'Egregious': Dem leader slams lawmaker who immediately defected to GOP after reelection

The Minority Leader of the Florida House of Representatives tore into Susan Valdés, a Tampa-area state lawmaker who defected from the Democratic to the Republican Party, in a statement obtained by Politico reporter Gary Fineout.

"It is sad that she has elevated her own aspirations above the needs of her district," said Minority Leader Fentrice Driskell. "It feels especially egregious in light of the fact that, just last week, she ran for Hillsborough County chair and lost by a substantial margin."

Valdés, who was one of the only remaining Cuban-American Democratic representatives, made her announcement earlier in the afternoon. "I will not waste my final two years in the Florida Legislature being ignored in a caucus whose leadership expects me to ignore the needs of my community," she wrote, adding that, "In my heart, I know the best way to do that is to stand with Speaker [Daniel] Perez and join the Republican supermajority in the Florida House of Representatives."

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Last year, Valdés was one of just eight Democrats who joined Republicans to back a school voucher program advocated by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. Multiple other Democrats who defected to the GOP in state legislatures have cited this as an issue, including state Rep. Tricia Cotham and Georgia state Rep. Mesha Mainor.

School voucher programs, which provide tuition support to parents to enroll children in private schools, are advocated as giving parents "choice," but students have generally found they worsen education outcomes, and mostly transfer money to wealthy parents who are already outside of the public school system.

Moreover, not all Republicans are even on board with the idea, particularly some rural lawmakers whose communities are too small to support private schools, although in Texas, the GOP has recently cracked down in full force to push out Republicans resisting the party's voucher proposal.