Democrats, please join us tonight for our Democratic Executive Committee meeting. We are meeting at the Miami Airport Convention Center in ballroom MACC 2. The convention center is located at 711 NW 72nd Ave, Miami, FL 33126. The doors will open at 6pm for a mix and mingle, and the meeting will start promptly at 7pm. We should end roughly around 9pm.

You can find all of our meetings and events on our calendar: www.miamidadedems.org/calendar

In order to save trees, we will be posting our minutes that are pending approval here.

• DEC meeting minutes - 12/20
• DEC meeting minutes - 12/06

The agenda will be as follows:

1. Call to Order 
2. Reports of Officers and Standing Committees 
   • Chair’s Report
   • Treasurer’s Report
   • Finance Chair’s Report 
   • Issues Committee Chair’s Report 
   • Campaign Committee Chair's Report
   • Legislative Liaison's Report
3. Old Business
4. New Business 
   • Jeremy Ring, CFO candidate
   • Immigration Panel Discussion
   • Resolution on the Sabal Pipeline
5. Announcements 
6. Adjournment

We need your help TODAY and TOMORROW to stop our County from capitulating to Donald Trump on his anti-immigrant executive order.

Commissioner Sally Heyman is proposing a resolution tomorrow that she admits violates the U.S. Constitution (see video) and it's exactly what Trump wants. Her resolution would give Mayor Gimenez full license to continue detaining undocumented immigrants at ICE's request. Waiting for a controlling court decision to strike this resolution down as illegal is a lose/lose. In 2012, the last year a similar policy was in place, over 60% of those detained were for non-felonies. Under Trump, we should expect these numbers to be sky-high as he lays the groundwork to fulfill his campaign promise of deporting 11+ million undocumented immigrants.

TAKE ACTION RIGHT NOW

**TODAY**
Call Sally Heyman's office and ask her to withdraw this resolution that she knows is unconstitutional. Call her at 305-375-5128 or email her at [email protected]

**TOMORROW**
Come to the downtown Government Center (111 NW 1 street) tomorrow, Friday 2/17. The Commission meeting starts at 10am but we recommend getting there around 8:30am. They will take public comment first. Be ready to stay for a long meeting.

Forward this email to your friends

When Trump came for the most vulnerable, and asked us to reject the fabric of who we are as a community, asked us to reject our long history of being a sanctuary to immigrants, asked us to turn our backs on friends, neighbors, and co-workers who fled persecution and economic hardship in search of a better future. When that time came YOU stood up and fought back.

Thank you,
Juan Cuba, Chair
Miami-Dade Dems

My name is Maria Elena and I'm the new Chair of the Issues Committee. In these trying times, I envision that our committee will be very active. Therefore, I would like to structure the Issues Committee in a way that we can best serve our community, be a voice of reason and ultimately promote changes for the benefits of our residents.

We are dividing this committee into working groups, each led by a working group leader. This leader will be responsible for recruiting members to their working groups and will come up with a plan of action. We will convene monthly meetings with each working group leader and then coordinate with the larger Democratic Party in this way. We will try to limit to no more than six working groups at a time - that's six issues that we will be working on to address pro-actively. 

Even if you can't join a working group, we want your feedback and input on what issues we should tackle first, so please complete this survey here. At the end of the survey, there are questions to see if you would like to join or lead a working group. If you are passionate about an issue that we can impact locally and have time to work on it, then we want you to be a part of this committee. Please reply by February 13 - we want to have all working groups up and running by the end of February. 

I welcome your opinions and comments and looking forward to working with you. You can reach me directly at [email protected].

Regards,
Maria-Elena Lopez, Issues Committe Chair
Miami-Dade Dems

After a month-long interview process led by our First Vice Chair Dotie Joseph, Outreach Vice Chair Erika Grohoski Peralta, and Secretary Anaruth Solache, I'm excited to announce the new appointments we have made to the Miami-Dade Democratic Executive Committee. I'm confident that these individuals will work diligently to build our Democratic Party.

• General Counsel - Simon Ferro Jr.
• Parliamentarian - Edith Owens
• Sergeant-at-Arms - Justin Pinn
• Credentials Committee Chair - Brandon Alfred
• Affirmative Action Committee Chair - Kevin Chambliss
• Voter Registration Committee Chair - Alex Flores
• Issues Committee Chair - Maria Elena Lopez
• Legislative Liaison - Ron Bilbao
• Interclub Council - Richard Lamondin
• Labor Committee Chair - Sardebra Wright
• Communications Committee Chair - Giovanna Salucci
• Finance Committee Chair - Rafael Velasquez
• Rules and Bylaws Committee Chair - Hank Honig
• Campaign Committee Chair - Steven Dloogoff
• Training Committee Chair - Millie Herrera

We are still in search of a few volunteer positions that will help our committees function better. We need a Hispanic Media Director, Data Director, and a Platform Committee Chair. If you are interested, please email [email protected]

Our County Mayor Carlos Gimenez just became the first county executive to cave to Donald Trump's executive order, abandoning our Sanctuary County designation and choosing to IGNORE a 2013 resolution passed unanimously by the county commission.

There will be tens of thousands of families waking up tomorrow in Miami-Dade afraid about what this means for them. This reversal is a slippery slope into making our police officers an extension of Trump's deportation force.

Trump's hateful anti-immigrant rhetoric-turned-policy should be fully rejected. The Mayors of New York, Chicago, San Francisco and Seattle have done just that. We too need to stand up and protect our friends and neighbors. Mayor Gimenez needs to hear from YOU and so does our County Commission.

Here's what you can do:

1. Call the Mayor's office and our County Commissioners first thing in the morning. Their info is here. 
2. Copy and paste this message to your Facebook.
3. Tweet @MayorGimenez and let him know how you feel. Here's an example: "Trump's anti-immigrant hate should be rejected! @MayorGimenez don't cave to @realDonaldTrump. We are a Sanctuary County."
4. Immigrant Rights advocates are protesting at the Mayor's office tomorrow (Friday 1/27) at 11am. Join them! 
5. Send this message to 10 of your friends

The country is watching. We need your help now.

Juan Cuba, Chair
Miami-Dade Dems

I hope you saw the President's farewell speech on Tuesday (ICYMI, here it is). He asked us to believe again, in our ability to create change together. He asked us to reject the politics of cynicism and organize to make our country and our communities stronger. He's right. There's so much work to be done and we need your help to do it.

First, please save-the-date for our 2017 regular General DEC meetings. The doors open at 6pm, meetings start at 7pm, and end approximately at 8:30pm. (locations are still TBD).

• General Meeting - Monday, February 27
• General Meeting - Wednesday, April 26
• General Meeting - Wednesday, June 21
• General Meeting - Monday, August 28
• General Meeting - Monday, October 30
• General Meeting/ Holiday Party - Monday, December 11