Moskowitz prepares for term in Republican-ruled House
About to fulfill his life’s dream, Jared Moskowitz is excited and optimistic, yet clear-eyed, about what’s ahead.
On Jan. 3, he’ll become one of 73 new members in the 435-person U.S. House of Representatives, and the only new member of Congress from South Florida.
Almost two months after Election Day and the week before taking office representing Broward and Palm Beach counties, Moskowitz said it still is “humbling that people voted for me to go to D.C.”
“It’s a big deal, and it’s an honor to go there, and we can do things. And, so, the gravity is not lost on me — even though in today’s day and age a lot of it has turned into a circus,” he said in an interview.
He said he felt that gravity came when he and other newly elected representatives met with congressional leaders after the election. “You realize you’re not part of the process. You realize you’re part of the governing branch of the country.”
Governing
Any success at the work of lawmaking will require every ounce of the political skills he’s been honing his entire life. Moskowitz, 42, has been elected to the Florida state House of Representatives and the Parkland City Commission, and has been the appointed state director of emergency management and a Broward County commissioner.
Now, he’s about to enter an even more partisan and combative arena than he’s ever worked in before — a place where the Republicans who are about to take control don’t have any obvious political interest in the success of a newly elected Democrat.
(Whichever party controls the House rules in a way that almost completely disregards the interests, goals and objections from members of the minority party).
And Moskowitz doesn’t just have a “D” next to his name.
He’s been seeped in Democratic Party ways and policies since childhood, schooled by his late father Mike Moskowitz, who was a major Democratic Party donor and was Broward’s former state Democratic committeeman. Mike Moskowitz first brought his son to a state Democratic Party convention at age 6.
Work with Republicans
Moskowitz enters the Republican-controlled House with experience operating, and achieving success, in a Republican-ruled environment.
As a Democrat in the state House of Representatives, he was able to get things done — most notably a successful push for gun restrictions in the aftermath of the Feb. 14, 2018, massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in which a gunman killed 17 people and injured 17 others. Moskowitz is a Stoneman Douglas graduate.
And he comes with another unique credential: He was a Democratic agency head, running the Division of Emergency Management for most of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ first term.
“He’s not really coming in as a rookie,” said U.S. Rep. Lois Frankel, D-West Palm Beach, who has served in the majority and the minority in the House and years ago, like Moskowitz, was a Democrat in the Republican-controlled Florida House.
“He sort of had to [already] learn how to operate in the minority,” Frankel said. “This is a body where if you have a talent or a knack or know how to get along in a bipartisan manner, that will help him be more effective.”
DeSantis
Besides picking him to head the state Emergency Management agency, which includes the initial response to the COVID pandemic and the early months of efforts to get people vaccinated, DeSantis appointed Moskowitz to a vacancy on the Broward County Commission for most of 2022.
In the Democratic primary for the congressional nomination, two of Moskowitz’s opponents tried to sow doubts about him with votes by trying to link him to DeSantis. It didn’t work; Moskowitz received 61% of the primary vote.
Could the DeSantis relationship now help the firstterm Democrat with his new Republican colleagues?
“I think maybe the DeSantis thing might disarm them, right? I mean here’s a Democrat in Congress who worked for the most popular Republican governor in the country. Sometimes you have to find something you have in common to get to the next thing,” he said. “Maybe that will give me some credibility.”
Moskowitz said he has spoken with DeSantis since the election, but he declined to detail the conversation.
“The governor and I have a good personal relationship, and we talked about the journey and wishing my family well,” he said.
He said DeSantis, who was a congressman himself before he was elected governor, congratulated him, but he wouldn’t say if he called DeSantis or DeSantis called him.
Political atmosphere
Moskowitz lamented the depth of the divide in Congress, something he said was on vivid display immediately after the election.
At first, Republicans and Democrats were together for orientation sessions on staffing and office operations. “But as soon as that’s done and the social programming begins, you immediately split. Democrats go to their events, Republicans go to their events. There is no mingling, social mingling between parties. And so you realize right off the bat the tone is set with the division built into the system.”
Moskowitz said he plans to make an effort to introduce himself to Republicans and ask those he already knows to make more introductions.
“And you continue to build and build and build and listen. I’m not naive. I know D.C. has been turned into a team sport. And I’ve been a Democrat my whole life . ... I’m all on board to support the team. But I also simultaneously look for ways to work across the aisle if they put legislation in front of us that is good for the American people.”
There’s a practical reason Republicans might want to work with Moskowitz and similar Democrats: Their new majority isn’t very big. “They’re going to need Democrats who represent moderate districts to take a good look at their legislation,” he said.
Moderate Democrat
State Sen. Shevrin Jones, D-Miami Gardens, said Moskowitz — his best friend — would come to the new job with “a listening ear” and the ability to ask insightful questions. “Both sides of the aisle respect him.”
Broward County Commissioner Steve Geller, a former Florida Senate Democratic leader who has known Moskowitz for most of his life and served with him on the commission, said a big plus for the new representative is that he’s a moderate.
Moskowitz will “get along [with the Republicans] as well as any of the Democrats, better than some. The Republicans will probably not take an instinctive dislike to him,” Geller said.
Sean Foreman, a political scientist at Barry University, said there are some moderate Republicans with whom Moskowitz could forge working relationships, and his approach is the right one.
“I know the partisan divide is so tremendous in Congress right now [and] it’s really hard to work on substantive issues with the other side. But we’ve got to keep trying, and I think Moskowitz represents one of the best new members who can do that,” Foreman said. “There’s hope for members like Moskowitz. They can help us get out of that congressional malaise.”
