Debbie Wasserman Schultz is a Jewish American politician who currently serves in the U.S. House of Representatives from Florida.
Wasserman Schultz was born in 1966 on Long Island,
NY. She attended the University of Florida and graduated with a Bachelor’s
Degree in Political Science in 1988 and with a Master’s Degree
in 1990.
For more than a decade, Wasserman Schultz has
dedicated her public life to working on behalf of the people of Southern
Florida. On January 4, 2005, she was sworn in as a member of the United
States House of Representatives to continue this fight as the Congresswoman
from Florida’s 20th Congressional District. Schultz is the first
Florida Jewish woman elected to U.S. Congress. In 2014 Wasserman Schultz won her re-election campaign, running unopposed for the Democratic nomination during the primary and defeating Republican candidate Joe Kaufman in the general election.
Wasserman Schultz brings to Congress her many years
of service in the Florida Legislature and the kind of grassroots knowledge
of the lives of the people of South Florida that can only be known through
countless interactions with the families, businesses and organizations
that make up the fabric of our community.
In Washington she continues to expand on her reputation
as a fighter for the families of South Florida, as a person whose word
is as good as gold and who knows that she was sworn in to work hard
in Washington for her constituents. Her reputation preceded her and
on her first meeting with President Bush at the White House, he asked
her if she was the one that “gave my little brother a hard time
down in Florida.” That bit of levity aside, Wasserman Schultz
arrived in Washington with the reputation as a force to be reckoned
with, someone who works hard on behalf of children, education, health
care, Social Security, Medicare and the security of every American.
Upon arriving in Congress, Wasserman Schultz was appointed
to the Financial Services Committee, the committee in the House of Representatives
that oversees the entire financial services industry including the securities,
insurance, banking, and housing industries. The Committee also oversees
the work of the Federal Reserve, the Treasury, the Security and Exchange
Commission (SEC) and other financial services regulators. Through this
influential appointment she continues her advocacy for families in an
area that often is the greatest impediment to family self-sufficiency,
equal and fair access to financial and housing services.
The Democratic Whip, Congressman Steny Hoyer from Maryland
selected her to serve in the position of Senior Whip. In this position
she will serve as one of a group of Senior Members and Caucus opinion
leaders that meet weekly to discuss long-range policy goals and key
issues facing Congress. Wasserman Schultz was the only freshman chosen
to serve on the Whip team.
Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s concern for children
and working families first motivated her to run for office in 1992,
where she made history as the youngest woman ever elected to the Florida
state legislature at the age of only 26. Her enthusiasm and vision for
the people of South Florida was evident in her first campaign where
she won her seat with 53% of the vote in a six-way race, despite the
fact that she’d only been a resident of Broward County for three
years. Since then she hasn’t looked back, serving in the Florida
House of Representatives from 1992-2000 and in the State Senate from
2000-2004.
During her tenure in the Florida State Legislature,
Wasserman Schultz made a name for herself as a fighter for South Florida
families. As a State Senator, she authored and passed the “Drive
Thru Baby Bill” and the “Drive Thru Mastectomy Bill”
both of which helped women by mandating that they get the care they
needed rather than the limited amount of care that the insurance companies
were willing to pay for. She also authored the popular Florida Infant
Crib Safety Act that passed both the House and Senate by overwhelming
margins. Another significant piece of legislation passed was her bill
outlawing human and sexual trafficking in the State of Florida. Her
tireless work on behalf of the Florida Residential Swimming Pool Safety
Act helped to ensure its passage and will save the lives of unknown
numbers of toddlers from accidental drowning in Florida pools. While
serving in the state House, Wasserman Schultz fought to increase funding
to public schools to solve school overcrowding problems and drew praise
for her efforts to establish a statewide child care administration agency
to establish regulations for day care facilities. She also was recognized
repeatedly as an environmental champion for her strong advocacy on environmental
protection issues.
Her dedication to the people of Florida was well recognized
by her colleagues in the Florida Legislature where she held several
influential leadership positions. Wasserman Schultz's service in the
House included a term as House Democratic Leader Pro Tempore, House
Democratic Floor Leader and Chair of the Broward Legislative Delegation.
She chaired the House Committee on Higher Education from 1994-1996.
All of this experience serves to enhance her commitment
to lower health care costs, improve the quality of education, protect
Social Security and Medicare, and provide a sensible homeland security
plan to protect our citizens from the ongoing threat of terror. She
continues to fight to ensure that our first responders, our local police
and firefighters, have the tools they need to do their jobs. And she
continues take up the fight to give our troops the equipment and compensation
they deserve.
In mid-July 2016, emails released by Wikileaks showed how Wasserman-Schultz and other Democrat party leaders tried to undermine Bernie Sanders's Presidential campaign by trying to question his religion. In an email dated May 5, 2016, the CFO of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), Brad Marshall, asked in an email to the CEO of the DNC, Amy Dacey, if they could “get someone to ask his [Sanders's] belief.” Marshall went on, writing “does he believe in a God. He had skated on saying he has a Jewish heritage. I think I read he is an atheist. This could make several points difference with my peeps. My Southern Baptist peeps would draw a big difference between a Jew and atheist.” In the wake of the release of these emails, DNC chairwoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz resigned her position, and was hired by the Clinton campaign.
She has been married to Steve Schultz for 14 years
and together they have three children: Jake and Rebecca (twins) who
are five years old, and the latest addition to the family, daughter
Shelby, born in 2003. She is proud to call South Florida home.
