Former Miami Commissioner Alex Diaz de la Portilla hasn’t filed any official paperwork to run for mayor this year, but you’d never know it judging by the money trail and the paltry little care packages he has been leaving on doorsteps in The Roads.
After more than a year of reporting no contributions, Diaz de la Portilla’s political action committee, Proven Leadership for Miami-Dade County, reported a new $275,500 collected in the second quarter this year, through June 30. More than half, or $142,000, is his own money. From where? Who knows? In his divorce case, Diaz de la Portilla has gone after his estranged wife to pay his legal fees. But he has $142K to slip into a PAC account. ADLP listed his profession as a consultant, but the money could have easily come from the sale of another one of the properties he stole, er, bought from his parents.
Read related: Alex Diaz de la Portilla is knocking, giving out mameys to be Miami mayor
The largest outside gift is $100K from David and Leila Centner. Yes, the same Centners who own the private school and who tried to bribe Diaz de la Portilla before, leading to felony political corruption charges filed against him in 2023. Allegedly.
ADLP was removed from his seat by the governor after he was charged with bribery, money laundering and 12 other felonies in September of 2023. He was accused of taking more than $300,000 — $245K in PAC donations and the rest in hotel accommodations, meals and booze — in exchange for getting the commission to agree to give away a public park for the school’s exclusive use most of the time. The Centner Academy, across the street from Biscayne Park, would build a $10 million sports dome that would be open to the public about a third of the time — and probably for a fee.
The criminal charges were dropped last year, but that might only mean that the Broward County State Attorney — who had to handle the case after our own esteemed prosecutor said she had a conflict (again) — didn’t really care too much about it. It doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. In fact, the lobbyist arrested with Diaz de la Portilla — attorney William “Bill” Riley, who represented the Centers — is suing them couple to recover thousands of dollars he spent on his defense, saying they let him “take the fall.”
A story from earlier this year in the Miami Herald said Riley’s attorneys say the Centners “feigned ignorance” about the contributions and gifts to ADLP, even though “they well knew what he had done at their specific direction.”
So, is this $100,000 their way of saying “Thank you for not suing us?” Or are they seriously thinking that the park could still be theirs if Diaz de la Portilla miraculously becomes the mayor?
Read related: Public corruption charges dropped against Miami’s Alex Diaz de la Portilla
Diaz de la Portilla is also spending the PAC money like he’s running, burning through almost $110,000 in three months. The PAC spent $108,000 and raised nothing in the first quarter and spent $68,000 and raised nothing in the last two months of 2024.
Of the recent expenses listed, almost $17,000 has gone to Julio Guillen, his family’s longtime gopher and one of his ghosts employees when he was a commissioner. Another $11,000 has gone to Sasha Tirador, the absentee ballot queen who is more at home in Hialeah.
And $3,000 was paid in May for legal compliance services to attorney Yesenia Collazo, the former chairwoman of the Proven Leadership PAC, who also got a rather questionable $175,000 grant from the city’s anti-poverty funds from the former District 1 commissioner five months before he was arrested. Collazo is also billing the city’s taxpayers $208,000 for defending Diaz de la Portilla — one of five attorneys billing a total of $1.3 million — in defense of those very same public corruption charges that were dropped last fall.
What? The Centners can’t pay Collazo directly?
Read related: City of Miami may pay $1.3 mil for Alex Diaz de la Portilla’s criminal defense
The PAC also reported spending at least $13,000 on printing, which you can’t tell by the old collaterals Diaz de la Portilla is dropping off with voters this week. Both of the printed pieces are old.
Hell, there’s even one from when the new pope was named — and that was in early May. People already got this in the mail and now they’re getting it again in his little green bag.
At least $8,100 seems to have gone to Reyes del Mamey, for the typical Cuban fruit Diaz de la Portilla has been passing out at senior housing and dropping off at doorsteps — most recently, with a can of milk so voters can make batidos de mamey.
How sweet.
Maybe they should write a thank you note — to the Centners.
The post David and Leila Centner give fresh $100K to Alex Diaz de la Portilla PAC appeared first on Political Cortadito.