Besides the prospect of getting some results, Foreman said, it’s also good politics. “I believe his district wants a more moderate representative than someone who sides with the extremes.”
Moskowitz said he wouldn’t vote for Republican priorities just to give them some votes, and Frankel said she doesn’t see him rolling over for the majority party.
“I know he’s not going to be a pushover for the right wing, I’ll tell you that. He’s coming in ready for a fight where there has to be one,” Frankel said.
Tumultuous 2022
Moskowitz’s year has been marked by tragedy and triumph.
In January, Mike Moskowitz died of pancreatic cancer.
Part of the reason Jared Moskowitz resigned in 2021 after a little more than two years as state emergency management director — a job that meant he was rarely at home in Broward as the COVID pandemic unfolded — was to spend time with his father as his health declined, and also to spend more time with his own children.
Six weeks after Mike Moskowitz died, U.S. Rep. Ted Deutch, D-West Boca, said he was not seeking reelection and would resign on Oct. 1 to become CEO of the American Jewish Committee.
Four days later Jared Moskowitz announced his candidacy to succeed Deutch — a move that was especially poignant since he and his father shared a passion for politics and had talked many times about the prospect of the younger Moskowitz, someday, running for congress.
“That was the thing we had talked about for a long time,” Jared Moskowitz said. “This is what we did together, my Dad and I. My Dad and I didn’t do golf together — he was terrible at golf. This was the thing we did together. We did government and public service.”
Post election
Newly elected members of Congress don’t get to kick back between Election Day and their swearing in.
He’s had orientation in Washington, learning the ins and outs of running a congressional office and finding his way around. He participated in the premier policy orientation for incoming members of Congress, at Harvard University.
As part of the orientation, each of the new members went through the random drawing so they could pick the numbers that determine what order they’d go in to select their office space. A lower number means an earlier pick and a chance for a better location.
With 1 the best and 73 the worst, Moskowitz was lucky: He drew No. 13 and got a good office location on the ground floor of the Longworth House Office Building.
And he’s devoted a lot of time to the critical steps that could determine the course of his first term and his future congressional career: decisions about the office operation and staff.
He has hired top aides to former South Florida members of Congress Deutch and the late U.S. Rep. Alcee Hastings, and other key hires with Capitol Hill and Florida government experience.
One change is coming: The district office will be in Coral Springs, not Boca Raton as it was during Deutch’s time in office and under his predecessor, former U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler.
“This district goes from Boca all the way to Fort Lauderdale. So I wanted to get the office a little more central. Coral Springs is the largest full city that I have,” he said. Satellite locations where staffers would periodically hold office hours are planned for Boca Raton, Fort Lauderdale and several other communities.
Moskowitz does not yet know what committee assignments he’ll get, but would like to serve on both the judiciary and foreign affairs committees.
Moskowitz, a lawyer, said the Judiciary Committee is especially important to him because of the importance of gun violence prevention in the aftermath of the school massacre.
He also said it would be a place where he hopes he could help counter Republican efforts to spend the next two years pursuing investigations and potential impeachments of Biden administration officials. “I want to be there to fight for normal, to fight for democracy and to fight against the nonsense.”
Reelection
Moskowitz said he hasn’t yet started on an essential task: raising money for his reelection campaign. He said he’d start after he’s sworn in.
Moskowitz lamented the time that members of Congress need to devote to raising money for future campaigns. “It is a sick part of this whole experience, how much time you take away from legislating in order to raise money for reelection,” he said.
Joe Budd, the unsuccessful 2022 Republican candidate against Moskowitz, may run again.
Budd won the Palm Beach County part of the district and early next year plans to launch a political organization in the Broward part of the 23rd Congressional District, calling it Club BrowRed.
Budd, who said he hasn’t spoken with Moskowitz since the election, said he thinks the district is becoming more hospitable to Republicans and less so to Democrats.
Moskowitz received 51.6% of the vote to Budd’s 46.8%, with two no party affiliation/ independent candidates receiving a combined 1.6%.
Moskowitz and Geller and other Democrats said 2022 was a high-water mark for Republicans in the 23rd Congressional District, about 70% of which is in northern Broward and much of the coast extending south through most of Fort Lauderdale. The rest is in southern Palm Beach County.
“If any of the Republicans think somehow they’re going to take me out, they had their chance and they missed. The next election is a presidential election and the district is going to perform very differently. And oh, by the way, a lot of Republicans voted for me. A lot of independents voted for me. That’s the only way I could have won,” Moskowitz said.
Jordan fan
“I’m a big Jordan fan. I’ve been a big Jordan fan my entire life,” Moskowitz said.
He was not referring to U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, incoming chairman of the Judiciary Committee, where he hopes to serve.
Moskowitz is a big basketball fan. And he’s an especially big fan of Michael Jordan, seen by many, including Moskowitz, as the greatest player of all time.
Which brings Moskowitz to his sneaker collection — “mostly Jordans” — and his father.
“My dad always made sure that I had a pair of Jordans,” Moskowitz said, the days when getting a newly released pair meant lining up at the mall before it opened, then waiting outside the Foot Locker until it opened.
As Jordan fans know, he was 23 for most of his career with the Chicago Bulls. And as it happens, the reconfiguring of congressional district boundaries and assigning new numbers beginning with this year’s elections made Moskowitz the congressman-elect in Congressional District 23.
Men are expected to wear jackets and ties on the House floor. But, Moskowitz said, sneakers are permitted.
“And so I will be wearing Jordans. And you will see me in all different pairs of Jordans,” he said — something that will have his father with him, “kind of like a way to do something where he’s part of the process.”