Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R) Elected 2002, 1st term
Born:	Sept. 25, 1961, Ft. Lauderdale
Home:	Miami
Education:	U. of S. FL
Religion:	Catholic
Marital Status:	single
Elected  Office:	FL House of Reps., 1988-92, 2000-02; FL Senate, 1992-00.
Professional Career:	A.A., Miami Mayor Xavier Suarez, 1985-88; Public relations executive.
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An interconnected sea of wetlands once covered 8.9 million acres of southern Florida, stretching from present-day Orlando down to the peninsula's southern tip. Initially, it was a coherent ecosystem, a "river of grass" in which water moved slowly down a gentle slope to the ocean, buffering plants and animals from meteorological extremes, and providing different microenvironments for flora and fauna based on an inch or two gained or lost in elevation. It was long a dream of Florida's white settlers to control this land and make it more useful, but for decades, this goal proved elusive. It took three attempts between 1915 and the late 1920s to build the Tamiami Trail from Miami to Tampa; to this day, it is one of only two roads that cross the South Florida interior from coast to coast. Over time, however, man managed to reshape the Everglades. In 1948, Congress approved the Central and South Florida Project, which authorized the construction of 1,000 miles of canals and 720 miles of levees to channel and drain the Everglades. Since that time, about half of the original ecosystem has been turned over to agriculture and housing, and the amount of water discharged into the ocean has fallen by 70%. Floridians began to question the wisdom of government policy and call for restoration of the Everglades. Florida politicians of both parties began to take notice, and called for change. So did officials of the Clinton administration. In 2000 they all came together in agreement, and Congress passed a law to restore the Everglades, authorizing $7.8 billion over 30 years. Now comes the hard part: no one is actually sure how to accomplish the goals, but in 2002 the President and his brother signed an agreement to proceed and the Army Corps of Engineers was set to work.

A century of meddling has produced an often-surreal landscape. In her book The Orchid Thief, journalist Susan Orlean relates the tortured history of the Fakahatchee Strand, a swampy stretch east of Naples. "What is compelling about Florida is not just its ever-expanding quantity of land--it's the qualities that the land has come to represent," she writes. "Florida was to Americans what America had always been to the rest of the world--a fresh, free, unspoiled start." Farmers came to the Fakahatchee in the early 20th century, but they found that crops would not grow reliably, and livestock often escaped, leaving a legacy of feral, mean-spirited swamp pigs. Timbering came next, until there were no more trees to chop down. Then the timber barons sold their land to real estate speculators who made hundreds of millions of dollars duping customers into buying wretched plots for $10 a month, using patently false promises, spying on their customers' private conversations in their hotel rooms, and driving potential buyers out to remote areas of the site and threatening to let them walk home if they did not sign a contract. Much of the landholdings became an untamed state park.

The 25th Congressional District sprawls almost all the way across this uninhabitable portion of South Florida, connecting population centers near (but not on) each of Florida's two coasts. About 13% of its residents live in Collier County, in new housing wedged between decidedly upscale Naples and the wild Everglades and in the farm town of Immokalee. The large majority live in western and southern edges of metropolitan Miami, never very far from the swamps. Here you can drive out on roads past the subdivisions and find strawberry, tomato and citrus farms; the trees thin out and then the road just ends, and the Everglades begin. This was the fastest-growing district in Florida during the 1990s, when its population grew by 52%. The towns in the northern part of the district are heavily Cuban and Latino--Hialeah Gardens, Tamiami, Kendale Lakes, South Miami Heights, Cutler Ridge. Farther south the 25th takes in low-income agricultural areas along South Dixie Highway (U.S. 1), like Princeton and Naranja, as well as a few older tourist attractions, like the Metrozoo, Monkey Jungle and Coral Castle. Even further south is what was once the country town of Homestead. Before 1992, Homestead Air Force Base was a major employer here. But in August 1992 Hurricane Andrew hit Homestead, causing 14 deaths and leaving massive property destruction; Homestead was leveled and the Air Force Base closed. In one of his last acts as president, Bill Clinton rejected a plan to convert the base to a commercial airport, citing environmental concerns; instead, 700 acres were transferred to the county for likely use by developers. Politically, this area leans Republican, thanks to the strong Republican allegiance of its many Cuban Americans (though this is the least Cuban of the three South Florida Hispanic majority districts).

