Wasserman Schultz is under fire after leaked emails showed Democratic National Committee officials discussing ways to help Clinton defeat Sanders in the Democratic primaries.
Advertisement
Wassserman Schultz, who represents the U.S. House seat for Florida’s 24th Congressional District, was found in the email dump published by Wikileaks to have favored Clinton in the primary over Bernie Sanders, even though the role of the DNC chair is to remain neutral in the contest.
On Sunday, Clinton said in a statement that she was appointing Wasserman Schultz as “honorary chair of my campaign’s 50-state program”. She also says she will speak at the four-day gathering.
While Sanders had endorsed Clinton previously, his remarks Monday marked his most vigorous and detailed praise of her qualifications for the presidency.
In fact, as reported yesterday, in response to an email Luis Miranda wrote to Schultz after CNN had reportedly aired a section where Bernie Sanders had said that he would oust the chairwoman if he were elected, Schultz says that Miranda need not worry because Bernie “isn’t going to be president”, reports The New York Times.
The scandal is rocking the party on the eve of their convention, and the fall is a stunning one for the tough-talking Florida representative who became the first woman elected to chair the DNC.
By her mid-40s, Wasserman Schultz had survived breast cancer and was raising three kids – all the while serving in the House and raising millions for the Democratic Party.
Wasserman Schultz was also considered a close friend of Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who was critically wounded during a shooting rampage in Tucson. In her first term, she drafted and led passage of the 2006 law creating Jewish American Heritage Month, has led legislation to provide assistance to Holocaust survivors, and was considered must-co-opt by both sides in last year’s debate over the Iran nuclear deal precisely because of her prominence in the Jewish community.
Late previous year, the Democratic National Committee under Wasserman Schultz created an LGBT advisory body meant to supplement to the DNC’s existing LGBT caucus and LGBT leadership council to create “two-way conversations” between DNC leaders and grassroots activists. A mother of three, she is a breast cancer survivor.
It is little wonder, then, that #Demexit appears like the last resort to progressives exhausted with Clinton’s – and DNC’s – utter lack of accountability. Clinton’s campaign quickly added more Sanders’ supporters to the speakers lineup. Others showed Wasserman Schultz criticizing Sanders for not being a Democrat and saying he would never be president.
Over the course of her tenure at the Democratic National Committee, Wasserman Schultz oversaw significant expansion in the Democratic Party’s apparatus in LGBT inclusion. One of the abortive proposals included a suggestion by the DNC finance chief, Brad Marshall, that surrogates depict Sanders as an atheist who strayed from his Jewish roots. Marshall apologized over the weekend.
Although Wasserman Schultz has no direct involvement with the platform committee, the pro-LGBT changes took place under her tenure and she was responsible for appointing committee members.
Advertisement
“While she deserves thanks for her years of service, the party now needs new leadership that will open the doors of the party and welcome in working people and young people”, Sanders said. “We know that the voices in this room that are standing up and being disruptive, we know that’s not the Florida that we know”, Wasserman Schultz shouted over the crowd.
