U.S. Secretary of State Rubio has agreed to deposit political papers to UF Libraries

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has agreed to deposit his senatorial papers and other materials of historical value to the University of Florida’s George A. Smathers Libraries political papers collection.

A member of the U.S. Senate from 2011 to 2025, Rubio served as a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, vice chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, as well as the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in political science from UF in 1993.

The papers are the latest high-profile asset of the Florida Political Papers collection, which  consists of manuscript collections of Florida politicians who held state and national political office during the nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first centuries as well as Florida politicians who ran for state or national office during those decades. Papers housed there include those of Bob Graham, who served as governor of Florida from 1978 to 1987 and in the U.S. Senate from 1987 to 2004, Bill Nelson, who served in the U.S. Senate from 2001 to 2019 and as the administrator of NASA from 2021 to 2025, and David Levy Yulee, who served in the U.S. Senate immediately before the American Civil War. 

“We are honored that Secretary of State Rubio is entrusting us with his Senatorial papers,” said Judy Russell, dean of University Libraries. “Preserving these historical documents is so important, and we are pleased future scholars will have the opportunity to engage with his materials and others in our collection.”

Expansive in scope, the collection provides correspondence reports, speeches, press information, official documents, and audiovisual material concerning many of the most consequential subjects and episodes in Florida and the nation’s history, including world wars, presidential elections, civil rights, environmental conservation, the Cold War, and space exploration.

To access the collection online, visit here.