Holding up signs that said “Liar, liar” and “Resign now” in both English and Spanish, a group of Republicans protested in front of Democrat State Rep. Daisy Baez‘s Coral Gables home Monday morning — the one that sits outside the district she was elected in — and demanded she resign from office.

Baez lives in House District 112 instead of 114 where she was elected. She admitted to Ladra on Saturday that she was sleeping at her old house in Malaga Avenue and would not tell me if she had slept even one night at the apartment on Anderson Road, where she changed her voter’s registration to a week before the election.

That’s ticked some Republicans off. Like Mauricio Pons, an FIU student who worked on the campaign for John Couriel, who lost to Baez in a very close race last November (51 to 49 percent).

“There are only two things required of our state representatives. One is that they live in the district. The other is that they vote on the budget. That’s it. She failed at both,” Pons said, noting that Baez missed the May 8 vote on the state budget, the one vote the legislature must make.

“She doesn’t live in the district. What more proof do you need as proof than her leaving her house in her blue Mercedes at 8:30 a.m.,” said Pons, 20, who happens to live in 112.

Baez definitely is required to live in the district she represents. She does not. She only Saturday put an offer on a property in District 114, she said. Only now do we see the “For Rent” sign that was leaning against a wall in her porch on Saturday, on the front lawn.

Read related story: Daisy Baez should resign, not just drop out of other race

And while she isn’t really required as an individual member to vote on the budget, passing the budget is literally the only thing the legislature is required to do. And she did skip that part. Records show she neither voted yay nor nay on that. Baez told Ladra via text message that she “had permission from the speaker to return to Miami to be with my mother, who was hospitalized.” She didn’t want to be out that day because she also wanted to vote against the controversial education bill, she said.

Ladra has already said that Baez should resign just on the residency thing. She basically lied to voters when she said she represented District 114 as a voter and elector, as required. She also lied on her voter’s registration form, which is a third degree felony and she could be charged with a crime.

Miami-Dade Republian Party Chairman Nelson Diaz said Baez “failed us as a state representative” and should pay another way — by refunding her salary of about $85 a day.

“She owes us $15,000.”

Legislator admits she doesn’t sleep in District 114

State Rep. Daisy Baez announced Friday that she was dropping out of the Democratic primary to replace former Sen. Frank Artiles in District 40. But, maybe Baez should resign from the legislature altogether.

That’s not only because she still lives in outside the district — admitting to Ladra on Saturday that she sleeps in District 112 — but also because she quite possibly lied on her voter’s registration form, which would be a third degree felony.

Baez cited her mother’s failing health as the reason why she was withdrawing from the special election to replace Artiles, who resigned after getting caught insulting other legislators in a racially- and sexist-tinged rant.

“My life today is a direct reflection of my mother’s decision to immigrate to this country and work multiple jobs to ensure that I could live the American Dream,” Baez said in a statement sent just after 1 p.m.

“Just after announcing my intention to run for the Florida Senate, my mother’s health deteriorated and it became clear to me that spending time with her now is of utmost importance. As her daughter, caring for her is my number one priority. Therefore, I will not pursue a campaign for the Florida Senate,” she said. “Instead, I will spend the upcoming weeks with my family and continue to use my voice in the Florida House to speak out clearly and forcefully to fight for better jobs, to protect our environment, to ensure we all have access to affordable health care, and to support our public schools.”

That would be the right thing to do. But the news also comes three days after a Miami Herald story exposed the fact that she likely does not live in the district she represents, which explains why Baez was bold enough to think she could run for a Senate District where she doesn’t live. Now we know she’s done it before. And it looks like it took time to sink in. Because that same day the story came out, last Tuesday night, Baez was at a South Dade Democrats Club meeting showing no signs of backing down.

On Friday, it seems, she finally realized that she can’t overcome this development in a race against two veteran politicians with higher name recognition who — bonus — actually live in the district (Annette Taddeo and Ana Rivas Logan).

Read related story: Three women to battle for Senate 40’s Democrat spot

Which brings us back to why she should resign. Because the voters of House District 114 do not have any representation right now, have not had any representation during this past session. And they deserve some.

