Haitian-Americans have the best opportunity yet to represent themselves in Congress, with an open House seat in a South Florida district that includes more Haitians than any other in the country.
MIAMI (AP) — Haitian-Americans have the best opportunity yet to represent themselves in Congress, with an open House seat in a South Florida district that includes more Haitians than any other in the country.
However, they could miss this chance if the community splits its vote in the Democratic primary next week. Four Haitian-born candidates — attorney Phillip Brutus, advocate Marleine Bastien, nurse Yolly Roberson and doctor Rudy Moise — are among nine Democrats on the ballot in District 17.
"It gives me a chill to even talk about it," says Andre Pierre, chairman of the National Haitian American Elected Officials Network and mayor of North Miami, a city with a large Haitian population in the district.
A Haitian-American winning the primary and then presumably heading to Congress could give the community crucial political clout as Haiti struggles to rebuild and hold its own presidential elections in the aftermath of a catastrophic earthquake.
"The U.S. will play a major role in the reconstruction, and that congressman would have a lot of input in those decisions that would be made about Haiti," Pierre says.
Also running are Miami Gardens Mayor Shirley Gibson, state legislators James Bush III and Frederica Wilson, Miami Gardens councilman Andre Williams and North Miami councilman Scott Galvin.
U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek is running for U.S. Senate.
The district covers Miami’s Little Haiti, the cultural hub of Florida’s Haitian-American community. It also stretches from some of Miami’s poorest neighborhoods into the suburbs of Broward County.
The majority of District 17’s roughly 650,000 residents are black. More than 240,000 registered voters are Democrats, compared with about 35,000 Republicans.
Meek’s mother first represented the district after it was redrawn in 1992, and Meek succeeded her in 2002; neither ever faced much opposition. With no endorsements from the Meeks, each candidate is hoping his or her own base has the best turnout, says Dario Moreno, who studies Miami politics at Florida International University.
"It’s a diverse district, not a homogenous black district. You have a lot of Haitians, a lot of immigrants from the English-speaking Caribbean, the traditional Bahamian families that helped found Miami, and then also the African-Americans who migrated down from elsewhere," says Moreno. "That’s why you see this amount of candidates. It’s going to come down to who has the bigger base."
The stakes are high with a low voter turnout expected Tuesday. In 2006, only about 36,000 out of 220,000 registered Democrats voted in the District 17 primary; Meek defeated a Haitian-American challenger with more than 32,000 votes.
The winner faces attorney Roderick Vereen, running as an independent, in November. There are no Republican candidates.
The primary may come down to name recognition. At a forum at FIU last week, the nine candidates hardly distinguished themselves on the issues of jobs, immigration and health care. (Generally, all called for more job training and green jobs, supported President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul and opposed Arizona-style immigration laws and repealing the 14th Amendment granting citizenship to anyone born in the U.S.)
Brutus was the first Haitian-American elected to the Florida Legislature. Roberson, also a state legislator, is his ex-wife.
Bastien is a longtime immigration and family advocate. Moise has appeared in Haitian B-movies and riled some quarters of the Haitian-American community when his likeness was chiseled into a monument to Haitian troops who died in the American Revolution.
Moise leads all the candidates in fundraising with $1.45 million — including $1 million of his own money. But the cash isn’t helping him the way personal wealth has boosted the campaigns of Republican gubernatorial candidate Rick Scott and Democratic Senate candidate Jeff Greene, Moreno says.
It doesn’t make up for the fact that there are three other Haitian-Americans running, and he’s unlikely to gain voters from other candidates’ bases.
"I don’t think his profile is what that district is looking for: someone more in the tradition of the Meeks, a traditional African-American candidate," Moreno said.
Each of the Haitian-American candidates said the vote would come down to experience: for Brutus and Roberson, their experience in politics; and for Bastien and Moise, experience addressing community issues from their respective offices in the district.
The needs of the district — better access to health care, more development and job training, more education funding — transcend community lines, they said.
The Haitian-American vote may appear split but the African-American community faces a divided vote, too, over four candidates: Bush, Gibson, Williams and Wilson. Galvin is the only white candidate.
Copyright 2010 The Associated Press.
Photo Caption: U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek, D-Fla., passes out campaign yardsigns to supporters in Monticello, Fla. Aug. 6 after speaking at a town hall meeting in his race for the U.S. Senate. Meek’s "Real Dem Express" is on an 11-day motor coach tour of Florida, toward the Aug. 24 Democratic primary. (AP Photo/Tallahassee Democrat,Bill Cotterell)