Peter Deutsch

This article deals with politician Peter R. Deutsch. Ghostscript creator L. Peter Deutsch and Archie search engine founder Peter J. Deutsch are also called Peter Deutsch.

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Peter R. Deutsch (born April 1, 1957), an American politician, has been a Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives since 1993, representing the 20th District of Florida.

Background

Deutsch was born in The Bronx, New York City, and attended Swarthmore College, graduating in 1979. In college, he was an intern for the Senate Judiciary Committee. He obtained his law degree from Yale University in 1982.

While on a law clinic program, he learned of the many issues facing Medicare receipents in south Florida and established a non-profit organization, the Medicare Information Program of Broward County, after moving to Florida after law school.

In 1982, he was elected for the first of five two-year terms in the Florida House of Representatives, where he brought to the Florida Senate a bill which protects seniors from illegal nursing home evictions--a law which still protects seniors to this day.

In 1992, he was elected to the U.S. House, where he has been the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigation that investigated the Enron scandal. He has held his seat ever since. He is currently a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

In 2000, during the Gore/Bush recount, Rep. Deutsch lead many of the recount efforts in Broward County and brought the motion to the floor of the US Senate to contest the results of the 2000 Election which had been seconded by Alcee Hastings.

U.S. Senate race, 2004

In 2004, Deutsch declared his candidacy for the Democratic nomination for the Senate seat being vacated in 2005 by retiring Senator Bob Graham. Although Deutsch consistently led opinion polls in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale metropolitan area, and had the largest amount of cash on hand for most of the race, he lagged in statewide opinion polls behind rival Betty Castor, whose fundraising dramatically accelerated during the summer of 2004 with the help of EMILY's List, which contributed close to $4.5M in television and advertising dollars. The Castor campaign was accused of inappropriate coordination with EMILY's List - and a lawsuit was filed with the Federal Elections Commission.

In May 2004, he hired Roy Teicher, a former television writer, newspaper reporter and editor, as his communications director. In June 2004, he hired Sanford Dickert as his Director of Internet Strategy. In June, he came under heavy criticism from the Castor campaign after American Democracy Project, a 527 group run by Bernie Friedman, began attacking Castor's "improper" handling of the Sami al-Arian incident: Deutsch denied any involvement in the ADP efforts and denounced their tactics in public.

Later in the campaign, Senators Graham and Nelson proposed a pledge between Castor, Deutsch, and Penelas to refrain from negative campaigning: Deutsch agreed to the pledge, but added a clause allowing him to raise "legitimate" electability issues. Deutsch released an ad questioning the veracity of statements made by Betty Castor on the investigation and suspension of Sami Al-Arian. The Castor campaign retaliated with an anti-Deutsch ad using comments out of content from the reference material.

Deutsch was also criticized for using a BlackBerry wireless pager to receive messages from his consultant during a televised debate in August. Deutsch responded that the messages contained "nothing of substance." [1] (http://www.mlive.com/newsflash/michigan/index.ssf?/newsflash/get_story.ssf?/cgi-free/getstory_ssf.cgi?a0564_BC_BlackBerry-Debate&&news&election2004)

Although Deutsch was able to win the support of liberal icons such as Jesse Jackson and Michael Moore, he was defeated in the Democratic primary on August 31, winning only three counties (Miami-Dade, Broward, and Monroe).

Deutsch is married (w. Lori) and has two children. He lives in Hollywood, Florida.

External links

• House district map (http://nationalatlas.gov/congdist/Fl20_108.gif)