U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., left, Admiral Eric Jones and U.S. Rep. Ted Deutch, D-Fla., at a meeting on coronavirus at Port Everglades on March 6, 2020. Deutch will be a member of the new White House congressional working group on coronavirus recovery.(Mike Stocker / South Florida Sun Sentinel) U.S. Rep. Ted Deutch, a South Florida Democrat, is one of the members of the newly announced Trump administration’s congressional coronavirus task force on reopening the nation’s economy. Though the group has Republicans and Democrats from the House and Senate, inclusion of Deutch might seem surprising at first. He’s been an outspoken critic of Trump’s handling of many issues, critical of Gov. Ron DeSantis’ handling of the coronavirus pandemic — DeSantis is a close Trump ally — and an outspoken advocate for liberal causes such as restricting access to guns and amending the Constitution to limit corporate contributions to political campaigns. Deutch also enjoys good relations with many of his Republican counterparts. In February 2016, he co-founded the bipartisan Climate Solutions Caucus with then-U.S. Rep. Carlos Curbelo, R-Miami. One of their rules was an equal number of Republicans and Democrats. Also, during both his time in Congress and his earlier tenure in the Florida Senate, he had a reputation as someone who could work on a bipartisan basis and not as a leftist rhetorical bomb thrower. His district is mostly in Broward, along the coast north of Interstate 595 and central and western parts of the county north of Atlantic Boulevard. He also represents Boca Raton. He spent two weeks in self-quarantine with his family after his college-age son returned home in mid-March from a study-abroad program in Spain and exhibited signs of the new coronavirus. The congressman never experienced any symptoms. The full membership hasn’t been announced by the […]
