19-year-old Devin Perez files for House 28 as Democrat

Devin Perez

Saying he is deeply concerned about social inequality, 19-year-old Devin Guillermo Perez has filed to run in 2018 as a Democrat in House District 28, for a seat which is opening up with the term-limiting of Republican incumbent state Rep. Jason Brodeur.

“There’s no room right now for social inequality,” he said. “We’re being lied to. We need to establish a level equal playing field for everyone. And I feel like the best way to bring about that change is to be the change.”

Perez, who lives in Oviedo, is a an on-line student at the University of Florida studying criminology and pre-law. He was raised in Miami, with Puerto Rican and Vietnamese ancestry.

He said he was inspired into politics in part after attending a talk by U.S. Rep. Stephanie Murphy, the Vietnamese-American Democrat from Winter Park whose Florida’s 7th Congressional District includes Oviedo. Murphy upset longtime Republican U.S. Rep. John Mica in a district with an evolving voter base, one that is becoming younger and more diverse, more reflecting herself, and Perez.

Perez said he also has strong feelings about promoting education and the environment. He said he joined the Seminole [County] Democrats and “next spring we’re going to start fundraising.”

Perez is the first candidate to file in HD 28 for the 2018 election.

He joins a trend of very young House candidates in Central Florida. The 2018 general election would come 20 days after his 21st birthday.

Last fall State Rep. Amber Lynn Mariano, a student at the University of Central Florida from Hudson, was elected as a Republican in House District 36, 21 days after her 21st birthday.

In 2012, state Rep. Jennifer Sullivan from Mount Dora was 23 when elected as a Republican in House District 31.

Scott Powers

Scott Powers is an Orlando-based political journalist with 30+ years’ experience, mostly at newspapers such as the Orlando Sentinel and the Columbus Dispatch. He covers local, state and federal politics and space news across much of Central Florida. His career earned numerous journalism awards for stories ranging from the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster to presidential elections to misplaced nuclear waste. He and his wife Connie have three grown children. Besides them, he’s into mystery and suspense books and movies, rock, blues, basketball, baseball, writing unpublished novels, and being amused. Email him at [email protected].


One comment

  • Michele Napoli

    February 24, 2017 at 11:59 am

    WE need millennials to carry this torch! We need to empower them.

    I feel encouraged.

Comments are closed.


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