Jordyn Balderas for Florida State House District 34
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Florida House · District 34

From the Streets to the State House.

Running for change that helps you.

Jordyn Balderas is a 21-year-old community organizer running for State House because working families deserve a representative who has actually lived their fight. He is bringing grit back to politics.

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Jordyn Balderas
The Platform

A Platform for the People Who Were Never Supposed to Run

This platform was not written in a boardroom. It was written by someone who has been uninsured, who has been homeless, and who has watched the people in power build their portfolios while his neighbors lost their homes.

Cost of Living 3 Planks

Gifford's roads flood while Grand Harbor's gates gleam. That is not an accident. It is the result of a tax structure that rewards wealth and starves everyone else.

What Jordyn will do
  • Fund sidewalks, drainage, streetlights, and safe housing in neighborhoods that have been neglected since before Jordyn was born.
  • Stop Tallahassee from stealing the revenue that belongs to our hometowns. Every dollar taken from local budgets is a pothole unfilled, a streetlight unlit, a first responder underpaid, and a community left in the dark.

Indian River County keeps building luxury. It keeps losing the people who make it run. Lifelong residents and retirees on fixed incomes get priced out. The county calls this growth. Jordyn calls it displacement.

What Jordyn will do
  • Prioritize restoring and reusing vacant and abandoned properties for affordable homes instead of rubber-stamping high-rent megacomplexes that drive uncontrolled growth.
  • Protect and expand truly affordable options, including workforce housing, so that the people who keep this county running can actually afford to live in it.

Your city council knows your streets better than a committee in Tallahassee. Your county commission understands your coastline better than a lobbyist's spreadsheet.

What Jordyn will do
  • Fight to repeal the Jim Crow-era laws that have prevented small Black communities like Gifford from incorporating as cities.
  • Oppose blanket preemption bills, like the ones authored by Robert Brackett, that strip power from counties and cities trying to protect their residents, especially around growth management, environmental protections, and tenant rights.
  • Put tenants first by fighting for legislation that protects tenant unions and the right of renters to organize.
Water & Land 3 Planks

The Indian River Lagoon is the beating heart of District 34. It is a $28 billion economic engine. It is also dying, and for four years District 34's representative has not filed a single bill to address it.

What Jordyn will do
  • Expand state investment in lagoon restoration through innovative, proven solutions: mangrove planting, living shorelines, and stormwater infrastructure that treats the problem at its source rather than downstream.
  • Protect and restore mangroves and wetlands as natural barriers against storm surge and flooding, and oppose any rollback that makes it easier to rip them out for short-term profit.
  • Hold the state accountable for the promises it has already made, fighting for binding appropriations, transparent timelines, and independent monitoring so that every dollar committed to the lagoon actually reaches the water.

A retiree on a fixed income should not have to choose between connecting to sewer and paying for medication. A working family should not face a $20,000 assessment so that a developer upstream can keep building.

What Jordyn will do
  • Use existing state appropriations to fund septic-to-sewer conversions so that the cost falls on the state budget, not on individual homeowners who had no say in the system that was installed before they moved in.
  • Provide income-scaled assistance so that fixed-income homeowners and working families are protected from assessments that amount to a second mortgage.
  • Publish a clear, public timeline for conversion neighborhoods so that residents know what is coming, when it is coming, and what it will cost, before the bulldozers show up.

When a corporation comes to Indian River County with a project that threatens the lagoon, the question should not be whether we can afford to say no. It should be whether we can afford to say yes.

What Jordyn will do
  • Work with local governments to oppose the use of surveillance technologies and industrial installations that threaten environmental health and civil liberties without meaningful community input or independent oversight.
  • Require that any major industrial or technology project pays its full environmental and infrastructure costs up front, instead of passing the bill to taxpayers after the damage is done.
Schools, Kids & Safety 4 Planks

Public money belongs in public schools, accountable to public oversight.

What Jordyn will do
  • Repeal the Schools of Hope co-location law and block any expansion of charter takeovers that force districts to share buildings and services without full, fair reimbursement.
  • Keep public dollars in public, neighborhood schools instead of subsidizing rent-free facilities and parallel systems for a handful of charter operators whose accountability to parents and taxpayers is an afterthought.
  • Ensure accountability and reasonable standards for tax-subsidized homeschooling.

Florida asks its teachers to do more with less and then wonders why they leave. Jordyn is done wondering.

What Jordyn will do
  • Move toward a future where teaching in Florida is a six-figure profession, because that is the only way to attract and retain the talent our children deserve.
  • Invest in our children's emotional development by funding school counselors, social workers, and mental health professionals who can guide students through the most difficult years of their lives.
  • End partisan interference in classrooms. Teachers are professionals, not propagandists.

Jordyn knows this because he was one of them. A child who acts out is telling you something. The answer is a counselor, not a cop.

What Jordyn will do
  • Invest in after-school programs, mentoring, and summer learning in the communities where kids need it most.
  • Support state policies that dismantle the school-to-prison pipeline, including alternatives to suspension, restorative justice practices, and real access to mental health care.

Eighty-one percent of independent voters in this district want stricter gun laws. The current representative co-sponsored a bill to lower the purchase age. Jordyn stands with the 81 percent. He is not interested in taking anyone's Second Amendment rights away. He is interested in making sure that right comes with the responsibility to keep weapons out of children's hands.

What Jordyn will do
  • Make it unambiguous in Florida law that minors in high school cannot legally purchase or carry firearms. No loopholes. No exceptions crafted by lobbyists.
  • Support legislation requiring adults to safely secure their firearms in the presence of minors, because a child who finds an unsecured weapon is not exercising a right. They are in danger.

This platform was not written by consultants or focus-grouped by pollsters. It was written by a 21-year-old who has been uninsured, homeless, and told that people like him do not run for office. He is running anyway.

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About

Meet Jordyn.

Jordyn Balderas

Jordyn Guadalupe Balderas was born with a collapsed lung and spent his first days on life support. His mom, a nurse, raised six kids by herself. When she was diagnosed with amyloidosis, she applied for the disability benefits she'd paid into for years. She was denied.

That's when things fell apart. The family lost their home. Jordyn dropped out of high school, went to work full time, and became his mom's caregiver. For years he slept wherever he could: in the car, in motels, on friends' couches. He wasn't old enough to vote yet.

He got his family back on their feet, and then he started helping other people do the same. He's 21 now, a community organizer on the Treasure Coast. He's built coalitions across Indian River County, worked alongside local Democratic leaders, and kept showing up for the families the state keeps passing over. He still doesn't have health insurance.

Jordyn is running for Florida House District 34 because he's tired of watching people who've never had to go without decide who gets help and who doesn't. He's running on affordable housing and healthcare access. He thinks working families deserve a representative who has actually lived like them.