Elect Evan Ross - President of The Miami-Dade Young Democrats

Today, I proudly announce my candidacy for President of The Miami-Dade Young Democrats and ask for your vote.

The Miami-Dade Young Democrats are ready. We are ready to take the passion, dedication and amazing progress that have been lead by our current president, Cedric McMinn, and turn it into something even bigger. Under Cedric's leadership, MDYD has gone from being an organization that simply existed to an organization that is relevant and quickly gaining a reputation for hard work, great events and passionate young leaders. But our work is not done.

With Cedric moving on to his new role as Executive Director of the Miami-Dade Democratic Executive Committee, we are in a better position than ever to take our party to new heights in Miami-Dade County. 

We have the potential to be an organization of thousands. We can and should be the organization that helps foster the election of strong Democratic candidates in Miami-Dade County and builds the next generation of leaders. With that vision in mind, I make you this promise:

I will do the work and provide the leadership necessary to make that goal a reality. 

This is not an overnight process. This is a plan that will take years of hard work and proper execution to fulfill. It is a plan that requires YOU to share in that work. I know that together, we can paint Miami-Dade County blue with the best and brightest elected officials representing us from our municipalities all the way up to the White House.

With the help and guidance of Cedric and others, I have developed plans that I know will take The Miami-Dade Young Democrats to a level of influence and accomplishment that we can and should reach. Though these plans are detailed and lengthy, they are not set in stone. I want YOU to share YOUR ideas with me. I want YOU to tell me what YOU think of mine. 

As president, I will ask for and value your input and opinion. My role is to lead, not to dictate. This is your organization. If you choose to give me the privilege and responsibility of leading it, I will do so with an open mind, an open door and the level of passion and dedication that it requires and deserves.

I thank you for your time and support. Please feel free to contact me with any questions, comments and suggestions.

Yours truly,

Evan Ross   

ELECTION DETAILS:

Tuesday, November 29, 2011 6:30 PM @ City Hall The Restaurant
2004 Biscayne Blvd., Miami, FL 33137

In order to vote, you must be a paid member in good standing of The Miami-Dade Young Democrats. 

If you are not a member and are between the ages of 16 and 40, you may sign up and pay your membership dues the night of the election, or any time prior.

Annual Membership is $10 for students, military, and law enforcement. Otherwise, it is $20.

Troy Davis : Forgotten Already?

As we move on with our lives, we often forget so quickly what was only yesterday, the biggest story in the country. Troy Davis is the perfect example of that. The TV coverage ended a few hours after Troy Davis was pronounced dead. The newspapers all reported the story the next day. And for most, that was the end of the story.
That is not good enough for me. I can't just forget Troy Davis and move on with my life. His death should not be in vain.
I won't profess Troy Davis's innocence. I won't claim that he was even a good person. Understand, I am not saying that he was either innocent or guilty nor good or bad. What I am saying is that for the purposes of my point, it is irrelevant.

Did we murder an innocent man?

Over the last few weeks I have been watching the Republican presidential debates. I watched as Republican frontrunner, Texas Governor Rick Perry proudly boasted Texas's nation leading number of executions as a Tea Party crowd roared in support. I watched as Ron Paul said that an uninsured 30 year old should be left to die because he can't pay his medical bills. I watched as no one on the stage took an opportunity to disagree. Then I watched as a man who may or may not have committed a murder struggled for his life and lost.
I didn't know Troy Davis. I never spoke to him. I don't know whether or not he did in fact murder officer Mark MacPhail. What I do know is that there are likely two or three people who do know for sure. One is Troy Davis. He is in fact the only person who truly knows for sure. The second is Officer MacPhail. The third would be someone else if in fact they and not Troy Davis committed this horrific crime. What I also know is that there is a chance that the state of Georgia executed an innocent man. I know that in a country that is the world's beacon of freedom and prosperity, that should never happen.
NEVER AGAIN should we take the life of a person who we are not certain committed the crime for which they are being executed. We have the best court system in the world. Our burden of proof, "beyond a reasonable doubt" is in place to protect the innocent at the expense of possibly not convicting the guilty. But our system is not perfect. We have wrongfully convicted thousands of people for a multitude of crimes. We have executed people that we now know to be innocent. How is it than in a country that prides itself on the best justice system in the world, we murder innocent people by government sanction? Make no mistake about it, the deliberate taking of an innocent person's life is murder. The fact that we don't know for sure that they are guilty is exactly why it should never happen.
In the case of Troy Davis, I never heard a cry for him to be released from prison. I only heard a cry for his life to be spared in the interest of ensuring that an innocent man was not murdered.
Though our country faces difficult times, I can't help but enjoy certain social progress that has taken place. The one area that there seems to be little progress in is capital punishment. It is time for it to be made an issue.

Have we forgotten the words of our founding fathers?

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

What ever happened to that? What ever happened to life being a right that was unalienable?
It is time for us to decide that we as a nation value the life of one innocent person more than the death of one guilty person. It is time that we remove the arbitrary standards for the death penalty (none of which include certain guilt) from the books. It is time that we air on the side of life over the side of vengeance.
After reading this, you may never hear the name Troy Davis again. But Troy Davis's own story is not about Troy Davis. It is about a system which fails to properly protect justice for the innocent. Troy Davis is gone. We can't bring him back. And that is the whole point. Put an innocent man in prison for life, and he still has just that, his life. He has the hope that he will one day experience the freedom that he deserves. Put an innocent man to death and he has nothing. Nothing but the torture that led to his execution for a crime that he knows he did not commit. There is only one word that I can think of to describe the premeditated killing of an innocent person - MURDER.
Let us never again allow government to sanction murder.

A risk that YOU are willing to take?