Miami-Dade County is the epicenter of Democratic values in Florida: the issues that affect us the most here in our home County--from education to healthcare, from immigration to housing, from civil rights to workers’ rights--are also those that define the broader national discourse. Democratic victory in Florida starts with Democratic strength in Miami-Dade.

For the past year, I’ve had the pleasure and privilege to serve as your Treasurer and the Chair of the People’s Progressive Caucus. I am now asking for the opportunity to serve as Chair so that together we can build a grassroots machine that will reliably turn out our neighbors to vote, that will support our candidates at every level, and that will win transformative change for our neighbors.

As Treasurer, I’ve worked directly on some of our most central operations. In my term, we’ve taken our County Party’s financial health from crisis to healthy stability. Now it’s time to build on that stability so that we can flourish.

As Chair of the Progressive Caucus, we’ve won high-profile fights across a wide array of political terrains. Since 2016, the Caucus has taken positions on seventeen elections and won fourteen. We’ve worked with community partners and allies to highlight issues, extract concessions from public officials, and frame public discourse. I will bring those relationships and experience to our Party so that we can leverage the enormous experience and wisdom of allies and partners to achieve our goals.

I believe in a Party that is by the community and of the community. I believe in a Party that is accountable only to the people of Miami-Dade, and that uses the power of grassroots energy and knowledge to touch every single neighborhood in the County. For that we need a holistically grassroots approach to organizing, building, and infrastructure.

• I will dramatically expand our donor network. I have already given the names of more than 2,300 previously-untapped small donors to our Finance team for donation targeting in 2019. I will continue to work with our Data and Finance teams to identify those folks who believe in our mission and I will work to cultivate those relationships.

• I will improve our relationships with community advocates and organized labor.  We win when we work together. I will ensure that our leadership is regularly meeting with community groups and organized labor and coordinating with them on messaging, strategy, and advocacy efforts. Every election cycle, some of our strongest allies are progressive issue advocates and labor unions like AFSCME and SEIU. We must strengthen that relationship.

• I will commit totally to continuous grassroots organizing and training. Last year we started a Neighborhood Organizer program, providing training and tools to better help Democrats talk to their neighbors about the issues that matter to us. I will commit heavily into supporting this program and making it the centerpiece of our continuous organizing and voter outreach programs.

With these efforts, we can build a County Party that can win elections. We can win in city commissions and councils, we can take back the County Mayor’s seat, we can flip the remaining GOP-held State Legislature seats, we can kick Mario Diaz-Balart out of office, we can see a Democratic Governor in our lifetimes, and we can fire Donald Trump. We can build a Miami-Dade County that goes blue enough to carry the entire state of Florida over the line, and we can take back our country. But we can only do that by working together, by believing in the power of each other and the power of local organizing.

I’m asking for your vote to do just that: build local power, commit to local organizing, and win elections.

Thank you for the opportunity to serve,
Solidarity forever, William Byatt

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