US-Cuba policy on Florida ballot this year

There is an excellent piece running on Salon by Kirk Nielsen that looks at how the future of US policy towards Cuba may be altered by the outcome of 3 competitive Congressional races in South Florida this year.

Among those running in these seats is former NDN Executive Vice President, Joe Garcia, who stepped down after more than 3 years at NDN to run. While at NDN Joe led an important effort to challenge the ineffective and unpopular Bush approach to Cuba, focusing on relaxing remittances and travel to the island as a first step. This position was adopted by Senator Obama last year.

NDN believes this new opening in South Florida is coming about for at 3 reasons. First, with Castro's passing from the scene there is an historic opportunity to open a new chapter in US-Cuba relations, a subject we reviewed at length in a recent forum in DC.

Second, the current Bush policy and its GOP defenders are simply out of step with the times and the Cuban-American community itself, something we captured in a recent poll of South Florida Cuban-Americans.

Finally, the demography of Florida is changing, with the great growth in Florida Hispanics coming from new communities - 2nd generation Cuban-Americans, post-Mariel Cuban exiles, Dominicans, Puerto Ricans, Colombians and others from all over Latin America. This transformation has left the Florida Hispanic electorate majority non-Cuban and majority Democrat for the 1st time since the 1960s, something we look at in our recent report, Hispanics Rising.

Taken together all of these changes are giving US leaders a chance to imagine a new day for US-Cuban relations, and a new and better day for the long-suffering people of Cuba.  So while every Congressional race matters, these 3 may have even greater significance in that their outcome could open up a new day for US relations not just in Cuba, but for all of Latin America. 

To learn more about our work in this arena vist here.