Open Letter To George Latimer From Westchester Progressives

We are Westchester Progressives, from all walks of life, who believe that no matter what we look like, we all deserve dignity. We worked hard to elect George Latimer because we thought he believed it too.
But when George let a right-wing lobby recruit him to run against Jamaal Bowman, our district’s first Black Congressman and one of the most important, progressive champions in Congress, we realized that George Latimer isn’t who we thought he was.

Funded By Republicans: We elected George to get MAGA Republicans out of Westchester. Now he’s wining and dining with top Trump Donors like Alex Dubitsky, directly accepting over one million dollars from a right-wing lobby group, along with $25 million in attack ads from their SuperPAC. Incredibly, they even got over 1000 Republicans to register as Democrats just to vote for Latimer in the Democratic Primary.

Stoking Islamophobia. After Trump was elected, so many Muslims came together to elect George Latimer to fight back against the kind of division and discrimination they faced after 9/11. But since he started running for Congress, Latimer has spread hateful rhetoric about Muslims and accused people of being “Hamas supporters” just for wanting peace.

Dividing Democrats. We’ve worked so hard to build the Democratic party so we could keep unseating Republicans. Instead, we’re now defending our top progressive leader… from George Latimer! Latimer is willing to risk Democratic control of Congress just to quench his insatiable thirst for power. Latimer is dividing the Democratic party when we should be uniting.

Why are all these Trump backers throwing their support behind George Latimer? And how can he accept money from groups threatening our democracy? Westchester deserves better. New York State deserves better. Our country deserves better. And the Democratic Party deserves better.

We deserve Congressman Jamaal Bowman who, in two terms, has proven himself to be the same thing he was during his ten years as a Principal of a top Bronx public school: a fearless progressive champion who fights for every single one of us in this district, this state and this country. Jamaal knows that sticking for his principles and values means inviting the most expensive Congressional primary ever. But it will take a lot more than George Latimer and his GOP and special interest backers to scare Jamaal Bowman and the true progressives of CD-16 who stand with him.

So here are the real progressive results: George Latimer lost us. We stand for our progressive principles, and with our progressive Principal. We worked hard to elect George Latimer.

Now, we’ll work even harder to stop him.

SIGNED

Iris Hiskey Arno – canvassed door-to-door, Hastings Democratic district leader, NYCD16 Indivisible, Food & Water Watch
Farah Kathwari – campaigned, member of Latimer Transition team, Westchester County Human Rights Commission board member, Indivisible Westchester Steering Committee member
Frank Brodhead – worked with County Executive Campaign,
Concerned Families of Westchester – Coordinator
Maria Karsou – campaigned, volunteered
Saboor Syed – campaigned, worked with Muslim communities to support
Steve Zeitlin – supporter, Founding Director, City Lore
Sandy Bernabei – worked in his many campaigns, worked to promote police reform. Organizer with AntiRacist Alliance
Donny Khan – worked with campaign, canvassed, built support in Muslim communities for campaign, Co-Founder American, Muslims Indivisible, Steering Committee, Indivisible Westchester
Brook Packard – canvassed, wrote blog posts, showed up to disrupt Astorino events
Erika Bucci – relational organizer and canvasser, donor
Hillary Short – canvassed, raised money
Michael Bucci – supported in all his prior races, hosted him at our house many times
Munazza – voted for him as he promised to work against Islamophobia and for a progressive agenda, uniting people
Syed Saboor – supported outreach to progressives and Muslims across Westchester for election campaign
Reed Bonadonna – canvasser , Member of Larchmont-Mamroneck Indivisible, Common Defense, US Marine Corps, Colonel (Ret)
Suzanne Burger – canvasser, phone banker. Founder and leader of Westchester Citizen Therapists Indivisible, Member of Indivisible White Plains.
Mark Stein – canvasser, phone banker, distributed yard signs, donor
Kanan Sheth– canvasser for multiple elections, donor
George Catto – supported him all his prior races
Rishi Gandhi – canvasser
Sue Bonadonna – canvasser, LMI, PNHP, AAFP
Maria Karsou – supporter, District Leader
Andrew Courtney – supporter, MLK institute
Frank Brodhead – supporter, Concerned Families of Westchester
Frances Snedeker – supporter for 30 years, DK Rye Democrats
Dyana Mughal – supporter
Imtiaz Ahmad – supporter
Talaiya Safdar – supporter
Sarah Chang – supporter
Bessie Wilkerson – supporter
Bakhtiar Ishtiaq – supporter
Pervez Ahmed – supporter
Anjum Ahmed – supporter