Baez apparently let people believe that she had moved from her house on Malaga Avenue (photographed) in District 112, to an apartment on Anderson Road, which is in District 114, right before the election. But the Herald found discrepancies in that. Other people live in the apartment at Anderson and neighbors said that Baez does not live there. Her dogs and campaign staff were at the house on Malaga, which she said was being renovated so she can put it on the market.

It’s more likely that she never moved out of the house where her dogs apparently live. When Ladra spoke to her Saturday afternoon, Baez admitted that she was sleeping at her house, the Malaga house outside the district.

“Right now, I’m sleeping at that house, yes. But I think I don’t want to talk about the situation any more,” she said. “I’m trying to correct the situation. I made an offer on a property today.”

What a coincidence. Today.

Baez said she had always intended to move into the district and said she has documents to show she began the process for a loan in January. But she has not had time between the legislative session and her 92-year-old mother’s health to purchase a new home. “I pretty much left for Tallahasee immediately after I was elected. I’m a normal human being with a million different things to deal with.”

The problem with that is that one of the things she apparently dealt with was trying to fool the public into thinking she lived in the district. When asked multiple times if she ever lived in the Anderson Road apartment, Baez refused to answer but intimated that she had not.

“For the intent of the law, I changed the address,” which sounds to Ladra like she changed it on paper but not in real life. So I asked her again? “When was the last time you slept there?”

“I understand what you are getting at and I’m not going to answer. At this point, I’m focused on getting this corrected and taking care of my mother,” she said.

“Okaaaaaay. Did you ever sleep there even one single night?”

“I understand what you are saying. We are trying to correct that. We feel that we complied with the law at the time,” Baez said. “I’m working fast and furious to correct it. It was not my intention to be outside the law.”

Aha! Outside the law. So, Baez must realize that she may have committed a third degree felony when she filled out a voter’s registration form on Nov. 2, a week before the election, changing her address to the Anderson Road apartment.

Read related story: Red goes blue, blue goes red in four flipped 305 seats

Ladra likes Baez. An Army vet and small business owner, she is on the right side of most issues, even if she is in the minority party and no position to do anything about it. Still, her voice is one that is needed on issues of immigration and housing and education and the environment. So that’s why this hurts. She had the best intentions, but the ends do not justify the means. She should do the right thing and quit. She lied to the people who voted for her. She does not represent them. Her blind ambition — the same ambition that caused her to jump to the Senate race after four months — caused her to run in a district that was not her own.

People have to stop doing that! It wasn’t right for Artiles — who was a state rep in 2011 when Ladra discovered him living in Palmetto Bay, outside his district — when he did it, nor for former State Rep. Eddy Gonzalez, and it isn’t right for Baez.

And Ladra knows the Dems aren’t going to want her to just give up the seat they just won, but they could lose it in two years anyway if someone uses this against her. And that voice she has is going to be somewhat hampered by the fact that it now comes from someone who tried to pull the wool over the voters eyes.

Daisy Baez vs. Ana Rivas Logan vs. Annette Taddeo

The Senate 40 race to replace disgraced former Sen. Frank Artiles got a little more interesting Monday when Republican State Rep. Jose Felix Diaz said he would run, as expected, and perennial Democrat candidate Annette Taddeo said she would run, as always expected — setting up for some exciting primaries in both aisles. Former Sen. Alex Diaz de la Portilla (Republican) and newly-minted State Rep. Daisy Baez (Dem) had already announced their bid for the seat that opened up last month after Artiles was caught making racial and sexist slurs to colleagues.

Former State Rep. Ana Rivas Logan, a former Republican now Democrat, told Ladra late Monday that she intended to run as well and would announce this week, making it at least a three-way race for blue voters on July 25.

Read related story: Two new ‘open’ seats spur political pinata question: 40 or 27?

Or a two-and-a-half way race. Because even though she is the Democrat Party choice, it is going to be difficult for Baez — who is barely known in her own district, let alone the one next door — to get much traction with the other two veterans in the race. And she will have to resign her seat to run. Ladra asked the Army veteran and freshman legislator if it was worth the risk of losing a recently turned House seat and her voice, which she used this year to speak against laws to punish sanctuary cities, especially now that a Senate seat in her very own district, where she was elected six months ago, will come available next year: In what is becoming an avalanche (more on that later), newly-minted Sen. Jose Javier Rodriguez announced Monday that he would run for the congressional seat that will be vacated by a retiring Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. That means that the seat he won from former Sen. Miguel Diaz de la Portilla, which is where Baez votes now, would be open. (I stand corrected. J-Rod’s term is not up until 2020 and he does not have to resign to run so it might not be open… but it might be and there also might be a special election if he wins).

