FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — U.S. Rep. Ted Deutch, who has represented parts of Broward and Palm Beach counties since 2010, is resigning from the House of Representatives, he said Monday.
A close associate of the congressman said Deutch will become CEO of the American Jewish Committee.
The exact timing of Deutch’s departure wasn’t immediately clear. Besides saying he wouldn’t seek reelection, he said in a statement that he would serve “until Congress recesses for the next election.”
Deutch has focused much of his attention in office on Israel and the Middle East, and in combating antisemitism, which is the prime mission of AJC.
Currently he’s chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Middle East, North Africa, and Global Counterterrorism. He was long active in the Jewish community in South Florida before he first ran for public office.
Serving in Congress “has been the greatest honor of my life,” Deutch said in a statement Monday afternoon.
His decision not to seek reelection is a further indication that Democrats expect major losses in the 2022 election. He is the 31st House Democrat who has decided not to seek reelection.
The majority party has complete control of the House, and many representatives don’t want to move to minority-party status after serving in the majority. Besides his leadership of the Foreign Affairs subcommittee, Deutch is chairman of the Ethics Committee. He’d lose the chairmanships if Democrats are in the minority party.
For years, Deutch has been a leading proponent of measures to reduce gun violence. That issue became much more personal for Deutch on Feb. 14, 2018, when a gunman killed 17 people and injured 17 others in Parkland, which he represents.
The boundaries of the district that the next member of Congress will represent aren’t certain. The state Legislature is currently considering how it wants to redraw boundaries of the state’s congressional districts to account for population changes uncovered in the 2020 Census.
Regardless of its exact shape, given the voter registration in most of Broward and Palm Beach counties, whoever the Democrats nominate in the August primary is all but certain to become the next member of Congress.
Congressional seats don’t come open often, and many of the region’s political figures could want the seat.
There’s some political déjà vu in Deutch’s decision to resign.
He was elected in an April 2010 special election to fill the vacancy created by longtime U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler. He resigned from Congress after 13 years to become president of the S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East Peace, where he has been since 2010.
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