Meet your Congressman: Rep. Ron DeSantis

By Hannah Bleau | gargoyle@flagler.edu

Every two years, the district engages in perhaps one of the most underrated events in the community: Electing a representative for Congress. Much of the time, it seems these elections seemingly go unnoticed. Nevertheless, it’s a pretty big deal.

The Congressman holds a crucial role in the community. It’s part of the carefully crafted design of the nation. It’s what makes the system tick. The President represents the nation as a whole (like the CEO of the nation), the Senators represent the states and the Congressmen represent the people. Our brand of a representative republic gives us the stability that pure democracy lacks. The Congressman is literally your personal representative to the federal government. Meet yours, St. Augustine: Congressman Ron DeSantis.

Congressman Ron DeSantis was elected and sworn in to the 113th United States Congress on January 3, 2013. He grew up in both Jacksonville, FL and Tampa, FL and described himself as a “blue-collard” kid.

“I was a baseball player — played baseball at Yale — and did four years of that. Then I went to Harvard Law School, commissioned in the Navy, [and] served four and a half years of active duty service including one tour in Iraq. I served at naval station Mayport. I served at Guantanamo Bay at the detention facility,” DeSantis said.

DeSantis did not always aspire to be a politician. He was the typical student with life consisting of working, competing in sports, and studying. During the time of his studies, he became fascinated with American history, which started to shape his mindset.

“I started to get really interested in history, so I was studying American history (studied a lot about the founding period of the country), got into the American revolution — the creation of the Constitution — Washington through Jefferson, the first few administrations, and that kind of colored how I saw politics from that kind of perspective about those founding principles,” DeSantis said.

This infatuation with the founding principles of America would later serve him well. After getting out of the military, he began to write. This led to his decision to run for Congress.

“I started writing when I got out of the military and actually wrote a book, ‘Dreams from our Founding Fathers,’ talking about how Obama is diverging from the founding principles of the country. I started speaking about it, and people said, ‘Hey you should run for office. We need guys like you.’ This district where I live, here in Ponte Vedra, from here down to New Smyrna Beach, was a new district created. It was an open seat race so I ran and now I’m in Congress, ” DeSantis said.

Being a representative is a unique position, because it requires one to almost be in two places at once. Congressman DeSantis is typically in Washington D.C. Monday through Thursday. He usually spends the remaining days in the district meeting with constituents and business leaders, hosting events and spending time with his family.

Like most people, DeSantis has other interests outside his job. His love of sports is still prevalent. He’s a huge baseball fan and also a supporter of the Jacksonville Jaguars, Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Florida Gators.

Although a new member of Congress, DeSantis has bold, unwavering hopes for the future, not just for Florida’s Sixth Congressional District, but the country as a whole.

“I’d like us to leave a prosperous, stable, financially secure country to the next generation of America … I think that we’ve really moved away from a lot of the principles that have made the country unique and that the constitution reflects. I think ultimately understanding American exceptionalism as being rooted in those principles and then applying those principles to the foreign affairs [and] the economic affairs that we see in this country now [I think] could help bring us back, but we got to have that good strong rudder to kind of drive us in the right direction,” DeSantis said.