Award winner has mixed record

One of the most partisan, outspoken and liberal members of Congress, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Weston, now has quite the ironic trophy to hang on her mantle: pro-business champion.

Indeed, the Florida Small Business Development Center Network recently announced that Wasserman Schultz won the organization's 10th Annual Small Business Dividend$ Award. The award recognizes a Floridian who supports legislation “vital to the state's small business community and its economic success.” The Pensacola-based organization is a service network funded partially by the U.S. Small Business Administration.

“Congresswoman Wasserman Schultz's support of legislation that fosters small business success is impressive and clearly demonstrates the priority she places on job creation, economic development and promoting small business success,” Florida SBDC Network State Director Jerry Cartwright says in a statement. “Her voting record from key small business issues was unmatched at 100% positive.”

The award nonetheless might surprise some political observers who follow Wasserman Schultz's rhetoric and the actual results of the bills she supported. She voted for the oft-criticized federal stimulus packages, for example, and she likewise supported the federal health care overhaul — another piece of legislation panned by many small business support groups.

Moreover, Wasserman Schultz has drawn heavy criticism from a wide range of groups, including several pro-business organizations, in her role as chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee. The main complaint: A willful blind support of everything that comes out of the White House, which many times conflicts with traditional pro-business policies.

The award, while seemingly paradoxical, does fit with the SBDC's history of recognizing elected officials from both parties, albeit with a heavy slant toward the right. Seven of the past nine Dividend$ Award winners were Republicans. That list includes U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan, R-Longboat Key, who won it in 2009, and U.S. Rep. C.W. “Bill” Young, R-Indian Shores, who won it in 2002. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Orlando, won the award in 2006, and former Sen. Bob Graham, a fellow Democrat, won it in 2003.