Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
House Dems pick Deutch as ethics committee chairman
U.S. Rep. Ted Deutch, a Democrat who represents parts of Broward and Palm Beach counties, is the new chairman of the House Ethics Committee.
The leadership role was expected. It was formally announced Wednesday by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi after the House Democratic Caucus approved the pick.
Pelosi said in a statement Deutch’s “towering integrity and firm commitment to fairness and justice will be invaluable to our mission to restore transparency, ethics and accountability to the Congress.”
She also called him “a powerful voice for the American people and a relentless champion for the public good.”
A committee chairmanship is a major advance for a member of Congress. The Ethics Committee can prove somewhat tricky because the panel interprets and enforces ethics rules — which means judging alleged transgressions committed by other members of Congress.
As the top Democrat on the committee last year, Deutch played a role in helping craft reforms in the way Congress handles cases of sexual harassment.
The Ethics Committee is unusual in that it isn’t dominated by the majority party. It’s a bipartisan panel evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans.
“As members of Congress, we must hold ourselves to the high ethical standard that our constituents expect from us. Ethics in government and the integrity of our nation's elected officials remain of great concern of the public — and rightly so,” Deutch said
in a statement.
Deutch, who is beginning his sixth term, is also a member of the Foreign Relations and Judiciary committees.
He’s been a longtime advocate of liberal positions such as gun restrictions, campaign finance reform and securing the long-term future of Social Security by increasing taxes on high earners.
Deutch has received massive national attention since the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School massacre in Parkland, which is in Deutch’s district and just a few miles from his home in West Boca.
His 22nd Congressional District is mostly in Broward, along the coast north of Interstate 595 and central and western parts of the county north of Atlantic Boulevard. He also represents Boca Raton.