Peter Schorsch
Carol Gormley, a veteran legislative staffer, will be chief of staff to incoming House Speaker Jose Oliva, according to an email sent to members by the Speaker’s Office on Wednesday.
Gormley is a highly-regarded health care policy expert who has worked for both Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio.
She’s not a household name outside of Tallahassee, but Gormley is regarded as one of the most influential legislative bureaucrats in the Capitol.
As a House staff director, she has played an influential role in health issues such as Medicaid.
In 2012, she jumped to the Senate to be a senior policy advisor to then-Senate President Don Gaetz. More recently, she was a senior policy staffer to immediate past House Speaker Richard Corcoran.
The news upends conventional wisdom that Jason Rojas had been on track to be Oliva’s chief of staff when the Miami Lakes Republican takes over as Speaker for 2018-20.
Rojas, who also has been a House staff director, moved to the Republican Party of Florida last year to serve in a policy development role that was considered a stepping stone to the Speaker’s Office.
