Maxwell Frost: How an Activist’s Passion Can Change the System

The Gen Z candidate says he is committed to ending gun violence, ensuring “Medicare for All,” and working for environmental justice, among other issues that affect working class families in Florida. But for that, he needs you to go out and vote.

Ask Maxwell Alejandro Frost why he is running to fill the seat Florida Rep. Val Demings leaves vacant as she runs for the Senate to beat Marco Rubio, and you´ll get a direct answer: “I’m running for Congress because I know we won’t change the system until we change our leadership.”

That, in a nutshell, is his mantra and the driving force of his campaign: changing the system to assure that working class people and communities of color have a seat at the table where the decisions that affect their lives are made. Decisions like which communities have access to quality health care or clean water or a good education for their children.

“My campaign is centered around the politics of love, and when you love the people in your district, you want them to have clean water, you want them to have access to food, you want them to have health care,” the Orlando resident and first Generation Z candidate told Floricua.

True to His Mission

Frost, who was born in the United States to a Cuban mother and an American father, is keenly aware of the issues faced by working families, especially Black and brown people, and works to organize a coalition of people behind a platform that represents their values and interests. To make sure that his crusade remains true to its mission, Frost is creating what he calls “a people-powered campaign that is going to be driven by small dollar donations from those who want to see change, who want to see young, Black and Latinx people elected to office.”

In other words, he makes it clear that his campaign is not taking money from lobbyists, corporate packs, fossil fuel or big sugar.  “We’re going to be focusing on the things I’m used to doing, and that’s knocking on every door, talking with every voter,” he said.

His activism was fueled by one of the darkest chapters in Florida history. Frost was the organizing director of March for Our Lives, the organization founded in the aftermath of the Parkland school shooting by many of the survivors, and one of the most prominent gun violence prevention and youth advocacy organizations in the country. He left the organization to focus on his campaign, and to respond to people’s problems “with a fierce urgency that rivals the sun.”

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Dedicated to having one of the most inclusive offices in the country once he is elected to Congress, Frost says he is committed to ending gun violence by, among other things, fighting “to end the corruption of the gun lobby and dismantle the NRA, and ensure our courts enforce licensing revocation for gun dealers and manufacturers who break the law.”

He is also an ardent proponent of Medicare for All, ensuring that “every person in America has comprehensive health care, with no co-pays, deductibles, or premiums.  In the richest country in the face of the earth people should not die because they don’t have health care, and the fact is that 20,000 Americans will die every year because we don’t have health care; we have sickness care. People can’t afford to go to the doctor regularly, so they wait until they’re very sick, go to the hospital and get stuck with a huge bill. Health care is a right that every person in this country deserves.”

People Need to Vote

Environmental justice is another issue he is passionate about, and says he is especially committed to cracking down on corporations that pollute communities, as well as ensuring that every community has clean water, access to food, and clean air.

Frost feels ready to tackle these and other issues affecting Florida communities, because, as he states on his campaign website, “I know how to hold power to account. As a national organizer with the ACLU, I pushed Joe Biden to agree to abolish the Hyde Amendment, an act that has limited abortion access for millions of people. I organized in the movement that restored voting rights to 1.6 million Floridians with previous felonies. I’ve led thousands of young activists in the fight against gun violence as the National Organizing Director of March for Our Lives.”

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But to accomplish his goal, he says, people need to go out and vote.

“There are decisions that are being made every single day at the national level, at the state level, and at the local level that affect our lives,” he says.

“Voting gives us a unique opportunity to decide who is going to be making those decisions. And they need to be people who come from our community, people who understand the problems people are going through.”