As Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz considers a run in Congressional District 20 – a primarily African American district that has been represented by Black politicians for the past 34 years – State Senator Rosalind Osgood is urging Wasserman Schultz not to run for that seat.
“We don’t want it to be her legacy that she remains in Congress by disenfranchising the Black community,” Osgood told CBS Miami’s Jim DeFede for Sunday’s Facing South Florida.
Wasserman Schultz has not announced where she will run. CBS News Miami has learned she is actively polling in both Congressional District 20 and Congressional District 22.
District 22 runs from Weston, across the Everglades to Immokalee, and then over to the West Coast of Florida to parts of Naples and Marco Island. It is a district President Trump won by ten points.
The more likely option that has emerged in recent days is for her to run in District 20, a solidly Democratic seat that Kamala Harris won by 37 points. The district is 40% Black, and over the last 32 years it has been represented by Alcee Hastings and then more recently by Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick.
There are at least five African Americans running in the Democratic primary in District 20, which means Wasserman Schultz would be counting on her opponents splitting the Black vote and allowing her to become the nominee.
The Broward County Democratic Black Caucus has asked Wasserman Schultz not to run for that seat, and it is clear if she did run, it could turn into an ugly, racially-charged affair.
Osgood said she recently spoke to Wasserman Schultz and told her she should not run in District 20.
“We want to have someone with our lived experience representing us in Congress,” Osgood said. “We’ve had it for 34 years. We want little Black boys and little Black girls to see somebody that looks like them so that they can dream and have an idea of a possibility of an opportunity.”
“We don’t want to go down that road with Debbie,” Osgood continued. “We want to continue to work in partnership with Debbie. She supported our community, and we’ve supported her. And we just need her to pause and hear us. And I know it’s hard. When you don’t have a Black lived experience, you can’t imagine the difference it is when you’re in that Black lived experience. When we talk about erasing Black history, now we’re looking at erasing like representation. It is very important to the participation of Black people, what we’re going to do in the future, and how we move forward.”
On Monday, Governor Ron DeSantis signed the bill redrawing congressional districts in Florida. The new map, drawn using voter files and partisan information, could help Republicans pick up four additional seats in Florida. As we noted last week, DeSantis decided that he doesn’t have to follow the Florida Constitution, which prohibits political gerrymandering.
The redistricting has set off a mad dash for candidates across the state. Democratic Congressman Jared Moskowitz seems likely to run in the newly drawn Congressional District 25, which includes Miami Beach and Aventura and runs up the coast through Fort Lauderdale all the way to Boca Raton and Delray Beach. His announcement is expected by the end of next week.
