06.27.2003
He's a fighter - and a few love him for it
By ANITA KUMAR, St. Petersburg Times
Peter Deutsch approaches his campaign for U.S. Senate the same way he approached the dozen years he has spent in Congress.
Tenacious. Hard-working. In your face.
He proposes bills that have little chance of passing but relentlessly tries to get them heard in a chamber that often ignores the minority party. He frequently votes with Democrats but doesn't shy from expressing his opinion when he disagrees with his party.
He works with Republicans to get his issues heard, but even Democrats sometimes keep their distance.
"To know him is not to love him," recalled former Democratic U.S. Rep. Harry Johnston of West Palm Beach in an interview in November. "He isn't going to win on his personality."
Now Deutsch wants to join the more collegial Senate, but he doesn't plan to change his approach.
Deutsch, 47, says his attitude and hard-charging personality helped him bring home money for his South Florida district and pass priority legislation on the environment, health care and foreign relations.
His voting record reflects a loyal Democrat. But as a member of the minority party, Deutsch hasn't had much success passing bills. That prompted one of his opponents in the Democratic Senate primary, Miami-Dade Mayor Alex Penelas, to accuse him of being ineffective.
Even as he completes his sixth term in the House, Deutsch remains largely unknown outside South Florida. In Congress, which values seniority, he still is considered a junior member.
On most big issues, Deutsch sides with his main Democratic opponents in the winner-take-all primary Aug. 31, so much of the campaign has focused on their experience and personalities.
Betty Castor, former state education commissioner, takes a courtly, old-school approach to politics. Penelas is a smooth talker with boyish good looks.
Questions about Deutsch's brash style are not new, and he never tires of trying to turn it into a positive. He says he's a fighter - a word he uses in every debate, every stump speech, every TV ad.
"I have been a fighter for the last 12 years," Deutsch says. "I didn't run for United States Congress to win a Mr. Congeniality contest."
A focus on district
Deutsch's South Florida district comprises the middle class suburbs and beach communities of the heavily Democratic counties of Broward and Miami-Dade, home to white and Hispanic residents and many Jewish retirees. His congressional priorities rarely stray far from home.
He opposed plans to turn Homestead Air Force Base south of Miami into a commercial airport because of potential environmental damage to parks. He tried but failed to punish U.S. companies that lobby to ease the Cuba embargo. He supported expanding Medicare's preventive care coverage.
Nearly every bill that strays from his top priorities responds to something occurring in Florida.
For example, when 19 people were accused of selling counterfeit prescription drugs for cancer and AIDS patients last year, Deutsch sponsored a bill to stiffen penalties if counterfeit drugs lead to injury or death. It did not pass.
John Fortier, a political scientist who studies Congress for the American Enterprise Institute, said Deutsch's focus on his district is characteristic of junior members of Congress.
Deutsch, who is Jewish and represents one of the most heavily Jewish parts of the nation, is a staunch supporter of Israel.
In 1998, he accused a United Nations agency of giving anti- Semitic textbooks to Palestinian schools and helped get it stopped. In 2002, he flew to Israel to hand-deliver a controversial House resolution expressing unequivocal support for Israel, one of more than a dozen trips there.
A question of style
Deutsch, a former high school football player and wrestler, can be abrupt when dealing with people and is considered relentlessly ambitious, for himself and his issues.
He knows his reputation, and doesn't dispute it. He says it helps him in a job that involves political fighting. "That's what Congress does," he says. "That's the name of the process."
U.S. Rep. Jim Davis, D-Tampa, has served with Deutsch in Congress and the Florida Legislature.
"Peter is painfully direct with people," he said, "especially in Washington where it's often hard to get a straight answer."
Some, such as Davis, laugh off Deutsch's strong words as "typical Peter." Others aren't so forgiving.
Art Roberts, a longtime Washington lobbyist representing Miami- Dade and the Seminole Tribe of Florida, says Deutsch's tactics are no accident. He is considered one of the most aggressive fundraisers in Congress and collected more money than any Florida Senate candidate, more than $5-million through June 30.
"He's very bright," Roberts said. "He gets frustrated with people who aren't as bright as him."
