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TALLAHASSEE The new class of Republican state representatives doesn't fit the national GOP stereotype.

Four of the 19 new members are Hispanic. Two are women.

The GOP has long been more diverse in Florida than in other states, thanks largely to Cuban-Americans from Miami-Dade County. But the party is involved in a broader push to recruit minority and female candidates from across the state.

The effort paid off in 2014. Three of the four new Hispanic members were elected outside Miami-Dade.

"This is the new face of the Republican Party of Florida," said newly elected state Rep. Bob Cortes, an Altamonte Springs Republican who was born in New York but grew up in Puerto Rico. "You're seeing more young, fresh Hispanic Republicans not only run for office, but win."

Cortes and the other new members of the state House will be in Tallahassee on Tuesday for training.

Florida isn't the only place where diverse Republican candidates are winning office. The Republican State Leadership Committee, through an initiative known as the Future Majority Project, invested more than $6million to help elect 42 minority and female candidates to statehouses across the United States in 2014. All told, Republicans won control of 69 of the nation's 99 legislative chambers.

"Conservative values are not gender- or race-specific," said Florida state Rep. Jos Flix Daz, a Miami Republican who sits on the Future Majority Project executive board.

For decades, most Hispanic members of the Florida House and Senate were Republicans of Cuban descent.

That started to change around 2000 when top Democratic fundraiser and former state party chairman Bob Poe made a focused effort to recruit Puerto Ricans to the Democratic Party.

Original post:
Republican Florida House newcomers shows diversity