Florida Rep. Ted Deutch (D) became the thirty-first Democrat to announce he would not seek reelection and, in fact, will resign from the House before the end of his term. He will become the CEO of the American Jewish Committee (AJC), a prominent Jewish advocacy group.
“After serving the public for more than 15 years, I have decided I will not seek re-election this November,” Deutch, chairman of the House Ethics Committee and co-chair of the Bipartisan Anti-Semitism Task Force, told CBSMiami.
“I am announcing that I will not be running for re-election to Congress as I have accepted an offer to serve as the next Chief Executive Officer of the American Jewish Committee,” he added.
Deutch said it was a “tremendous privilege to serve the people of Palm Beach and Broward Counties in Congress,” and noted his work on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. “Foreign policy work has been a natural continuation of my deep ties to the American Jewish community and my long-standing advocacy on behalf of the U.S.-Israel relationship,” he stated.
“Beyond foreign policy, we have also seen an unprecedented rise in antisemitism in our own country and abroad,” Deutch continued. “I have been at the forefront of the Congressional response as the founding co-chair of the House Bipartisan Task Force for Combating Antisemitism.”
However, Deutch’s retirement poses another problem for the Democrats, who are trying to defend their slim majority in the midterms. Every Democrat who announced they are leaving, including Democrats in safe seats, puts more strain on the party and its resources since it will have to invest time in helping elect another Democrat.
So far the Republicans have been the favorite for being in the majority after the midterms, as they only need to net five seats, and there are currently 31 Democrats not running. Republican organizations rejoiced over Deutch retiring.
In a statement, Mike Berg, the spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), the House Republican campaign committee, said, “Ted Deutch knows House Democrats’ majority is doomed so he made the smart decision to forgo reelection.”
“Everyone is too afraid to run as a House Democrat this cycle because they know Americans can’t wait to vote them out in November,” stated Calvin Moore, the communications director for the Congressional Leadership Fund Communications (CLF), another House Republican-aligned group. “Election Day is getting closer by the day and Democrats need to decide if they want to retire now or wait to get fired.”
Deutch has voted with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) on 100 percent of the major votes in the current Congress, as the Democrats have tried to pass radical wish list items from President Joe Biden’s legislative agenda.
Some of those partisan votes include the $1.2 trillion, 2,702-page so-called bipartisan infrastructure bill last year — which Biden has already signed into law — and the $1.75 trillion Build Back Better Act (BBB) — also known as the Democrats’ reconciliation infrastructure bill, which was stalled in the Senate after Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) said he could not vote for it.
More recently, the House also passed the two “freedom to cheat” voter bills — the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act — which would cripple Republican attempts across the country to increase election integrity. But both bills were also held up in the Senate by a filibuster.
While Deutch becomes the thirty-first House Democrat to announce he will not seek re-election, the congressman is only the twenty-third to announce they are actually retiring from the public eye — now including four committee chairs and many subcommittee chairs — while eight more Democrats announced they would run for a different office, either in a local or state election.
Jacob Bliss is a reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow him on Twitter.
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