Deutsch grew up in New York City and attended a prep school in the Bronx. He graduated from Swarthmore College with a degree in psychology and a minor in history and political science. He got a law degree from Yale before moving to Florida and running for state office in 1982 at 25. He was the underdog when elected to Congress in 1992, and faced no significant opposition for his seat after that.
Forging bipartisan coalitions to get bills passed has been a priority, Deutsch said.
He joined Democrats and Republicans to support a bill cutting funding to the Palestinian Authority. He did the same with a bill to replumb the Everglades. And again to try - unsuccessfully - to overturn President Bush's limit on funding for stem cell research.
To prove his fighting spirit, Deutsch likes to tell voters how hard he supported Al Gore.
Now, almost four years after Gore conceded the race, Deutsch is sponsoring a bill allowing a single member of Congress to challenge election results. The bill came after filmmaker Michael Moore highlighted the issue in his movie Fahrenheit 9/11.
Deutsch even filed an ethics complaint against an Indiana Republican he accused of improperly using his House Armed Services Committee seat to get information on service members who voted by overseas ballot.
"He wants to play New York politics in the state of Florida," Roberts said, "and that's not going to work."
In minority, few bills pass
Deutsch has sponsored 51 bills in the 12 years he has been in Congress. Only one of them appears to have passed, though Deutsch himself said he wasn't sure of the number.
At a candidates' forum in June, Penelas seized on these results.
"You've introduced 48 bills since you've been a member of Congress. You've only passed one," Penelas told Deutsch. "You say you're a fighter? You're a fighter with a lousy record.
"We need folks in Washington who are going to respond to the tough questions, who are going to get things done."
Deutsch defended his record and criticized Penelas for not understanding the way Congress works. "It's sort of ignorant of the process," Deutsch said.
About 350 of the 10,000 bills proposed each two-year cycle become law. Most become amendments to other bills. Some bills that haven't passed still have a chance, Deutsch insists.
Deutsch said he secured $4-million to improve water quality in the Florida Keys, which he represented until the district was redrawn; passed a bill to protect the health care benefits of police and firefighters injured in the line of duty; and won $1.5-million for a law enforcement training program for missing children after the 1995 murder of Jimmy Ryce, a 9-year-old Miami-Dade boy.
"The people of the 20th District have gotten more than they bargained for," he said.
But Deutsch remains at a disadvantage in Congress as a member of the minority party who is not in a leadership position. He faced an entirely different situation in the decade he spent in the Democrat- controlled Florida Legislature.
"I would say he is in one of the worst positions in 108th Congress," said James Thurber, director of the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies at American University in Washington. "The minority is cut totally out."
Ben Graber, a Broward County commissioner who served in the Legislature with Deutsch, said his friend hopes to have an easier time in the Senate, a less partisan body.
"It's very difficult when you are in the minority party," Graber said. "It's been frustrating for him."
Deutsch's voting record places him slightly left of the average Southern Democrat and slightly to the right of party leadership, according to Congressional Quarterly.
He voted for gun control and for women's unrestricted right to abortions during the first six months of pregnancy. He voted against impeaching Bill Clinton.
But he also voted for the war in Iraq and the Patriot Act. He voted for President Bush's No Child Left Behind Act, with accountability measures for public schools. And he voted against the North American Free Trade Act, supported by Clinton.
"I'm not looking at what the party says. I'm not looking at what the president says," he said. "I am looking at what is right for the people I represent."
Deutsch receives good marks each year from the League of Conservation Voters, the Sierra Club and Florida Public Interest Research Group.
"We'll take a mean congressman who votes the right way to a nice one who cozies up to the special interest groups," FPIRG director Mark Ferrulo said.
Deutsch serves on the 57-member Energy and Commerce Committee, an important assignment due to its broad jurisdiction over health care, environmental laws and energy policy. The committee has looked into Enron, Martha Stewart and Firestone tires.
"He's reasonably respected," said Fortier, the political scientist. "He's not green but he's not being groomed for leadership either."
In 1995, Deutsch voted to limit members of Congress to 10 years in each chamber. The measure failed.
Now, Deutsch says he wants to serve 20 or 30 years in the Senate.
Times staff writer Steve Bousquet and researcher Kitty Bennett contributed to this report. Anita Kumar can be reached at kumar@sptimes.com or 727-893-8472.
<- Go Back To Press Room