Read Full Story

Half a mil is from candidate’s asset management firm
Even before former City Manager Emilio Gonzalez won his lawsuit against the city of Miami for cancelling this year’s election, the retired Army colonel had raised a little more than $750,000 for his mayoral run between his campaign account and his political action committee, Mission Miami.
His campaign account has raised a modest $69,280, according to the campaign finance reports for the second quarter, through June 30. But his PAC, formed in March and chaired by Tallahassee operative Christian R. Camara, raked in a jaw-dropping $681,055 in just three months. And if you think that came in $20 checks from abuelitas, think again.
El pez gordo here is a Wall Street outfit called RIA R Squared — an investment management firm that primarily serves foreign institutional investors. It’s also where Gonzalez has worked for the last five years after leaving the city manager’s job in 2020 under pressure by the commission, primarily Commissioner Joe Carollo. Gonzalez is a partner at R Squared, which manages approximately $1 billion in assets on a “discretionary basis” — and dropped not one, but two $250,000 checks to Mission Miami in April. That’s half a million bucks right there, gente. Enough to buy two condos in Allapattah. Cash.
There’s also a $15,000 contribution from Timothy Patrick Torline, who is a financial advisor at an R Squared subsidiary. And $1,000 from David Kang, the CEO of that subsidiary.
Read related: Third DCA strikes down Miami election change; November ballot is on
“They believe in me,” Gonzalez told Political Cortadito, adding that he does no sales and his company does no business in the state of Florida. “They simply believe in what I stand for and my vision for the city.”
Gonzalez, who has never run for office or had a political action committee before, is starting from scratch and doesn’t have anybody to shake down like Carollo does. He doesn’t have the power of incumbency like Miami-Dade Commissioner Eileen Higgins, whose PAC raised $250,000 in the same period.
The other big donors to the Gonzalez Mission Miami PAC are:

$30,000 in two checks, for $18K and $12K, from Palmetto Bay’s Roger West, CEO of Pyramids Property Management.
$25,000 from SGD Offices, a Doral company with Max Alvarez as one of its principals.
$25,000 from Peninsula 2705 LLC, a North Miami Beach real estate holding.
$23,000 from the law offices of Miguel Inda-Romero.
$10,000 from the Carlos M. De La Cruz Revocable Trust in Key Biscayne.
$10,000 from Maybe Beach attorney Jay Eric Gould.
$10,000 from Juan “J.C.” Flores, a Tallahassee political operative who has worked for Marco Rubio and Carlos Giménez.
$10,000 from Black River Productions, an audio studio in Doral.

On paper, Gonzalez’s own campaign account looks modest by comparison: about $69,000 raised in Q2 from nearly 146 donors, most of them local. Notable names include:

Read Full Story

The Third District Court of Appeal hasn’t dropped its ruling yet on whether the City of Miami can just cancel its elections like a bad brunch reservation, but the smart money is on Emilio Gonzalez — the former city manager who sued to undo the shady ordinance that postponed this year’s mayoral race (and two commission contests) until 2026.
Gonzalez wants to run for mayor now, not next year. After all, he’s been campaigning for months. Last week, Miami-Dade Judge Valerie Manno Schurr agreed, ruling the city commission’s change of the election by ordinance without a voter referendum was unconstitutional because it violates both the city and county charters, which trump state law. So, super duper unconstitutional.
Read related: Miami-Dade Judge: Miami Commission can’t cancel election without public vote
In other words: Commissioners cannot just cancel the election because they feel like it. Not even if they say it really fast in legalese. Or hold up props, which is what the city’s hired gun, outside attorney Dwayne Robinson, did in moment of legal theater that would make Shakespeare cringe. Robinson stood there holding two printed copies of the city charter — one from before the election-postponing ordinance passed and one from after — and told the court: “There is no change. There is no amendment. Nothing is repealed.”
Nothing’s changed? Except the whole part where the city commission gave themselves another year in office, moved the election to 2026, and completely ignored the charter’s very clear instruction that elections be held in odd-numbered years. But yeah, nothing’s changed.
Robinson barely made it a minute in before Judge Monica Gordo interrupted with a polite but pointed, “The charter is the city’s constitution, is it not?”
“Why would the commission hang its hat on a permissive state statute when they have a constitution confronting them with a ‘shall,’” Gordo asked, rhetorically because you could tell she already knows the answer is they cannot.
You could almost feel the eye rolls from the bench. And Gordo wasn’t the only one wondering why she was there. Because the city’s legal logic would get laughed out of a mock trial at Jose Marti Middle School.
Judge Kevin Emas seemed frustrated with the city’s argument that, hey, moving an election without voter approval was totally legit and not at all a coup in slow motion. Judge Fleur Lobree seemed bored. She scooped up her documents and notes to leave before the city’s rebuttal was even finished.
Several times Emas made the point that Gonzalez and his attorneys were making: You can’t have a charter and a code that contradict each other and expect this not to end in chaos.
Read related: First lawsuit filed to stop city of Miami from cancelling November election
Attorney Alan Lawson, a former Florida Supreme Court Justice representing González, called the city’s argument “a semantic sleight of hand.” Well, that could describe a lot of discussions at city commission meetings. Basically, Lawson said, if the charter says elections are in odd years, and you pass something that says otherwise, then you’re changing the charter — and you need a referendum. Voters get a say. It’s really not that hard.
“They say, ‘We didn’t amend the charter. The words are still there in the charter,’” Lawson said about the city’s argument. “They say that this is just an alternative means of rule-making in an area historically limited to the referendum process. They say it’s an alternate path.”
And if the commission can take an “alternate path,” why bother with a charter at all?
“Lincoln famously said that you can call a tail a leg but it doesn’t make it so,” Lawson said. What if they call a tail the head?
In other words: saying “we didn’t change the charter, we just ignored part of it” is the legal equivalent of “it’s not cheating if I close one eye.”
Even Miami-Dade County showed up to remind the city that they’re not above the rules. And when the county feels the need to weigh in on how broken your logic is, you know you’ve lost the room. Assistant County Attorney Michael Valdes told the judges that under the Miami-Dade Home Rule Charter — aka our local constitution — changes like this must go to the voters. You’d think that would be obvious to a city with more lawyers than potholes.
The city’s rebuttal? That the charter isn’t a “magic document that cannot be altered unless there’s a referendum.” Oh really? So is it a suggestion box? A pirate map? A mood ring? A souvenir from when there was democracy in Miami?
If it’s not binding, then what is? The whims of three commissioners?
But, you know, a Miami courtroom drama isn’t complete if there’s not a Carollo cameo. And here, there were two.
Frank Carollo watches intently while county attorney Michael Valdes argues the home rule charter trumps state law
Commissioner Joe Carollo wasn’t there Tuesday — but he wanted to be. As if he didn’t have enough legal battles of his own, Carollo — who always wants to be el protagonista — wanted to insert himself into someone else’s courtroom drama. Crazy Joe loves the sound of his own voice. Y como un colado in a quinceañera he wasn’t invited to, Carollo asked the court to let him speak at oral arguments in a case he’s not even a party to.
The Gonzalez legal team told the judges that this was disruptive and that Carollo simply wanted to grandstand. Ya think? The DCA judges — who may have seen Carollo drone on and on and on at commission meetings — told him nananina. They saved themselves.
But his brother was there. Former Commissioner Frank Carollo, who has filed to run again in District 3, sat behind Gonzalez in the audience and looked glum. He later made a comment to the press outside because he doesn’t want Gonzalez to be the only one getting a ton of earned media for suing the city.
Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, was also in the courtroom, in the front row. Suarez is hoping the city prevails so he can have an extra year in office to increase his net worth even more.
Read related: Miami Commissioners pass election date change — and steal an extra year
Observers expect the judges to issue a ruling soon. Ladra is surprised it’s taken them this long because their skepticism was pretty evident at the hearing.
This isn’t about “clarifying” the charter or “modernizing” elections. This is about commissioners handing themselves an extra year in office and hoping no one would notice.
Well, guess what? People noticed.
So did Judge Manno Schurr, and now three appellate judges seem poised to deliver the same message: You want to change an election date? Ask the damn voters.
A ruling is expected soon. Ladra just hopes the city doesn’t try to drag this into extra innings with another appeal. Haven’t we wasted enough taxpayer money already?
The post Third DCA seems skeptical of Miami city election change, cancellation appeared first on Political Cortadito.

