MYD Officer Application - 2011

Name: Emmy Suzuki Harris

Position Running For: President
E-Mail: emmysuzukiharris@gmail.com

Occupation: Senior Strategist, PURPOSE

MYD events attended in 2010:

- Most General Meetings and Executive Board Meetings

- State of the Union Watch Party
- MYD Happy Hour w/ Caucus of Color
- Women Helping Women
- Earth Day
- The Price of Democracy: Corporate Money in Politics (Co-sponsored)
- NYSYD Convention
- State Senate Coup Anniversary Party
- Food for Thought
- Horace Mann Mustache Party + Happy Hour
- Truman Project – National Security Training
- Annual Summer BBQ
- Bipartisan Kickball Game
- White Roof Project Launch Party
- Canvassing & GOTV in the Bronx for Gustavo Rivera
- MYD Straw Poll
- Young Gets It Done
- Canvassing for David Carlucci
- Phonebanking & GOTV for Tony Avella
- Election Night Party
- New York City Rootscamp
- Holiday Party
Please answer the following questions. Brevity will win you points with voters.

1) What is your vision for the Manhattan Young Democrats for 2011? Give some
concrete examples of initiatives you would like to undertake before the end of the year.

MYD has come so far in just a short period of time – and people are really beginning to
notice. For the past two years, we’ve made great gains in our organizing capacity and I
envision 2011 as a year in which we can continue to take concrete steps to improve and
grow even further.

This year will be a really interesting one for our organization. Hyper-local politics will be
crucial as we continue to build our profile in the borough, and I’d like to continue our
success from two years ago to run an even more robust campaign to get our members
elected to the Manhattan County Committee. At the state level, there may very well be
some special elections for the State Senate that will require our attention and field
organizing capacity to take back the majority. At the national level, the beginning of the
Presidential election cycle heading into 2012 will begin to dominate headlines in the
latter half of the year. All in all, there will be no shortage of possibilities and we’ll need
to be strategic about what we decide to take on; the quality of our initiatives and events
will matter more than quantity.

Overall, my goal is to build a chapter with deeper organizing capacity and political clout
to champion the issues that are important to our growing membership. From a longer-
term view, this will position us in a strong place as we head into the critical 2012 election
cycle with a bigger and more active membership and strengthened ties to local electeds
and other progressive groups.

Concretely, I’d like to do this in several ways:

1. Build out a Political Team and be much more systematic and strategic about
building relationships with local politicians and other likeminded progressive
organizations.

We have already garnered attention from our work during the 2010 elections and
there’s ample room to explore further partnerships with electeds through the
Issue Committees and our various events. I’d love to have a Political Team akin to
the Media Team, with a core group of committed 4-6 people, lead by the Political
and Field Directors, really build and maintain relationships and partnerships
throughout the year and elevate our political profile, to the benefit of our
members. This will be particularly relevant for IOCs, who will be able to use the
Political Team to connect with electeds and other progressive organizations about
 their policy platform agendas and events.

2. Expand our field and community organizing capacity, using county elections and
special elections as a place to experiment. In the 2010 elections, the Board
decided to focus and dedicated our resources to two State Senate races in the
general election – Carlucci and Avella, and helped turn these red districts blue.
We also tried out new things – e.g., combining stand-up comedy with a phone
bank, or a sleepover with canvassing. Some worked better than others, but the
point is that young people have a thousand things they could do, and one way we’ll
activate new (and existing) members to participate in campaign is by making it
fun, accessible, and interesting.

The other crucial component of this will be providing training and support for
those who want to organize in their communities in Manhattan – whether by
running for County Committee or other party positions, or rallying people around
an initiative run by an IOC. A concrete service we should be providing our
members is the basic toolkit of organizing – empowering every member to
organize on the issues they’re passionate about.

3. Create a Women’s Issues Committee and position MYD as a leading voice and hub
for getting more women into elected office in the city and state. The numbers
across New York State on women’s representation in political leadership are
absolutely dismal (16% in the State Senate) – and people among our Board and
membership are excited to organize to change this. We are leaving half of our city
and state’s potential on the table if we do not tap into women to lead us alongside
men. Studies have shown that increasing women’s representation in political
leadership has a cascading effect on many other issues – issues that are near and
dear to progressives’ hearts, such as education, healthcare, and others.