“I’m a person of my word. I’m not going to be switching around seats just because it’s convenient,” Baez said in what seemed like a dig at Taddeo. “I hope more people run. It’s good for democracy.”

Still, it really doesn’t make any sense for the Democrat Party, which has such a shallow bench, to put all their eggs into one basket and possibly lose a House seat they just won when they can spread their love. Maybe new Florida Dem Chair Stephen Bittel, for whom this is a first test, ought to rethink his longterm game plan. Both Taddeo and Rivas Logan have already had people vote for them in this district. They are both known entities here and this could very well become a race between the two of them.

Baez thinks that she can get voters interested in new blood. “I believe people are tired of the same names, the same faces, the family dynasties,” she said. “I think people in 40 have no appetite for recycled candidates.”

She scoffs at my carptebagger thing, since she would have to move. She said shares boundaries with Senate 40 and that she will still represent the people who elected her to House District 114 in November. “Many of the issues important to the constituents of 114 are the same in 40,” she said. “People want good jobs, economic development. We want to feel safe in our homes.”

Read related story: Red goes blue, blue goes red in four 305 seats

Those same people who elected her, Baez said, would support this move. “I went to Tallahassee and I had a great time and I learned a lot. And because I learned a lot there’s an understanding I can do better in the Senate. I can deliver better results to them as a state senator,” Baez said.

Rivas Logan, who ran for this seat last year and handily beat Andrew Korge in the primary blindfolded and with one hand tied behind her back, is not discouraged by the estrogen in the race or the fact that the Democrat Party would, again, pick someone else to back. She is used to being independent from her party, which used to be the GOP before it abandoned her in favor of Pepi Diaz when they were redrawn into the same district in 2012. Which means, by the way, that this could be a rematch of sorts.

“I’m going to do it and let the cards fall where they may,” Rivas Logan told Ladra Monday, adding that she called Taddeo to let her know. “I’m going to run a very positive campaign based on issues. And I hope we would support the other one in the general. But I am not getting out of anyone’s way this time.”

The schoolteacher and former Miami-Dade School Board member sort of canned her campaign for the same seat midway through the primary last year to avoid any negative attention from Korge, who was already hitting incumbent Sen. Dwight Bullard and had lots of money to do so. The strategy worked. Almost. She came back in time for early voting and actually beat Korge, who had outspent her.

Read related story: Senate 40 race: Ana Rivas logan still in it, could win it

She told Ladra that this was a better time for her because it is summer and school is out. “I spoke with my family and I have their full support,” she said, promising to keep her campaign positive. “It’s going to be about the issues. I have a track record of working for the people and fighting against the establishment.”

Taddeo — who moved into District 40 after selling her Pinecrest home in November — said she welcomed the competition. “I’ve never been afraid of races. In fact, this is the first time I run in an open seat,” Taddeo told Ladra.

This would be Taddeo’s first foray into a Senate campaign. She has run for congress, twice, and for county commission and lieutenant governor. It “wasn’t an easy decision” to run again, she said, but that she could not ignore the people in the community, including a number of influential black pastors, who had called her and asked her to run in this seat.

“They way things happened with Artiles was very hutful to a lot of constituents in our community,” she said, adding that she at first told them she would not run. “I was sure Dwight was going to do it,” she said, referring to Bullard, who won the primary last year but lost to Artiles and apparently understands now that only a Hispanic Democrat can beat a Hispanic Republican in that district. Bullard, she said, is not interested.

Read related story: Annette Taddeo has not gone gently into the good night

Even after Ros-Lehtinen, who Taddeo ran against in 2008, announced her retirement, the Colombian born small business owner said she didn’t flinch. “For me, it’s not about a title. It’s about fighting for the people. It’s not about a job. I have a job,” she said, referring to the translation company she owns.

“It really came down to listening to the people, the community that is telling you to do something. It would be inappropriate for me to ignore them,” she said.

