Wasserman Schultz: OK, I Won't Open DNC After All

She changes her mind after uproar
By Evann Gastaldo,  Newser Staff
Posted Jul 25, 2016 1:32 PM CDT
Wasserman Schultz: OK, I Won't Open DNC After All
DNC Chairwoman, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., speaks during a Florida delegation breakfast, Monday, July 25, 2016, in Philadelphia, during the first day of the Democratic National Convention.   (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

Debbie Wasserman Schultz won't open the Democratic National Convention after all. Following an uproar and lots of booing when the congresswoman addressed Florida delegates Monday morning, Schultz told the Orlando Sun-Sentinel she had changed her mind. She had originally planned to open the DNC despite the fact that she'll be resigning as Democratic National Committee chair at the end of the convention. "I have decided that in the interest of making sure that we can start the Democratic convention on a high note that I am not going to gavel in the convention," Schultz said.

"I stepped down the other day because I wanted to make sure that having brought us to this momentous day and to Philadelphia and planned the convention that is going to be the best one that we've ever had in our party's history that this needs to be all about making sure that everyone knows that Hillary Clinton would make the best president," she continued. In her place, the secretary of the DNC, Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, will open the convention at 4pm Monday. The AP reports that, in the wake of the controversy involving leaked emails showing the DNC considered undermining Bernie Sanders' campaign, hundreds of Sanders supporters were marching in Philadelphia Monday despite sweltering temperatures, chanting, "Nominate Sanders or lose in November!" and "Hey, hey, ho, ho, the DNC has got to go!" (More Democratic National Convention stories.)

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