We will not be alone in taking this on; during Rootscamp NYC in December, I lead
a session on addressing this issue and there was a huge amount of energy to do
something not just among MYDers but from others in the community; what’s
required is leadership, structure, and processes to drive forward and get the ball
rolling and give people ways to take meaningful action – and that is something we
can provide.

2) Why do you think you’re a good fit? Please list relevant experiences you would draw
from and strengths you could bring to the position you are running for.

I have relevant experience as a former MYD Board Member and in my professional life:
I served as Vice President in 2010. In that capacity, I played a significant role in
communications and operations within the Board and also lead on larger initiatives,
such as the Take Back New York series, the State Senate Anniversary Party, and our
field work for Gustavo Rivera’s campaign. Through these initiatives, we were able to
build and strengthen relationships with many other progressive individuals and groups,
such as Citizen Action, Greater NYC for Change, RebootNY, Northwest Bronx for Change,
Part of the Solution, and Bill Samuels’ New Roosevelt Institute. From NRI and others, we
received ~$1,500 to support our various operations in unseating State Senator Pedro
Espada Jr throughout the year – which made it possible to subsidize our costs to bring
people to Mamaroneck; pay for transportation and food during canvasses; etc. My ability
to organize people and build relationships with other organizations to pursue common
goals will be an asset as President; I hope to continue experimenting with different ways
to garner media attention and clout to the organization by dreaming up slightly
unconventional ways for our members and the broader community to take action.
Throughout, I’ve always kept in mind the MYD demographic: people who care about
progressive issues but aren’t political hacks.

In 2009, I served as New Media Director. During that time I built a team and completely
revamped MYD’s online presence. Our team helped to establish MYD as the Young Dems
chapter to emulate in this area – we were asked to train other chapters on new media at
the YDA Convention that year. As VP, I continued to have a significant role in shaping and
executing MYD’s media strategy.

In my day job, I work at a social enterprise called PURPOSE that builds social and
political movements around progressive causes using technology.

3) Serving on the executive board of MYD is a significant time commitment. How

committed will you be as a member -- how would you be able to fit your leadership
responsibilities within your current schedule? Please list your commitments outside of
your employment (i.e. leadership positions in other clubs).

I don’t have any other ‘extracurricular’ commitments other than my dog and a new
year’s resolution to learn how to make homemade tofu this year. That being said, I work
at a firm that is still a start-up, so there will be times when I have to prioritize my work.

However, I’m excellent at time management and as everyone who has worked with me
knows, I don’t think it’s worth doing anything unless you’re going to do it well. I’ll bring
the same work ethic and commitment I brought to the New Media Directorship and the
Vice Presidency to my role as President.

4) What 3 (three) issues would you consider most important to New York?
Many of these issues remain the same as my application last year, but have been
updated to reflect recent developments:

Taking back the majority in the New York State Senate – either before or during the 2012
election cycle. In 2009, the State Senate defeated—by a shamefully large margin—the
Marriage Equality bill that was our signature issue. This chamber continues to be a
roadblock to many of the issues we care about and we should keep close tabs on it in
2011. More immediately, we should be strongly supporting independent redistricting,
which will also occur this year.

Other issues that are near and dear to my heart include:

- Reforming Campaign Finance Law: NY State has some of the lax campaign
finance laws in the country, which feeds special-interest lobbying and makes it
more difficult for the average New Yorker to have a say in how our government
operates. MYD has signed on to a letter to Governor Cuomo asking him to take
action on this issue; we should continue to remain plugged in on this

- Public transit investment in NYC (specifically, reforming the MTA and ensuring
Albany funds capital investments for the Authority at a level adequate to ensure
timely and safe service for all New Yorkers)

- Protecting NYC’s water supply (a signature issue for MYD’s Environmental

Committee) – which will be critically important in 2010 when the hydrofracking
moratorium comes to an end

5) MYD is a specialized political group. (We’re young and left leaning). How can this be
used effectively to implement change using social media?

MYD’s is an online-savvy membership who reads the blog, is active on social media, and
could be leveraged for more online organizing. In 2011, I’d like to formally train the
Board and any members who are interested in online organizing strategy and really
support the IOCs on getting the word out about their key issues using social media. We
should be engaging with electeds and the rest of the community who are on Twitter in a
much more active way as well.