Jared Moskowitz
Jared Evan Moskowitz (born December 18, 1980) is an American politician who serves on the Broward County Commission for District 8. He previously served as director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management from January 2019 to April 2021. Prior to his appointment, he served in the Florida House of Representatives, representing the Coral Springs area in northern Broward County from 2012 to 2019. Early life and education. Moskowitz was born in Coral Springs in 1980. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science from George Washington University and a Juris Doctor from the Shepard Broad  Law Center at Nova Southeastern University. Career. He worked as an intern for Vice President Al Gore, served as an assistant on Joe Lieberman's 2004 presidential campaign, and was one of Barack Obama's Florida electors at the 2008 Democratic National Convention. While attending law school, Moskowitz was elected to the Parkland City Commission in 2006 and was re-elected 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. Following graduation, he started working for AshBritt Environmental as their 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 district, which consisted of northern Broward County. He won the Democratic primary entirely uncontested, and advanced to the general election, where he faced James Gleason, the Republican nominee and a business owner who was an unsuccessful candidate for mayor of Coral Springs. The "Sun-Sentinel" praised both candidates as "good choices for  an open seat," but ultimately decided to endorse Moskowitz, declaring that his "good grasp of statewide and local issues" made him the better candidate. He ended up defeating Gleason in a landslide, winning 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 re-elected to the legislature without opposition. In 2018, following the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, Moskowitz helped draft the bipartisan Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Safety Act, which was 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 years old, created a three-day waiting period to purchase firearms, increased security requirements for public schools, funded centralized school safety surveillance programs, and improve mental health services for students. Division of Emergency Management . On December 6, 2018, Governor-Elect Ron DeSantis announced he would appoint Moskowitz as director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management in his new administration. Moskowitz resigned from the 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 with higher cash to reroute millions of N95 masks destined for the state of Florida during the COVID-19 pandemic. He stated that "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 the 3M authorized U.S. distributors later told him the masks Florida contracted for never showed up because the  company instead prioritized orders that come in later, for higher prices, from foreign countries (including Germany, Russia, and France). As a result, Moskowitz highlighted the issue on Twitter, saying 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 efficiently vaccinate at-risk populations. 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, Moskowitz was appointed by Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine-Cava to advise Miami-Dade's COVID-19 response. 2022 congressional election. After incumbent Congressman Ted Deutch announced that he would not seek re-election in 2022, Moskowitz declared his candidacy for Florida's 22nd congressional district.