One could say, however, that she keeps ignoring the voters who keep rejecting her. But Taddeo thinks this is the right seat at the right time. She told Ladra that she won almost 60% of the precincts that overlap with Congressional District 26 in her primary run against former Congressman Joe Garcia last August. Could she win in an off year?

This is all important because now that we are guaranteed a Hispanic woman, chances are that whoever wins the Democrat primary wins the general. It was already true because of the demographics — that district went to Clinton with 12 points — but now it becomes especially significant after the whole Artiles thing.

Sorry, Alex. Maybe he should run for his brother’s old Senate seat next year.

A number of Florida House seats in the 305 will be vacated by term-limited legislators next year — and already there are a bunch of wannabes getting in line to replace ’em.

David Rivera jumped into the race for District 105 last week, which would pit him against Doral Councilwoman Ana Maria Rodriguez, who filed her campaign paperwork in December for the seat vacated by State Rep. Carlos Trujillo.

But that’s not the only GOP primary already shaping up for 2018. There are three others.

Read related story: If at first you don’t succeed… David Rivera tries again

In District 119, where State Rep. Jeanette Nunez serves now, Republicans Enrique Lopez and Andrew Vargas have already opened up campaign accounts. Lopez has loaned himself $50,000 and raised another $33,240 in February alone. Vargas just filed last month so he has nothing to report. Ladra hears that Commissioner Joe Martinez‘s daughter may also consider a run there.

In District 116, where Rep. Jose Felix Diaz is getting a time-out, Republicans Jose Mallea and Daniel Anthony Perez have also made their intentions clear. Neither has raised any money yet.

Say buh-bye: In this picture, only Rep. Jose Oliva (top, left) is not termed out.

There are three Republicans already raising money for a campaign in District 115, where Rep. Michael Bileca will be termed out: Vance Aloupis, Carlos Gobel and Carmen Sotomayor. Only Sotomayor has reported raising any money, and its $100 at that, having filed in January. Both Alupis and Gobel filed last month and have not had to file any campaign reports yet.

Each of these are already Republican seats and it’s curious that no Democrats have yet shown their faces, especially in 105 and 115, both of which are seats where Obama did well.

Instead, we have Republicans dominating the early game, with two GOP challengers filing against two of the three newly-minted, freshman Democrats. Jose Pazos, who abandoned his campaign last year due to his father’s health, is going against Rep. Daisy Baez in 114 and Rosy Palomino, who lost last year against Nicholas Duran in 112 (53-47%), wants a rematch.

You just know someone is going to file against the other freshman Dem, State Rep. Robert Asencio in 118. Give it another month or two.

Both the Florida Democratic Party and the Republican Party of Florida will claim victories in Tuesday’s election after several state seats switched colors.

In the 305, we had four seats flip — two in the House and two in the Senate.

Both House seats were open (one due to term limits and one due to ambition) and both went from red to blue. But the Senate seats were one up, one down, thanks mostly to redistricting that left both incumbents vulnerable to state reps that ultimately got the best of them.

The first of those is Sen. Miguel Diaz de la Portilla, who lost a negatively charged contest with 46% of the vote against State Rep. Jose Javier Rodriguez, who got 49%. The senior of the DLP political brothers, Miguel raised and spent more than twice as much as Rodriguez (that we know of). DLP’s latest campaign finance report lists $937,000 in contributions compared to J-Rod’s $479,000. Plus DLP had another $750,000 or so in two PACs (Floridians for Ethics in Judicial Elections and Foundation for Human Values). Nobody knows how much more he had in non-profits or secret non-existing PACs like the one that sent a mailer recommending Democrat candidates — and DLP and Sen. Anitere Flores in her senate race.

He should have stressed his track record as an independent moderate, reminding people not only about his single-handed murder of those outrageous guns on campus laws last year but also the fact that he created the required county commission super majority vote to move the urban boundary line. His message, which wasn’t delivered effectively, should have been that he is in a better position to represent his district in a GOP majority Senate where he would be Big Man on Campus next legislative session. He tried to knock down Mr. Do Gooder and failed.

Meanwhile, J-Rod stuck to the ground game that helped him beat the younger brother, Alex Diaz de la Portilla, in 2012. The DLPs need to get back to basics. Knocking on doors and actually pressing the flesh is harder than recording robocalls and cute radio spots that use old Cuban sayings like a crutch. But it is also effective.

