Could El Zorro come to the rescue again?

One of the names being batted around for a special election to replace disgraced former Sen. Frank Artiles — who resigned Friday after making inappropriate and racist comments earlier in the week when speaking to a few colleagues — is his all-time rival and nemesis, former Miami-Dade Commissioner and former State Rep. Juan Zapata.

Zapata abruptly withdrew his candidacy from his re-election to the county commisison last year. He had grown sick and tired of the retaliatory tactics of the mayor and his allies and the hat trick maze that is the county budget. But he had been one of the good guys, asking the right questions, not playing politics or favorites with the other electeds and watching, more closely than anyone else, the taxpayer’s money.

Now, maybe we can have him in the Senate.

Read related story: Frank Artiles resigns, but still needs to apologize to Hialeah

Zapata was out of the country Friday on business but returned a text message from Ladra about it.

 “Yes, I am seriously considering it,” he wrote, and followed it with a smiling emoji. The big smiley one, not the little smile.

“I wasnt going to be able to contribute much in the county commission. The state senate would obviously allow for way more,” Zapata told Ladra. “This is my area. I have always fought and worked for it. Nobody knows it better than I and my experience has prepared me well.”

It would only be gravy if he gets to replace his longtime nemesis (my words, not his).

Zapata and Artiles have been rivals. Artiles ran for state rep against Zapata twice and lost. He then basically recruited and ran police officer Manny Machado against Zap in the 2012 county commission race (lost then, too).

Other Republicans being considered for the job would be State Rep. Jose Felix “Pepi” Diaz — but he is being groomed for Attorney General — and State Rep. Jeannette Nunez, but she has filed to run for Sen. Anitere Flores‘ termed-out seat in 2018 in what is a slightly safer district for her and probably with Flores’ blessing.

The GOP can’t just pick anybody off the street. They are going to want someone with name recognition who can win on a shorter campaign cycle and thwart the efforts of state Democrats, who want to get their seat back in a district that slightly favors the blue. Artiles, who was a state rep for six years — only winning the House seat once Zap left office to run in the — had beaten former State Sen. Dwight Bullard by 10 percentage points, mostly by calling him a terrorist.

Naturally, Bullard is one of the Democrats being considered. But seeing how he moved out of the district to try to get the chairmanship of the Florida Democratic Party, it would be easy to attack him if he just moved back in to run for his old seat again. I can see the mailers now. Instead of Arab headwear, he’d be carrying luggage. Besides, Bullard might win a primary but he won’t win the general in a district that is about 60% Hispanic. He already tried that once and failed.

Read related story: Chased out: Juan Zapata leaves hostile work environment

The others are perennial candidate Annette Taddeo (who would also win a primary but not the general) and former State Rep. Ana Rivas Logan, who is the person that should have won that seat from the get go, but the Democrats decided to back Bullard and she didn’t even campaign.

Rivas Logan told me she had gotten several phone calls already by lunchtime Friday. Of course, she’s the female flip version of Zapata — a moderate Democrat (she used to be Republican) who has bocoup name recognition.

“It depends on the timeline,” said Rivas Logan, a high school administrator who retires in October. “This is how I make my bread and butter. Politics is a hobby.”

A date has not been set yet for a special election, but it could come as early as this summer, with a 60 day campaign. 

We are already envisioning a showdown between Zapata and Rivas Logan, which will be clean and on the issues, and we can’t wait for these two longtime public servants to show the rest of the puppies how it’s done.

“He would be a formidable opponent,” Rivas Logan said. “That would be a good race.”

Yeah boy, it would!

Local Democrats are stuck between a rock and a hard place in tonight’s vote for a new state committeeman, which would be a stepping stone for the Florida chair position the same year that the Democrats lost the traditionally blue state to a rabid Republican in a crazy presidential contest and a no-show Senator that spent most of the year campaigning for president.

In one corner, they have former Sen. Dwight Bullard, a longtime legislator who has had their back, someone who fights for the little people, whose family legacy is steeped in the Miami-Dade blue party but who couldn’t even win re-election in his own seat this year.

In the other corner, they have prominent developer Stephen Bittel, a proficient fundraiser who has likely raised millions for dozens of Democrats, who leaders have bent over backwards to put in the running because they say it’s a matter of life and death for the Florida party.

No pressure now.

