Background and career
Matthew Louis Gaetz II ( GAYTS; born May 7, 1982) is an American politician, lawyer, and political commentator who served as the U.S. representative for Florida's 1st congressional district from 2017 until his resignation in 2024. His district included all of Escambia, Okaloosa, and Santa Rosa counties, and portions of Walton County. A member of the Republican Party and a self-described libertarian populist, Gaetz is widely regarded as a proponent of far-right politics as well as a staunch ally of Donald Trump. In October 2023, Gaetz filed a motion to vacate that led to the removal of Kevin McCarthy as speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. The son of prominent Florida politician Don Gaetz and grandson of North Dakota politician Jerry Gaetz, Gaetz was raised in Fort Walton Beach, Florida. After graduating from William & Mary Law School in 2007, he briefly worked in private practice before running for state representative. He served in the Florida House of Representatives from 2010 until 2016, and received national attention for defending Florida's "stand-your-ground law". In 2016, he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, and was re-elected in 2018, 2020, 2022, and 2024. In 2020, Gaetz was accused of child sex trafficking and statutory rape. After an investigation, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) decided not to charge him. In December 2024, the House Ethics Committee released a report which found evidence that Gaetz paid for sex—including with a 17-year-old—and abused illegal drugs during his tenure in the U.S. House of Representatives. The committee report did not find sufficient evidence that he had engaged in sex trafficking as defined in federal law. On November 13, 2024, President-elect Donald Trump announced he would nominate Gaetz to serve as United States attorney general, which some Senate Republicans received poorly. Upon Trump's announcement, Gaetz resigned from the House of Representatives. A week later, he withdrew himself from consideration for the post of attorney general. Though he had already won re-election to the 119th United States Congress, he submitted a letter of resignation prior to the swearing in. Gaetz started hosting The Matt Gaetz Show, a political talk show airing weeknights on One America News Network in January 2025.
Matthew Louis Gaetz II was born on May 7, 1982, in Hollywood, Florida, to Victoria (née Quertermous) and Don Gaetz, who later became a prominent local politician, earning Matthew Gaetz the nickname "Baby Gaetz". He has a younger sister. He grew up in a conservative and religious family near Fort Walton Beach, and graduated from Niceville High School. He graduated from Florida State University in 2003 with a Bachelor of Science in interdisciplinary sciences. While at FSU, he was involved in the World Affairs Program Student Government Association and was a member of the Burning Spear Society. He graduated from the William & Mary Law School in 2007 with a Juris Doctor. Gaetz was admitted to the Florida Bar on February 6, 2008. Gaetz's father represented parts of northwest Florida as a member of the Florida State Senate from 2006 to 2016, was Senate president from 2012 to 2014, and was elected to the Florida Senate again in 2024. Gaetz's grandfather, Jerry Gaetz, was the mayor of Rugby, North Dakota, and a candidate for lieutenant governor of North Dakota at the 1964 North Dakota Republican Party state convention, where he died of a heart attack. After graduating from law school, Gaetz worked at the law firm Keefe, Anchors & Gordon (later AnchorsGordon) in Fort Walton Beach. In October 2021, the Florida bar suspended Gaetz from practicing law due to unpaid fees. He was reinstated after the $265 fee was paid.
In March 2010, after Republican state representative Ray Sansom's resignation on corruption charges in February 2010, Gaetz ran in the special election to succeed Sansom in the 4th district, which included southern Santa Rosa County and Okaloosa County. In a crowded Republican primary that included Craig Barker, Kabe Woods, Jerry Melvin, and Bill Garvie, Gaetz won with 43 percent of the vote. In the special general election, Gaetz defeated Democratic nominee Jan Fernald with 66 percent of the vote. During his campaign, Gaetz received almost $480,000 in contributions, about five times more than anyone else in the field, and almost 50 times more than Fernald, including $100,000 of his own money. Gaetz was unopposed for a full term in 2010. In 2012, following the reconfiguration of Florida House of Representatives districts, Gaetz's district no longer contained any of Santa Rosa County. He was reelected unopposed in 2012 and 2014. While serving in the state house, Gaetz and state senator Joe Negron proposed legislation that would hasten the execution of many inmates on Florida's death row by requiring the governor to sign an execution warrant for those who had exhausted their appeals. He also joined state senator Greg Evers in proposing legislation to eliminate the federal ethanol content mandate that 10 percent of gasoline sold in Florida contain ethanol; Governor Rick Scott signed the legislation in May 2013. In 2015, Gaetz was one of two members to vote against a Florida bill which criminalized revenge porn, due to "personal animosity". He had successfully blocked the bill previously. Florida House speaker Will Weatherford announced that he would order hearings on the stand-your-ground law. Gaetz, the chairman of the Criminal Justice Subcommittee, was tasked with reviewing the legislation; he announced before hearings that he would not support changing "one damn comma", but said he would listen to both sides' testimony. After the hearings, he authored legislation to allow defendants who successfully used a stand-your-ground defense during trial to be able to expunge relevant information from their criminal records. When his subcommittee was considering legislation that would keep suspects' mugshots off the Internet until their convictions, Gaetz brought up his 2008 arrest and non-conviction, arguing that his mistakes made him who he is and that publicly available mugshots "could be a problem for those unaccustomed to publicity". In 2015, Gaetz supported the presidential campaign of Jeb Bush. Bush emailed Gaetz about introducing a bill to change the 2016 Florida Republican presidential primary to an earlier date in order to benefit Bush, Florida's former governor. Don Gaetz, then the president of the Florida Senate, also endorsed Bush, along with several other members of Florida's state legislature.
