Gregorio Matías is a New Progressive Party (Partido Nuevo Progresista) member of the Senate of Puerto Rico, serving at large. Matías first joined the Senate in May 2020, when the party selected the then police sergeant as the only candidate to fill the at-large vacancy created by the resignation of Senator Abel Nazario; after certification by the State Elections Commission, Matías was sworn in on May 28, 2020. Later that year Matías won a place in the party’s at-large primary in August and was elected to a full term in the November 2020 general election. Matías was re-elected in 2024.1
Matías, whose full name is Gregorio Matías Rosario, was born in the Dominican Republic in 1972. Matías earned an associate degree in criminal justice from John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York and also took courses at the University of Puerto Rico’s Río Piedras campus. Before entering the Senate, Matías spent 28 years in the Puerto Rico Police and served as vice president of the Asociación de Policías Organizados, a police officers’ union.
At the start of the 2025 legislative term, Matías became majority leader (portavoz de la mayoría) of the Senate, the post responsible for managing the order of business on the floor for the governing party. Matías also chairs the Senate Committee on Public Safety and Veterans Affairs, which has held hearings on gubernatorial nominations in the public safety field and has been charged by Senate resolution with ongoing investigations into security issues across the island.