The Miami-Dade Democratic Executive Committee will meet at 6 p.m. tonight to discuss the pros and cons and take a vote. But the campaigning has been fierce. Committeemen and women have been bombarded with phone calls — both live and recorded — and emails in the past week to sway them one way or another. Or mostly Bittel’s way.

In what seems like a dirty campaign move, there was an email sent out to recruit new committee members — so long as they promised to be available Tuesday to vote for Bittel. Who cares if they never show up again, right?

But, ladies and gentlemen, it’s all legal. As disgusting as it may seem. The process allows for this.

Read related story: Juan Cuba is back with Dade Dems in time for Hillary

A couple of low-level Democrat activiststs called Ladra over the past week, completely disgusted with what they see as a repeat of the national race — having a party-chosen candidate rammed down their throats. It’s Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton all over again for them. They say the rich man is trying to buy the position.

“Taking no credit away from Bittel. He seems like a great guy and he’s done a lot of good for the party,” said one of them. “But this makes the rest of us feel worthless. What does this say to the little old lady who gave $10? What does this say to the person who stands on the corner holding a sign for 12 hours? This tells them they are worthless, that they don’t matter.”

Well, certainly that they don’t matter as much as a guy who can leverage millions of dollars for blue candidates, a guy who has had President Barack Obama at his Coconut Grove home for a fundraiser.

Thats what some leaders, who also did not want to be identified, told Ladra was the justification for the convoluted process by which tomorrow’s vote came. First of all, Bittel was not even a precinct captain until earlier this month at some midnight hour vote with a questionable quorum that party leaders did not expect anybody to ask about (but grassroots Dems have) because it may have violated the party’s own bylaws. Then, almost immediately like a well choreographed dance, State Committeeman Bret Berlin resigned to pave the way for a special election so that Bittel, the newly appointed precinct captain, could run. All this so he can run for the chair of the Florida Democratic Party.

Some high-level Dems told Ladra that we want the Florida chair to be someone from the 305. That this would be good for the area and that we also need someone who can raise the money that will be necessary for Sen. Bill Nelson to hold onto his seat in 2018. That person, they say, is Stephen Bittel. Surrogates like newly-elected State Rep. Daisy Baez tell anyone who listens how Bittel’s advice and support was pivotal in her victory. 

But can’t Bittel do that without the chair title? Can’t he continue to raise funds for the Dems he deems deserving and keep his day job? Apparently, he’s been doing great so far. Certainly, he would still have the ear of young no-name Democrats running for open seats formerly held by Republicans. What does he get out of it?

Read related story: Annette Taddeo loses once again — and needs a new hobby

“People want to invest where they have complete trust in the leadership and know that the leadership has also invested first,” Bittel told Ladra in a telephone interview Monday. “I’ve had their trust for years. 

“This will enable me to marshall the resources of every Democratic organization in the state. We need to start working as a team, build a progressive infrastructure that will be our highway to successful campaigns. We need to plan together and right now we are too busy shooting at each other. This circular firing squad has to end.”

“My heart is broken after this election and I am tired of losing,” he said, adding that he wants to beef up the blue bench through the Sunshine State. “We need a significant investment of time, money and resources in training candidates and we need to be competitive in every county, city and school board race.

“The goal is to have Democrats win elections.”

Ladra told him she was skeptical. He can still stay involved and keep his day job. Florida Democratic Chair seems like a full-time gig, especially in the wake of 2016’s losses and Dem senators coming up with their own fundraising arm. Is Bittel going to retire as CEO at Terranova Corporation, where he leads “a team of professionals in the ownership and operation of a commercial real estate portfolio valued at nearly $1 billion,” according to the website?

“This is a full-time commitment but I have many full-time commitments. I work seven days a week. I’m a bad sleeper,” Bittel said.

He seems to be convincing everyone. He’s got the teachers behind him, other labor unions, and now Congressman Alcee Hastings. Bullard, who could not be reached for comment and may be out of town for Tuesday’s vote, is backed by Bernie Sanders and his revolution-minded Dems.

But by no means is it going to be easy. The #StandWithDwight group is still complaining loudly and will likely make their case Tuesday night. 

For his part, Bittel said he, too, was concerned about the convoluted steps he had to take to get here.

“We have a complicated set-up. I prefer to let people run and vote. I hate the process,” he said. “It’s how most of our party chairs have run in the last 10 years. And I gotta get in so I can change it.”