In 2013, Gaetz announced that, in 2016, he would run for the 1st district State Senate seat held by his father, Don Gaetz, who was term-limited in 2016. On March 21, 2016, Gaetz withdrew from the race, choosing instead to run for the U.S. House seat representing Florida's 1st congressional district; the incumbent, Jeff Miller, had announced 11 days earlier that he would not seek reelection. On August 30, 2016, Gaetz won the Republican primary with 35.7 percent of the vote to Greg Evers's 21.5 percent and Cris Dosev's 20.6 percent, along with five other candidates. This virtually assured Gaetz of victory in the general election; with a Cook Partisan Voting Index of R+22, the 1st is Florida's most Republican district, and one of the most Republican in the nation. In the November 8 general election, Gaetz defeated Democratic nominee Steven Specht with 69 percent of the vote. He was only the seventh person to represent this district since 1933 (the district was numbered the 3rd before 1963). Though a financial disclosure form Gaetz filed in 2016 showed a net worth of $388,000, he donated $200,000 of his own money to his congressional campaign. He also resigned from two Florida House political action committees he had started and chaired; the PACs closed down and transferred $380,000 to a federal super PAC, North Florida Neighbors, whose purpose was to support Gaetz's congressional campaign.
Following the death of Miami Marlins pitcher José Fernández, Gaetz criticized the athletes protesting during the national anthem in a tweet on September 25, 2016. He was listed as a member of the moderate Republican Main Street Partnership from at least January to June 2017. Gaetz served as a top campaign adviser to Ron DeSantis during his 2018 gubernatorial campaign. He managed debate preparations and "drafted early administration organizational charts, helped steer early policy decisions and played a huge role in DeSantis' appointments", according to Politico. Gaetz hired Darren Beattie as a speechwriter in April 2019. Beattie had previously been fired as a speechwriter for the Trump administration after attending a conference associated with white nationalists. He attended political rallies in 2018 and 2019 at which members of the Proud Boys were present. After the 2020 State of the Union Address, Gaetz filed an ethics complaint against speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, arguing that she had committed a "flagrant violation of decorum" and perhaps broken the law by ripping up her copy of the speech. Gaetz announced that he would no longer accept campaign contributions from federal political action committees in February 2020. House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy complained on a January 10, 2021, phone call that Gaetz was unnecessarily "putting people in jeopardy", noting that the rioters at the U.S. Capitol on January 6 "came prepared with rope". The conversation was reported in April 2022. Gaetz and Georgia representative Marjorie Taylor Greene began a nationwide "America First Tour" on May 7, 2021, in The Villages, Florida. During the tour, Gaetz and Greene repeated debunked claims of fraud in the 2020 election, attacked Big Tech and, at one event, argued that the Second Amendment was for "maintaining, within the citizenry, the ability to maintain an armed rebellion against the government, if that becomes necessary." As a consequence of the controversy the speakers had generated, their appearance at a conference site at Laguna Hills, in Orange County, California, was canceled. Gaetz was one of 21 House Republicans to vote against a resolution to give the Congressional Gold Medal to police officers who defended the U.S. Capitol on January 6 in June 2021. Gaetz invited Corey Ryan Beekman to lead the pledge of allegiance at a Judiciary Committee hearing in February 2023. Beekman was charged with murder in 2019 in Michigan, and the victim's family criticized the invitation. Gaetz apologized to the family.
Republicans regained a narrow House majority in the 2022 midterm elections. Although sitting minority Leader Kevin McCarthy sought the speakership and had the support of 213 members, he needed five more votes to reach a majority to be elected. Certain members of the Freedom Caucus, including Gaetz, could contribute the required margin. Democrats held 212 votes, with one seat unfilled due to the November death of a holdover incumbent. The anti-McCarthy members withheld more than four votes through 14 ballots. They were thought to be holding out for substantial concessions regarding House rules and committee chair assignments. Their withholding of votes prevented McCarthy earning a majority of votes needed for the speakership. Thirteen months earlier, Gaetz had discussed with former president Trump the possibility of getting Trump elected to the speakership, for which House membership is not required. Gaetz nominated him once and voted for Trump on the 7th, 8th and 11th ballots. After midnight, January 7, on the 15th and last ballot, Gaetz switched his vote to "present", lowering the number of votes McCarthy needed and allowing him to win the speakership.
