Jared Moskowitz

Jared Evan Moskowitz (born December 18, 1980) is an American politician serving as the U.S. representative for Florida's 23rd congressional district since 2023. As a Southern Democrat, Moskowitz served on the Broward County Commission from 2021 to 2022 and as director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management from 2019 to 2021. Before his appointment to the Florida Division of Emergency Management, he served in the Florida House of Representatives, representing the Coral Springs-Parkland area in northern Broward County from 2012 to 2019.

Early life and education
Moskowitz was born in Coral Springs, Florida. in 1980. His father, Michael Moskowitz, was an attorney, philanthropist and prominent Democratic fundraiser. Moskowitz graduated from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. He earned a Bachelor of Arts in political science from George Washington University and a Juris Doctor from the Shepard Broad Law Center at Nova Southeastern University. Moskowitz is Jewish.

Early political career
Moskowitz worked as an intern for Vice President Al Gore, served as an assistant on Joe Lieberman's 2004 presidential campaign, and was a Florida delegate pledged to Barack Obama at the 2008 Democratic National Convention. While attending law school, he was elected to the Parkland City Commission in 2006 and reelected in 2010, serving until he resigned to run for the legislature in 2012. While serving as a city commissioner, Moskowitz supported efforts to make the city more eco-friendly by providing subsidies to households that purchase low-flow toilets and showerheads, energy-efficient air conditioners, and hybrid cars. After graduating, he worked for AshBritt Environmental as director of government relations and general counsel.

Florida House of Representatives
When the state legislative districts were redrawn in 2012, Moskowitz opted to run in the newly drawn 97th house district, which consisted of northern Broward County. He won the Democratic primary unopposed and advanced to the general election, where he faced Republican nominee James Gleason, a business owner who had been an unsuccessful candidate for mayor of Coral Springs. The Sun-Sentinel praised both candidates as "good choices for an open seat" but endorsed Moskowitz, declaring that his "good grasp of statewide and local issues" made him the better candidate. He defeated Gleason with 69% of the vote.

During his first term in the legislature, Moskowitz sponsored a memorial for Robert Levinson, who has been held as a hostage in Iran since 2007, calling on "Congress, the Obama administration and the Secretary of State's office to work to get Levinson home." Moskowitz's proposed memorial passed both houses of the legislature and was signed by Governor Rick Scott.

In 2014 and 2016, Moskowitz was reelected to the legislature without opposition.

In 2018, after the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, Moskowitz helped draft the bipartisan Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Safety Act, the first comprehensive mental health, school safety, and gun control bill of its kind in over 20 years. This bill increased the age to purchase a firearm to 21, implemented a red-flag law, created a three-day waiting period to purchase firearms, increased security requirements for public schools, funded centralized school safety surveillance programs, and improved mental health services for students.

Division of Emergency Management
On December 6, 2018, Governor-elect Ron DeSantis announced that he would appoint Moskowitz as director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management. Moskowitz resigned from the Florida House of Representatives and took office as DEM director on January 15, 2019.

Moskowitz took over Florida's Division of Emergency Management during the recovery of Hurricane Michael, a category-5 storm that made landfall in Florida in October 2018. Recovery efforts were notably slow during early recovery, and Moskowitz is credited with speeding up the recovery process and securing historic 90% reimbursement from the federal government for all disaster-assistance efforts.

In early April 2020, Moskowitz made headlines when he complained that foreign countries were paying the American company 3M to reroute millions of N95 masks destined for Florida during the COVID-19 pandemic. He said, "For the last several weeks, we have had a boiler room chasing down 3M authorized distributors [and] brokers representing that they sell the N95 masks, only get to warehouses that are completely empty." He then said that the 3M-authorized U.S. distributors later told him that the masks for which Florida contracted never showed up because the company instead prioritized orders that came in later, for higher prices, from foreign countries, including Germany, Russia, and France. As a result, Moskowitz highlighted the issue on Twitter, saying that he decided to "troll" 3M.

Moskowitz led the department during the early distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine, creating an administrative network for all 67 Florida counties. He is credited with working with community organizations, including black and Hispanic churches, HUD housing, and senior assisted-living facilities, to vaccinate at-risk populations efficiently. He criticized 60 Minutes for running a story that claimed that Governor Ron DeSantis engaged in a pay-to-play scheme with supermarket chain Publix over distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine, writing that "[n]o one" from DeSantis's "office suggested Publix" to distribute the vaccines.

Moskowitz was called the "Master of Disaster" by several news publications for his handling of the pandemic.

On February 15, 2021, Moskowitz announced his resignation from the Division of Emergency Management, citing his desire to spend time with his father, who was battling pancreatic cancer. He officially left the Division in May 2021.

On August 5, 2021, Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine-Cava appointed Moskowitz to advise Miami-Dade's COVID-19 response.

2022
After incumbent congressman Ted Deutch announced that he would not seek reelection in 2022, Moskowitz declared his candidacy for the district, which had been renumbered from the 22nd to 23rd in redistricting. Moskowitz won the election against Republican nominee Joe Budd.

Tenure
Moskowitz assumed office on January 3, 2023, succeeding Democrat Ted Deutch.

COVID-19 policy
On February 1, 2023, Moskowitz was one of 11 Democrats to vote for a resolution to end the COVID-19 national emergency.

Israel
On November 2, 2023, Moskowitz was one of 12 House Democrats to vote for a $14.3 billion aid package to Israel that was funded by cutting the IRS budget. He denounced pro-Palestinians demonstrations at Columbia University as anti-Semitic and chided university leadership for not protecting Jewish students. Moskowitz mocked the International Criminal Court arrest warrant for Benjamin Netanyahu as "irrelevant because Israel is not a party to their treaty."

Committee assignments
For the 118th Congress:
 * Committee on Foreign Affairs
 * Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere
 * Committee on Oversight and Accountability
 * Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Information Technology, and Government Innovation
 * Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs

Caucus memberships

 * Congressional Equality Caucus
 * New Democrat Coalition