The congressman from the 25th District is Mario Diaz-Balart, a Republican elected in 2002. His father, Rafael Lincoln Diaz-Balart, served as Majority Leader in Cuba's House of Representatives. His uncle and grandfather also served in the Cuban House. His aunt was once married to Fidel Castro. He comes from a prominent family sometimes called "the Cuban Kennedys" which seems to have politics in its blood. One of his three older brothers is Lincoln Diaz-Balart, congressman since 1992 from the 21st District just to the east. Mario Diaz-Balart, unlike his brother, was born in the United States after his family fled Cuba.

Even for a scion of one of Miami's most prominent political families, Mario Diaz-Balart's ascent has been unusually rapid. He dropped out of the University of South Florida at 24 to work for former Miami Mayor Xavier Suarez and was elected in 1988 to the Florida House. In 1992, at 31, he became the youngest person ever elected to the Florida Senate. Soon after that, Diaz-Balart was named chairman of the Senate Ways and Means Committee, where he quickly established a reputation as a budget hawk. His 1995 order calling for state agencies to cut spending by 25% earned him the nickname "The Slasher"--a moniker he wore with pride. The eight-year term limit forced him from the state Senate in 2000, so he again ran for the Florida House and was elected. He was no ordinary freshman, though. As a veteran of the state's 1992 round of redistricting, Diaz-Balart requested and received the chairmanship of the congressional redistricting committee. Republicans controlled redistricting; the resulting plan included a central Florida district tailored to Speaker Tom Feeney and this western Miami-Dade district tailored for Diaz-Balart.

The election proved anticlimactic. Diaz-Balart went to court and eliminated all his opponents in the Republican primary. In the general election he coasted to victory over Democratic state Representative Annie Betancourt, a former social worker and the widow of a Bay of Pigs veteran. Betancourt's campaign was underfinanced and she remained largely unknown; Diaz-Balart was well financed and had support from teachers' unions and other unions. Probably the biggest news in the campaign was Betancourt's call to end the "failed" embargo of Cuba in a way "that doesn't pander to the Cuban regime but likewise doesn't punish the Cuban people." This was a bold move in a strongly anti-Castro constituency. But Diaz-Balart did not pursue the issue vigorously, perhaps because he sensed that the growing population of non-Cuban Latinos in south Florida are less concerned about Castro.

Diaz-Balart won 65%-35%. In the House he quickly showed that he would be a player by getting on the Budget and Transportation and Infrastructure committees. In the battle for influence among the new pairs of siblings in the House, Florida's Diaz-Balart brothers were well ahead of California's Sanchez sisters.

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DC Office
313 CHOB 20515, ; Fax: 202-226-0346; Web site: www.house.gov/mariodiaz-balart

State Offices
Miami, 305-225-6866; Naples, 239-348-1620.

Committees

• Budget (22d of 24 R).
• Transportation & Infrastructure (40th of 41 R): Aviation; Coast Guard & Maritime Transportation (Vice Chmn.); Water Resources & Environment.

Election Results (More Info)
	Candidate	Total Votes	Percent	Expenditures
2002 general	Mario Diaz-Balart (R)	81,845	65%	$999,322
	Annie Betancourt (D)	44,757	35%	$155,450
2002 primary	Mario Diaz-Balart (R)	unopposed

2000 presidential
	Bush (R)	88,308	55%
	Gore (D)	72,050	45%
For 1992 and 1996 presidential results in the Twenty-Fifth District, please see the Almanac 2000 online. Please note that these older returns reflect district lines as they existed prior to 2002 redistricting.

• Cook Partisan Voting Index: R + 5
• District Size: 4,724 square miles
• Population in 2000: 639,295; 94.4% urban; 5.6% rural
• Median Household Income: $44,489; 13.7% are below the poverty line
• Occupation: 20.8% blue collar; 61.7% white collar; 17.5% gray collar; 6.0% military veterans
• Race/Ethnic Origin: 24.3% White, 10.0% Black, 1.6% Asian, 0.1% Amer. Indian, 0.0% Hawaiian, 1.4% Two+ races, 0.2% Other, 62.4% Hispanic origin
• Ancestry: 3.8% USA, 3.7% West India, 3.2% German
• Click here for statewide demographic data.