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Entries in Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz (3)

Wednesday
Sep142011

Democrats Downplay Special Election Implications

DNC chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Shultz (D-Fla.) downplayed the GOP upset in a conference call with reporters Wednesday, saying that pundits should not draw predictions on the 2012 presidential election based on the results from Tuesday’s special elections.

“If you’re looking for predictions like that, you should really be looking at the president’s standing against the Republican candidates in the battleground states, not the results of two House special elections; one of which was in a ruby red district which the Republicans carried even in 2008,” Wasserman Shultz said.

“The other seat opened up under what can best be called unusual circumstances,” the DNC chair said of former Rep. Anthony Weiner’s departure.

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), who also served New York’s ninth congressional district for 18 years, said that the district’s demographics have changed since he served in the ’80s and ’90s and that it should not be classified as a bellwether district. Schumer said the district’s Orthodox Jewish population has become more prominent and has created a more conservative base.

“The bottom line is it’s not a bellwether district,” Schumer said. “Anybody who tries to extrapolate between what’s happened in [NY-9] and what would happen in New York City, New York state or the country is making a big mistake.”

Monday
Nov092009

House Pro-Choice Caucus Pushing To Remove Abortion Amendment 

By Travis Martinez - University of New Mexico/Talk Radio News Service

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) along with members of the Pro-Choice Caucus will push to remove the Stupak-Pitts amendment, which would block federal funds to support partial term abortions, from the Affordable Health Care For America Act 2009.

“We will try very hard to make sure it is not included in the final product,” Wasserman Shultz said in a conference call Monday. “I’m going to be pushing extremely hard to make sure that language is not included.”

The Florida Democrat also rebuked comments made by Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Texas), who on Friday stated that women should pay higher health premiums due to the possibility that they could become pregnant.

“I’ve never seen a more disrespectful display,” Wasserman-Shultz said. “At one point in the debate, [Sessions] actually compared women to smokers and suggested women, like smokers, should have to pay more for insurance, just by the accident for their ability to get pregnant."
Tuesday
Feb262008

House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties Holds Oversight Hearing on Voter Suppression

Today, Chairman John Conyers, Jr. (D- Michigan) held a hearing to address the U.S. Department of Justice’s poor enforcement record in combating voter suppression. Present on behalf of the Department was Deputy Assistant Attorney General Asheesh Agarwal, Civil Rights Division.

Throughout the entire hearing there was a sense of hostility between Deputy Agarwal and the members of the committee. This could be largely attributed to the fact that Deputy Agarwal refused to answer questions in a straightforward manner. The vast majority of his responses were that he was unable to answer the question at the time, and he would need to speak with the Department before he could give an answer. The Committee did begin to lose their patience with Deputy Agarwal, as evidenced by the questioning of Representatives Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) and Keith Ellison (D-MN).

The main issue of contention for the Committee was that the Department continues to pursue voter fraud cases while entirely disregarding “flagrant examples” of voter suppression. In addition to this, Representative Ellison centered on the Department’s decision to support the controversial Indiana photo identification law requiring all voters to present said identification in order to vote. The committee was largely concerned with the fact that this law is problematic because it will disenfranchise minorities, the elderly, and the disabled. In addition to this, Representative Wasserman Schultz demanded that Deputy Agarwal report to the Committee in two weeks regarding letters that the Department sent to 10 states to pressure them to purge their voter rolls before the 2008 election, “which could adversely affect many voters.”