For decades, Vero Beach has been the neglected stepchild of a Congressional District dominated by Brevard County, and Indian River County residents have seldom seen their elected member of the U.S. House of Representatives except when he was looking for campaign contributions.
But freshman Congressman Mike Haridopolos, like his predecessors a Brevard County resident, told Vero Beach 32963 in an interview last week that he wants to be more attentive to his Indian River County constituents, in person or using technology to stay connected.
He won’t be physically home in his Florida district as much as retired Congressman Bill Posey was, he said, as the Congressional calendar has been changed to meet the ambitious schedule Republicans and President Donald Trump plan while the GOP enjoys a majority in both the House and the Senate.
“The challenge we’re going to face this year, at least, I’m not sure if you’ve seen the calendar for this year, but usually we’re in Washington 26 weeks out of 52. This year we’re already scheduled for 34 weeks out of 52 in Washington,” Haridopolos said.
But to help make it around to as many local meetings and events as possible, he said he has set up a feature on his website called “Request an Appearance” and wants to encourage Vero residents to use it.
“We want to have our ear to the ground and understand what’s going on in the community,” Haridopolos said.
If a group, club or local government has a meeting they want him to attend, he asked that they enter the particulars on the form. If he’s scheduled to be in Florida that day, Haridopolos said, he’ll do his best to make it in person.
“There are a lot of meetings I can’t make. I mean, just the schedule is reality. But I still want to make sure I respond to people,” he said.
If he can’t make it in person, his staff will gather some questions the group wants answered.
“I will go on video and answer all their questions and send it back to them. And they can play it.
Or send it all by email to everybody else,” he said.
Virtual appearances are a possibility, too, he said, on days he’s required to be in Washington for committee meetings or floor votes.
In the roughly half-hour interview at his office at the Brevard County Government Complex in Viera, we asked Haridopolos about a few key issues suggested by local community leaders.
Improving the National Flood Insurance Program, beach replenishment, expediting FEMA reimbursements to local government, and boosting Medicare reimbursements to healthcare providers were four of the things Indian River County residents said they hoped Haridopolos might focus on in his first year in Congress.
Haridopolos said he would research what could be done on flood insurance, and that he understands, as a long-time Brevard barrier island resident, the importance of protecting oceanfront property by shoring up beaches via engineered sand projects to prevent major storm disasters.
He said he was surprised at the amount of time it takes for local governments to navigate all of FEMA’s red tape and then wait, several years or in the case of Hurricanes Frances and Jeanne, up to a decade, to get reimbursed for money spent on storm recovery. Haridopolos said he would look into what could be simplified – with an eye to eliminating fraud, yet expediting needed funds to county and municipal governments.
The 2024 Congress cut Medicare reimbursements for physicians, effective in January, but a bipartisan bill introduced two weeks ago would repeal those cuts and replace it with a meager 2.83 percent increase in payments to doctors to begin in April if the measure passes the House and the Senate.
That’s a start, Haridopolos said, but Medicare reimbursements overall have declined by 27 percent, straining the finances of hospitals – including Cleveland Clinic Indian River and Orlando Health Sebastian – as the area’s population ages and becomes more reliant on the healthcare system, and the cost of just about everything from labor and energy to supplies and prescription drugs has soared.
The Congressman’s take, as a newbie in D.C., was that the federal government seems to have no problem finding plenty of money for a variety of causes, foreign and domestic, and for special interests. He said leaders should be able to find sufficient funds to take care of senior citizens on Medicare, and to keep hospitals and clinics open to care for them.
He also promised to keep an eye on the progress of the new Veterans Administration Multi-specialty Clinic here for which funds were appropriated in 2024 but which has not yet opened.
During the interview, Haridopolos asked good questions, took notes of things to follow up on, and appeared to genuinely pay attention instead of simply preparing to launch into canned responses.
Haridopolos, 54, a history and politics professor at the college level, and nonfiction author, served in the Florida Legislature for 12 years and as Florida Senate president from 2010 to 2012.
“I’m very transparent, very straightforward, and I think it’s essential that we communicate with people what’s going on in Washington. I really prided myself on that. Even when I was president of the Senate back in the day, I literally took down the doors, and made sure that people had access to me,” he said.
“I do it for two reasons. One is I want to kind -of create this ideal that people know we’re accessible. And the second one, pragmatically, if you live in a bubble, you don’t face reality.”
It’s still very early in the 2025 Congressional session, and Haridopolos just got his initial House committee assignments last week.
He’ll serve as chair of the Space and Aeronautics Subcommittee of the Committee on Science, Space and Technology, which makes sense considering Brevard County being the seat of the space industry and defense-related space programs at Patrick Space Force Base.
He’ll also be majority whip of the House Financial Services Committee and serve on subcommittees dealing with Digital Assets, Financial Technology, Artificial Intelligence, Capital Markets, Oversight and Investigations.