Tim Mason is already a justice, and now he will be president.
Mason, an associate justice of the UF Supreme Court, was elected Sunday as the Florida College Democrats 2012-13 president.
The Florida College Democrats held its annual convention last weekend at Florida State University. Fourteen chapters were present to vote Mason, a 23-year-old Orlando native and second-year UF law student, president Sunday, said Erin Murphy, vice president of Florida College Democrats and president of UF College Democrats.
Mason will lead the 22 state College Democrats chapters in furthering the Democratic Party.
Mason was the only UF student running for an executive position, according to the Florida College Democrats website. His opponent was Paige Brice from the University of Central Florida.
Ben Cavataro was the last UF student to be state president, in the 2009-10 school year, Mason said.
“I felt honored, and I’m focused on the future,” he said.
He said his No. 1 goal in the fall semester will be to get President Obama re-elected. Central to that would be getting students registered to vote and then getting them to show up at the polls on Election Day, he said.
During the spring semester, he said he will be working on a legislative agenda, which will focus on Floridians’ access to higher education.
Mason has been a member of the College Democrats for four years. Before joining the UF College Democrats in the fall of 2010, Mason was a member at UCF, where he received a bachelor’s degree in political science in Spring 2010. He also attended Valencia College and received his associate’s degree a few months after graduating high school in 2007.
He currently heads a five-member constitutional committee, which revises the organization’s constitution, for the UF College Democrats, Murphy said.
Murphy, a 21-year-old environmental science senior, said she has known Mason for about three years.
She met him at the annual convention in 2010 when it was hosted at UCF.
Murphy said Mason will do a great job in his new position and is incredibly dedicated to the organization.
“I’m very happy,” Mason said. “But at the same time, the gravity of the task is very humbling.”
Contact Samantha Shavell at sshavell@alligator.org.
Tim Mason poses for a photo on Monday afternoon.
