Wasserman Schultz will not gavel in Democratic convention
Debbie Wasserman Schultz will not gavel the convention to order when it officially opens at 4 p.m. ET Monday, according to the Florida Sun Sentinel.
"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," Wasserman Schultz told the Sentinel in a phone call.
The DNC chair, who announced that she would leave her role as the head of the DNC after the convention ends, acknowledged implicitly to the Sentinel that she knows her presence on the stage, even in a minimal role, could be a distraction.
"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 said.
Wasserman Schultz was originally supposed to gavel in the convention when it began and close the Democratic convention officially this week, but it became clear that her presence revealed divisiveness in the party when she was booed and jeered throughout a brief address to her home state delegation of Florida at a breakfast Monday morning.
She announced Sunday that she would step down as DNC chair following the Democratic convention, after a trove of DNC emails released by Wikileaks showed top DNC officials disparaging Bernie Sanders during the primary campaign.