Outside political circles, few in Broward County have ever heard of Jason Pizzo. He’s about to become one of the county’s most important elected officials.
Thanks to a combination of factors, the Democratic state senator from Miami-Dade County will represent a huge swath of eastern Broward after November, even though he’s never received a single vote from anyone in the county.
“If you don’t know him, I guarantee you will know exactly who he is very soon,” said state Sen. Shevrin Jones, a Democrat who represents South Broward and northern Miami-Dade County. “He’s very vocal. He’s hands on. And he’s a worker bee.”
Well-known in the Florida political world, Pizzo won the mostly-Broward district after state Sen. Gary Farmer shied away from what would have been a bruising and hugely expensive Democratic primary fight over the newly configured 37th District. No other Democrat or Republican came forward to run, and Pizzo was elected automatically.
“The district is, just frankly, it’s just sexy. It’s coastal. It has every triumph and tragedy associated with it, from infrastructure and climate change to just being a major hub, with airports and a port,” Pizzo said. “It’s just a really exciting place to serve.”
Four other lawmakers whose current districts include all or parts of Broward — state Sen. Rosalind Osgood and state Reps. Michael Gottlieb, Christine Hunschofsky, and Felicia Simone Robinson — were returned to office when no Democrats challenged them in the primary and the Republicans didn’t put forward any opponents.
As a senator, he is perhaps best known as an advocate for strengthening state laws governing condominiums. Surfside, home to the Champlain Towers South condominium, which collapsed in 2021, killing 98 people, is in his current district.
But Pizzo started work on the issue before the Surfside tragedy.
“I’m the only one of the 40 senators who lives in a condo, and so it’s personal,” Pizzo said. “It took a building collapsing and 98 people dying for anyone to pay attention. I guess in some intellectual fairness to my colleagues who all live in single-family, detached homes — who never want to be told how much money, what percentage they have to set aside and they can’t earn any interest or return or access to it — the idea of enforcing reserves and inspections was just not something they were even willing to entertain.”
Even though Pizzo doesn’t personally have to face the voters in either the Aug. 23 primaries or the Nov. 8 general election, he is out on the campaign trail.
On the Fourth of July weekend, he started a driving tour of the Sunshine State. With kids in tow, he’s been visiting campaign events and helping raise money for Democratic candidates for the Florida Legislature.
All of Florida’s legislative districts have new boundaries that go into effect with the 2022 elections to reflect population changes uncovered in the 2020 Census. The new 37th Senate District takes in most of Broward east of Interstate 95 from Davie Boulevard in Fort Lauderdale north to the Palm Beach County line. South of Davie Boulevard it takes in nearly all of Broward east of Florida’s Turnpike. It includes the downtown Fort Lauderdale business district, wealthy enclaves along the coast, Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport and Port Everglades.
The district also includes a pocket of northeast Miami-Dade County, including Aventura.
“This is a very new district for him. His challenge is going to be not having represented Broward before,” said County Commissioner Steve Geller, a former Florida Senate Democratic leader. “He’s going to have to take a crash course in Broward.”
An advantage, Geller said, is that Pizzo is already a senator. It’s more difficult for people who are elected to the office for the first time.
Pizzo has been doing events in Broward for months. And he is planning a district office in the center of the district, likely in or around Fort Lauderdale.
Democratic politics
Redistricting put Pizzo and Farmer in the same district. Pizzo could have run in a different Miami-Dade County district — something Farmer said this spring he thought his colleague should do.
Pizzo didn’t back down. Farmer, whose relationships with his fellow Democrats in the state Senate had deteriorated so badly that he was ousted as party leader in 2021, ultimately decided to run for circuit court judge instead of going up against Pizzo.
Until the June deadline for candidates to qualify to get on the ballot, Pizzo said he assumed he’d have an opponent. “I was the least convinced that I would be unopposed,” he said.
He would have been difficult to beat. Preparing for a campaign in which he would have had to introduce himself to a large pool of new voters, Pizzo raised some $700,000.
He said almost all would now go to help what he described on Twitter as “real Democrats” retain their state House and Senate seats and attempt to boost the party’s efforts to make some legislative gains.
He initially said last month on Twitter that the effort would be backed up with $500,000 he’d accumulated for a campaign; more recently he estimated the total at about $650,000 to help Democratic state senators and representatives.
Among the colleagues he’s supporting are state Sen. Lauren Book of Broward, the Democratic Senate leader who faces a challenge from former Broward County Commissioner Barbara Sharief.
Like many other currently elected Democrats, Pizzo said it would have been better for the party for Book to avoid a challenge. Instead of raising money and campaigning for other state Senate candidates in her role as party leader, Book has to focus on her own re-election.
Pizzo is also supporting Jones, who faces a primary challenge in his new district, which lies entirely within Miami-Dade County.
He’d also like to see state Rep. James Bush III, a Miami-Dade County Democrat, defeated in the primary. Bush has broken with the party on high profile issues, such as supporting the state’s ban on almost all abortions after the 15th week of pregnancy and supporting the “Parental Rights in Education” law, dubbed “Don’t Say Gay” by critics.
Besides campaigning around the state at events he’s documented on social media, Pizzo is aiding their fundraising efforts, either through appearances or by calling contributors he would have asked to support his own campaign if he had a challenger.
Policy
Pizzo is a former assistant state attorney in Miami-Dade County, and wants more attention paid to deaths he said are caused by a proliferation of handguns. More than 150 Florida teenagers die every year from handguns, he said, more than the total of many mass shootings.
He’d like the issue of abortion access to be put before the voters in a referendum.
He champions Democratic policies, and criticizes Republican efforts, and at the same time he’s chairman of the Criminal Justice Committee in the Republican-controlled Florida Senate.
It’s a tricky balance, Geller said. “He’s liberal on issues where he needs to be but moderate enough that he’s a committee chair under the Republican leadership.”
Pizzo, 46, has a bachelor’s degree from New York University, a master’s degree from Columbia University, and a law degree from the University of Miami.
Elected to his first Senate term in 2018, he has the ability to do politics full time. He comes from a family that owns apartments, commercial space and office properties in the northeast; his state financial disclosure put his net worth at $8.3 million as of Dec. 31, 2021.
All Senate seats are up for election this year because of redistricting. Pizzo’s term lasts for two years, and he said he plans to seek re-election in 2024, for what would be a final, four-year term before term limits kick in.
He’s among the Democrats seen as possible candidate (along with Jones and state Sen. Janet Cruz) to lead his party in the state Senate at some point, and ultimately as a possible candidate for statewide office.
He was noncommittal about the possibility of running for higher office. “I have a number of issues that are really important to me. And if I can get them done in the time that I’m in [office], in the current space and everything looks good, I don’t have to.”
Anthony Man can be reached at or on Twitter @browardpolitics
