Democrats will take control of the U.S. House in the new year but the question of who leads them remains up in the air--and members of the Florida delegation can play a major role on who wields the gavel.
That became clear this week when two Central Florida Democrats--U.S. Reps. Stephanie Murphy and Darren Soto--signed a letter calling on U.S. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., to make some changes on House rules. Over the summer, Murphy, Soto and more than 30 members of the Problem Solvers Caucus pledged to vote against any candidates to be speaker of the House who did not embrace their rule change proposals.
Nine Democrats in the caucus, including Murphy and Soto, wrote Pelosi on Tuesday asking for a “written, public commitment” to their rule changes or they won’t vote for her. However, as of now, no Democrat challenger has emerged to take Pelosi on.
Still, some of her opponents in the caucus are confident of success. U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass., one of the leading critics of Pelosi in the Democrat ranks, insisted to the media on Tuesday that the votes were there to block her efforts to reclaim the gavel.
“We’re getting more all the time, but we have enough,” Moulton, a possible presidential candidate in 2020, told Bloomberg, insisting Pelosi won’t be able to claim the 218 votes she needs to become speaker.
Pelosi does have the support of a Democrat in the Florida delegation who, like Murphy and Soto, won second term last week. In an interview with the Tampa Bay Times, U.S. Rep. Charlie Crist, D-Fla., said Pelosi could count on his vote.
"Leader Pelosi's pledge to be a transitional leader for House Democrats, focused not only on our legislative agenda, but on ushering and mentoring our next generation of leaders to carry our efforts forward for the longer run, is also a prudent and wise approach," Crist told the Tampa Bay Times.