Maybe Miguel can do that when he runs for Coral Gables mayor.

Flipping the script on that race, but ending another political dynasty nonetheless, Democrat incumbent Sen. Dwight Bullard was rejected by voters who instead elected Republican State Rep. Frank Artiles to the position (51% to 41%). They must have been moved by the multiple mailers and TV and radio spots calling Bullard a terrorist sympathizer.

Andrew Korge might also want to apologize to the Democratic Party for causing some early primary damage to the cause.

Does this mean that Artiles can move back into his house in Palmetto Bay? We are going to hold him to his promises about beating back the MDX tolls and electing a sheriff in Miami-Dade.

But Ladra suspects that his victory is bittersweet, knowing that he left his House seat to a Democrat.

Robert Asencio could be this election cycle’s unicorn, having won a Florida House seat with less than $100,000 and proving that anyone can get elected. He and Daisy Baez were elected to the Florida House in districts 118 and 114, respectively. Asencio beat David “King Nine Lives” Rivera, who maybe has run out of lives, by a mere 45 votes to become a state rep. Even though Rivera outspent him by at least 3 to 1 and tried to label him as a “child abuser” based on an internal affairs investigation that was possibly taken out of context. Maybe it worked. Maybe Asencio would have won with a bigger margin had that child abuser thing not surfaced.

As of the latest campaign finance reports, dated through Nov. 3, Rivera had collected $272,000 in contributions (on top of a $50K loan to himself). Asencio raised $77,768 and loaned himself $11,650.

Daisy Baez had to spend a lot more to beat off Republican John Couriel as both vied for the open seat left by termed out State Rep. Erik Fresen. She spent $274,000 as of Nov. 3, but also had $118,000 in in-kind assistance, mostly from the Democratic Party. She needed it against the Couriel bank of $438,500, plus $60K in in-kind (maybe the state GOP ought to step it up).

Each had run before — Baez got a respectable 44% against Fresen in 2012, the same year Couriel lost to Sen. Gwen Margolis — so they each had campaign experience and some name recognition for newbies.

But Baez got just under 51% and a lead of 1,301 votes.

So, if we’re keeping score, there was one switch from red to blue in our Miami-Dade delegation and one switch from blue to red in the Senate. But there were two switches from red to blue in the House for a net gain in the 305 of three Democrat flips.

That there weren’t more is a big failure of the state and local Democratic Party because more seats were flippable. After all, someone you never heard of named Anabella Grohoski Peralta got 45% of the vote against Sen. Rene Garcia with less than $5,500 raised against his $190,000 spent through Nov. 3. And a guy named Patricio Moreno got 45% against State Rep. Carlos Trujillo after he spent $5,764 against the incumbent’s $385K. Y un fulano Carlos Puentes, who got 45% of the vote against Jose Oliva, the next speaker, without raising a dime on a loan of $2,240. Oliva has spent $243,000.

Imagine how many more seats would have been flipped with more resources.

Most of us have been preoccupied — perhaps obsessed is a better word — with the presidential or the Miami-Dade mayoral election. But there were a lot of other races that culminated with Tuesday’s vote. Here are some highlights:

Sen. Marco Rubio beat Congressman Patrick Murphy back to gain another six years in office. He has said he will serve all six years. And that is probably true — especially now that Donald Trump won the presidency. If he likes it and wants to stay, the Republican Party will have to back The Donald in 2020. So this means we will have to wait until 2024 to have our first Hispanic president. Good thing Marquito is a young man.

Rubio’s onetime BFF, former Congressman David Rivera lost his bid to go back to the State House — by 45 votes. Isn’t that close enough for a mandatory recount? His 49% showing is much better than he fared in his bid to get back into Congress in 2012, where he lost the primary with just 8 percent in a five-man field (even Joe Martinez beat him). But still, we have a new face in Tallahassee: Robert Asencio, a former Miami-Dade Schools Police lieutenant won one of two House seats that turned blue. Rivera had waged a negative campaign, calling Asencio a child abuser based on a 2003 complaint from the mother of a student who was physically pulled off a bus for acting inappropriately. The investigation was closed without any findings.