But Ladra is skeptical again. Why would he change the mechanism by which he got this far? Especially since Bittel believes the end justifies the means?

The Coradito Calendar is getting fatter already, just in its third week. And it is thanks to many of you readers who emailed me and messaged me with events that you think should be included. So they are.

Please keep ’em coming. Government meetings are easier to find and politicians promoting themselves at holiday basket giveaways are a dime a dozen but not what I had in mind.

However, if you have a homeowners association meeting and invited your county district commissioner to address traffic and infrastructure issues, I want to know. If your school board member is visiting your PTA, please tell me. If even your neighbors are getting together for coffee to talk about government inaction, like Palm Springs North residents discussing quarry blasting and the effects on their homes and quality of life (more on that later), please tell Ladra.

Because other people should know about these happenings. There is more strength in numbers.

So, again, the email to send any events you think should be featured here is edevalle@gmail.com.

And thank you for the great response.

MONDAY — Dec. 19

9:30 a.m. — A talk about the haves and have-nots: Miami-Dade Commission Chairman Jean Monestime‘s Council for Prosperity Initiatives will meet to discuss “racial wealth divide in Miami” and  the “summary review of the Council for Prosperity Initiatives.”

TUESDAY — Dec. 20

8:30 a.m. — The $600 million renovation of the convention center will be the topic at this week’s Miami Beach Breakfast Club meeting. The city Project Manager Maria Hernandez, on behalf of City Manager Jimmy Morales, will bring the audience up to speed on the progress of improvements. The helical parking ramp and grand ballroom are well underway on the north end of the property. And Hernandez is expected to announce an end soon to any bookings for a period of several months. This image to the right is a rendering of what it should look like when it’s done. There is no charge for the meeting, but you’re buying if you want breakfast at Manolo’s Restaurant, 685 Washington Ave.

9:30 a.m. — Miami-Dade Commissioners have their last meeting of the year. New Chairman Steve Bovo is expected to lay out his committees and committee members — or, at the very least, will get recommendations from the old chairman, Commissioner Jean Monestime. Mayor Carlos Gimenez will present his final report on the “assessment of available tools to create a resilient transit system” — which could mean that they found expanding MetroRail and MetroMover is going to be less expensive than starting several new independent light rail lines. Among the other topics of discussion: criteria for appointments to the Miami-Dade Expressway Authority, a $1.65 million renovation of the Dade County Auditorium, the creation of a workforce housing program and a $9.7 million gift (financial incentive bond funds) to a company that wants to build a custom boat manufacturer on the Miami River. Also: Commissioner Joe Martinez begins to undo everything that former Commissioner Juan Zapata had done in the last couple of years.

6 p.m. — Newly-elected Doral Mayor J.C. Bermudez and Councilwomen Christy Fraga and Claudia Mariaca will be sworn in at Doral City Hall, 8401 NW 53rd Terrace. Fraga, the only incumbent, was re-elected Nov. 8. Bermudez and Mariaca won their races in runoffs on Tuesday.

7:30 p.m. — Local Democrats will meet for some convoluted meeting in which they will choose the next chair of the Miami-Dade Democratic Party. The race is between developer and mega fundraiser Stephen Bittel and former Sen. Dwight Bullard. It should be kind of interesting since there has been major lobbying going on both sides — but mostly for Bittel. More on that later.

WEDNESDAY — Dec. 21

9 a.m. — The first Doral Council meeting for founding and back again Mayor J.C. Bermudez and newby Councilwoman Claudia Mariaca begins at City Hall, 8401 NW 53rd Terrace.

They need each other at this dark time.

The Democrats of South Dade Club will have a special meeting next week to talk about what happened Tuesday and, from what it looks like on the email invite, hug it out.

“There will be a special format for the November meeting,” it says.

“We will start social time a little earlier and go a little longer. We need to talk.”

The club had cancelled a “wrap party” for Thursday after “the board felt there was no longer an apetite among the members to have a party.”

They just didn’t want it to turn into a pity party.

On Tuesday, they won’t be just mourning the presidential loss to Donald Trump but the defeat of Democrat South Dade Sen. Dwight Bullard, who was beaten by Republican State Rep. Frank Artiles on Tuesday.

