Vulnerable Florida Democrat Rep. Stephanie Murphy (D-FL) will not run for reelection after her congressional district is slated to be broken in two and she was snubbed out of running for the Senate by Florida congressional colleague Rep. Val Demings (D-FL).
“It’s been a real honor for me to serve in Congress, but it does come at a personal sacrifice. My time away has been hard on my family and my kids and on me,” Murphy told Politico, ultimately making her the twenty-second House Democrat after longtime New Jersey Rep. Albio Sires (D-NJ) was confirmed to be retiring over the weekend.
While the proposed map is waiting to be approved by the Florida legislature, it would essentially delete her congressional seat. Murphy told Politico that her decision was not solely based on her reelection chances or the Democrats’ ability to maintain a majority in the House: “I think I could win in every one of the maps that has been proposed.”
Murphy’s announcement also comes after she backtracked on her Senate primary bid against Demings in hopes of eventually facing Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL). Before she backtracked, Murphy was reportedly willing to challenge Demings in a Senate bid.
I've decided not to seek another term in Congress. Serving Central Florida has been the honor of my life, but it's also been incredibly challenging for my family and me.
This was not an easy decision, but it is the right decision. Thank you for everything. pic.twitter.com/UaOufbPOSo
— Stephanie Murphy (@SMurphyCongress) December 20, 2021
Over Murphy’s five years in Congress, she has been a confidante to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and President Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr., now that he is president. She has helped them pass partisan agenda items, voting with Pelosi 95 percent of the time, according to ProPublica.
Some of those partisan votes include the $1.2 trillion, 2,702-page so-called bipartisan infrastructure bill earlier this year — which Biden already signed into law — and the $1.75 trillion Build Back Better Act (BBB) — also known as the Democrats’ reconciliation infrastructure bill. However, while the BBB was considered to be the “marquee legislation” of Biden’s agenda and would ultimately increase taxes on the middle class, expand and prolong the effects of inflation, and add hundreds of billions of dollars to the U.S. deficit, it was effectively killed by Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV). The senator on Fox News Sunday this past weekend said, “I cannot vote to continue with this piece of legislation … I can’t get there.”
Murphy’s exit from the House means that companies with deep Chinese ties would be affected. Breitbart News’s Washington Political Editor, Matthew Boyle, reported towards the beginning of the year that Murphy’s Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings show the vulnerable Democrat has a “flood of corporate cash into her campaign from big multinational companies with deep ties in China.” The finding came after pressure was put on Murphy “to address the fact that her husband’s company manufactures women’s softball pants, the design patent for which she is a partial holder in China rather than in the United States.”
Boyle wrote that Murphy holds a patent for women’s softball pants that her husband’s company manufactures in China while trying to create the image that she is tough on China:
Murphy and her husband Sean Murphy are two of three applicants and inventors listed on a 14-year patent dated May 26, 2015, for the “ornamental design for athletic pants” for a product called “NuFit Knickers.” They are also listed as the applicants and investors on a second patent, also for athletic pants, dated Feb. 27, 2017—after Stephanie Murphy was a member of Congress, as she was first elected in 2016—for a 15-year patent also for an “ornamental design for athletic pants.” The women’s softball apparel, sold through Sean Murphy’s 3n2 Sports, are according to the company’s website are “a fit so perfect it’s patented.” The website repeatedly hypes the fact that the pants designs are patented as one of the main features of the product.
Sean Murphy, the congresswoman’s husband, is the CEO of 3n2 Sports—a sports apparel and shoe company that was originally founded by a Nike engineer. The company’s name is a play on the idea of a full count in baseball—three balls and two strikes—and the company had fallen on tough times when in 2008 Sean Murphy and Marty Graham, a partner of his in a wine distribution business, stepped in to buy the company. More than a decade later, in the company’s latest LLC document filings with the state of Florida and on its website, Sean Murphy remains an officer of the company and its CEO.
The congresswoman’s earliest financial disclosure report filed in September 2016indicate that her husband was drawing a salary from 3n2, and that she personally was paid a consulting fee of greater than $5,000 by 3n2. Her full 2016 disclosure filed in spring 2017 lists 3n2 as a source of spousal income but does not list an exact amount. Her 2017 financial disclosure reports—both the original and amended ones, both filed in May 2018—do not mention 3n2 at all. Her 2018 and 2019 reports, filed in 2019 and 2020 respectively, do list 3n2 as a source of spousal income but do not list an amount. The 2019 report filed in 2020 lists 3n2 as a spousal asset valued between $1,001 and $15,000.
Murphy is the twenty-second House Democrat to announce retirement, as other older and more vulnerable Democrats have are also on record as giving up their current seats. While she has indicated this may not be her last time running for office or being in the public eye, she is only the thirteenth Democrat to announce actual retirement — including three committee chairs — while eight more Democrats announced they would run for a different office, either in a local or state election.
Breitbart News has extensively reported on Pelosi’s majority crumbling and the Democrats’ struggles to keep members in the House and find new candidates to run for office. There have also been rumors of more Democrats abandoning ship in the coming weeks and months leading up to the midterms, as more redistricting maps are accepted and deadlines to file for reelection are getting closer.
Wendell Husebo contributed to this report.
Jacob Bliss is a reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow him on Twitter.
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