Read related story: ‘Child abuser’ allegations in House 118 race ring hollow

But 118 is the second of two local House seats that turned blue Tuesday after Democrat Daisy Baez eeked out a victory over Republican John Couriel to replace termed-out State Rep. Erik Fresen (who is rumored to be after J-Rod’s new Senate seat). Both of them had run previous campaigns and had the benefit of having some name recognition, despite never holding office. But Baez got just under 51% and a lead of 1,301 votes.

Former Congressman Joe Garcia lost his own bid to get his own seat back, but not as closely. There’s a glaringly wide 11-point gap between U.S. Rep. Carlos Curbelo‘s 52% and Garcia’s 41% performance. Ladra suspects that when the numbers are crunched, we’ll find a bunch of Democrats who voted for Curbelo because of his liberal ways marriage equality and sea level rise and his early rejection of Donald Trump. And I bet Garcia is rethinking those ads that compared Curbelo to Trump, who is the apparent winner of the big POTUS prize. Anyway, that giant gap in the year that Curbelo would be allegedly vulnerable — because that’s it, folks, he is welded into that seat now like IRL — should certainly encourage Garcia to stay in the private sector. Ladra said it long ago. The only person that could have beat Curbelo was Ana Rivas Logan. Too bad she decided to run for state senate. Now we’re stuck with him.

Senator Miguel Diaz de la Portilla, a former Miami-Dade Commissioner and flagship of a political dynasty, lost a heated battle with State Rep. (now Sen.) Jose Javier Rodriguez, 46 to 49% — and turned the longheld Republican seat (brother Alex Diaz de la Portilla sat there for a decade before DLP took over in 2010) blue. The senior DLP outspent J-Rod more than 2 to 1, which almost proves that it is worth more to knock on 150,000 doors than it is to buy slick commercials that tries in vain to cast a liberal onetime legal aid attorney as beholden to special interests. It’s too bad. Miguel DLP was my favorite senator and, while J-Rod will likely be stymied, the incumbent actually did some good as a senior member of the majority party and may have better represented the district. Oh well. Maybe DLP will run for Coral Gables mayor next year.

Ending another political dynasty in the other really heated and mostly negative state senate race — and flipping the seat the other way — State Rep. Frank Artiles will move to the other chamber after he beat incumbent Sen. Dwight Bullard, 51% to 41%. Guess all that business about Bullard being a terrorist worked. It’s scary to think we may see a resurgence of Artiles’ ugly bathroom legislation targeting transgenders. But does this mean he can move back into his Palmetto Bay house? He was forced to move out after Ladra caught him living outside his state House district in 2010.

There will be two runoffs for the mayor’s seat in Doral and in Miami Lakes, where none of the candidates were able to garner 50% of the vote.

Read related story: It ain’t over in Doral, Miami Lakes with mayoral runoffs

There was a big upset in the Miami-Dade School Board race where Steve Gallon III beat incumbent Wilbert “Tee” Holloway III with a resounding 61%. Gallon got a lot of the community support in a district — which includes Miami Gardens, Carol City and North Miami — where Holloway was cast as an empty suit. And it earned him a 22-point lead Tuesday. The other school board seat went to Gimenez in-law Maria Teresa Rojas, as expected. Not just because she is a longtime teacher and school administrator but also because the voters in that district probably reacted vehemently to a negative campaign in which her challenger was cast as a Fidel Castro sympathizer. Look soon for an announcement of Political Cortadito’s expansion into school board coverage.

We can also smoke pot to relieve certain debilitating conditions and chill out about having our own solar energy one day as voters approved the medical marijuana constitutional amendment but rejected the amendment on solar energy choice that would have basically limited our choices and allowed Big Energy to control everything. Voters were not fooled by that one — except in Miami-Dade where we actually had a majority vote yes on this wolf in sheep’s clothing (56 to 44%). Shaking my head.

There were also a bunch of questions in municipalities from Homestead to Sunny Isles Beach and we will get to those individually if they warrant it in the next few days. Some notable examples: Voters in Palmetto Bay rejected a proposal to annex a part of West Perrine. In South Miami, they gave the green light for the building of a new City Hall. And, in North Miami Beach, voters approved a slew of charter changes, including term limits and one that makes it easier for the council to fire the city manager. Please feel free to make suggestions/ask questions.

In fact, Ladra has a feeling we will be writing and reading about the results of this ballot for weeks to come.