The business part of the meeting will be shortened to 25 minutes and the speaker, lobbyist and former State Rep. Mike Abrams, will start a little later at 8:10 p.m. “So we can all take a breath and have time to decompress amongst ourselves,” the email says.

“Extra food and extra wine will be provided during social time,” it ends. Key words: Extra wine. It’s in red type.

The meeting begins at 6:45 p.m. “to talk this through,” at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Miami, 7701 S.W. 76th Ave. 

Bet you the turnout is bigger than usual.

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.

A group of Democrat electeds and wannabe electeds got together Friday to denounce gun violence and call for gun reform at what amounted to basically a campaign stop.

Standing side by side to deliver their message of support for common sense firearm restrictions, were former Congressman Joe Garcia, who is running to get his seat back in Florida’s 26th congressional district, State Senator Dwight Bullard, who is in a heated race to keep his seat and Democratic Party candidates Debbie Mucarsel-Powel (state Senate against Anitere Flores) and Dan Horton (state House against Holly Roschein). 

Miami-Dade Commissioner Daniella Levine Cava was the only politician at the event who isn’t in a race this November. 

“We have more than 3 billion guns in this country. That’s more than we have people,” Levine Cava said, adding that gun violence is the number one cause of death for young black men between the ages of 18 and 25. 

See a video of the press conference here

“This is a national crisis, a national disaster. And it is hitting us right here are home,” she said, adding that it claimed the lives of too many innocents. The press conference was at Goulds Park in Southwest Dade, near a home where six teenagers at a party were shot in a drive-by recently.

Garcia said that among those innocent victims were 45 children shot in 2016 and 70 in 2015. “This isn’t some faraway war. This is happening right here in our community,” he said. “It’s unacceptable.”  

Among the group of politicos also stood Regina Talabert, mother of one of the 2016 gun violence victims, 17-year-old Noricia Talabert. The South Dade High School senior had just picked up two friends at a local corner Florida City grocery store when a man opened fire on her car with an AK47 rifle about two months ago. Her mom held a large color photo of her daughter’s graduation class picture Friday.

They were also joined by Greater Goulds Optimist Club President J.L. Demps Jr. and Dr. Willy Wright of the Goulds Coalition of Ministers and Lay People who rolled out a pledge in support of common-sense gun reform and called on the attendees to advocate for an end to gun violence in our communities. They signed a Coalition pledge:

• Support a comprehensive ban on assault weapons
• Support background checks on all gun sales and transfers — including elimination of the gun show loophole
• Support legislation to keep guns out of the hands of suspected terrorists
• Support a ban on high capacity ammunition magazines
• Oppose legislation that allows concealed weapons on schools and other sensitive areas

“The legislation we are fighting for will make a difference and save lives,” said Garcia, who has challenged U.S. Rep. Carlos Curbelo, who beat him in 2014 amid headlines about absentee ballot fraud in Garcia’s campaign.

Read related story: Joe Garcia releases first web ad in congressional contest

“I’m asking Republicans to have some courage and take a stand for once,” Garcia said. “If Carlos Curbelo would rather pocket contributions from the NRA than save lives, then I challenge him to tell these families that cash for his reelection matters more than their safety.”

Garcia said that 90% of Americans want gun control reform and seemed especially troubled by the gun show loophole.

“In this district, here in South Florida, we have one of the largest gun shows in the country, where you can walk in and buy a weapon with absolutely zero background check,” Garcia said. “These weapons end up on these streets, killing our kids. It’s unacceptable. We have to stop it.”

A Garcia campaign spokesman said they had tracked at least $44,000 in contributions to Curbelo directly from the NRA alone. They believe the support is over $50,000. Curbelo has voted against background checks and to relax gun restrictions, has gone on TV to say gun control is not the answer and, with the rest of the GOP, blocked debate in 2015 on legislation to ban the sale of guns to individuals on the no fly list.

Read related story: Joe Garcia and Carlos Curbelo agree on Zika

He must have changed his mind because this past summer, after the mass shooting tragedy at Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Curbelo filed bipartisan legislation to ban sales to suspected terrorists. Garcia immediately called it pandering. 

The Brady Campaign, one of the nation’s leading anti-gun violence advocacy groups has rated Curbelo — a lobbyist who put his firm in his wife’s name so he wouldn’t have to reveal who he lobbied for — as a “lap dog” for the NRA. 

Hey, maybe they are one of his secret clients.