against child predators by imposing stiffer penalties on these offenders.

Before being elected to the Florida House, Rivera worked in the U.S. Information Agency, under the auspices of the U.S. State Department.  Rivera primarily worked in the Office of Cuba Broadcasting, which is responsible for administrative management and oversight of Radio and TV Martí, the official government broadcast services to Cuba. Before joining the U.S. Information Agency, Rivera worked as the Public Affairs Director for the Washington-based Valladares Foundation; an international human rights watch-dog group headed by the former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Commission, Armando Valladares.

Prior to joining the Valladares Foundation, Rivera served as a writer and researcher with the Cuban American National Foundation (CANF) in Washington, D.C.  He focused on issues such as human rights, terrorism, political-economy, Soviet-Cuba relations and international trade.  Rivera came to the CANF after serving as a legislative assistant to U.S. Senator Connie Mack and as the Senator’s Political Director in Miami-Dade County during his successful 1988 campaign.

Rivera graduated from Florida International University (FIU) with a Bachelors of Arts in Political Science and a Masters of Public Administration.  He has served as an adjunct professor in FIU’s School of Policy and Management.  His articles on U.S.-Cuba relations have been published in The Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald.  Rivera was born in New York, N.Y., in 1965 and moved to Miami, Florida more than 35 years ago.