Dotie Joseph is a Democratic member of the Florida Legislature representing the State's 108th House district. Joseph was born in Haiti and moved to Florida in 1982. She lives in

North Miami North Miami is a suburban city located in northeast Miami-Dade County, Florida, United States, about north of Miami. The city lies on Biscayne Bay and hosts the Biscayne Bay Campus of Florida International University. Originally the "Town of A ...

Education

Dotie Joseph attended Miami-Dade public schools—including Lakeview Elementary, fine arts magnet programs at and Charles Drew Elementary and Miami Norland Middle School, and Design and Architecture Senior High (DASH). Joseph went on to graduate from Yale University with a degree in Political Sciences, earned a Juris Doctor from Georgetown University Law Center. Joseph studied abroad in France with Columbia University in Paris, and with the Institute for International Mediation and Conflict Resolution in

The Hague The Hague ( ) is the capital city of the South Holland province of the Netherlands. With a population of over half a million, it is the third-largest city in the Netherlands. Situated on the west coast facing the North Sea, The Hague is the c ...

in the Netherlands.

Career

Joseph has worked as a federal judicial law clerk, legal consultant, a government and civil rights lawyer in the public and private sector. She is currently an attorney with Ottinot Law, an all-black law firm which specializes in complex government and business matters. Joseph won the election for Florida's House of Representatives on November 6, 2018, from the platform of Democratic Party. She secured 92% of the vote while her closest rival, an LPF candidate, secured eight percent. In 2022, Representative Joseph was selected to serve as Minority Leader Pro Tempore, becoming the first Haitian-American to hold a leadership position of Speaker, Leader or Pro Tempore position in any state or federal legislative body in the United States. After a prolific legislative term, Leader Pro Tempore Joseph was elected to her fourth term in 2024 without opposition. In December 2024, Joseph was selected for the Future Caucus Innovation Fellowship for the 2025-2026 Civic Innovation cohort, a bipartisan fellowship for lawmakers committed to improving civic engagement and democratic processes.

References

Democratic Party members of the Florida House of Representatives Living people 21st-century American women politicians Women state legislators in Florida 1979 births 21st-century members of the Florida Legislature {{Florida-FLRepresentative-Democratic-stub