Read Full Story

Miami’s political telenovela just cast another familiar face: Former Miami Mayor and former District 7 Miami-Dade Commissioner Xavier Suarez wants his old job back — and maybe a rematch with Commissioner Joe Carollo.
Just hours after a Miami-Dade Circuit Court judge on Monday declared the Miami City Commission’s election year change by ordinance unconstitutional, effectively rescheduling the cancelled election, Suarez — who had been considering a run and was included in multiple polls — popped out of the shadows to announce its official.
Read related: Miami-Dade Judge: Miami Commission can’t cancel election without public vote
That’s right. The O.G. of Miami’s Cuban political club, the first island-born mayor of the Magic City, and papi to current Mayor Francis Suarez, is officially hitching a ride in the clown car that is the next Miami mayoral election — whenever that is. He said he would file paperwork Tuesday morning for what’s shaping up to be the most dramatic race for Miami mayor since… well, dare I say 1997?
That was the year of the first mano a mano mess between Suarez and Carollo, who’s been threatening to run for mayor for more than a year. Suarez technically won the race, until it was revealed by The Miami Herald that the election was tainted by absentee ballot fraud. Not only did a dead man vote, but people who lived in Westchester and Broward also voted in the city election. Eso no se puede hacer.
Ladra worked that election investigative story and remembers that Suarez was never officially tied to the AB shenanigans. Suarez just got swept up in the scandal when the court threw out all the ABs, effectively handing Carollo the seat.
And we all know how that turned out — with Carollo yelling at everybody and betraying his supposed allies. So, pretty much what he’s doing now, almost three decades later.
In addition to Carollo, Suarez and Diaz de la Portilla, none of whom have filed any paperwork as of Monday, there are 10 other candidates who have opened bank accounts and made their intentions official. They include Miami-Dade Commissioner Eileen Higgins, former Miami Commissioner Ken Russell, former City Manager Emilio Gonzalez — who sued to restore the November election, which commissioners tried to change without voter approval — onetime congressional candidate Michael Hepburn, former Miami-Dade Community Council Member Christian Cevallos, perennial candidates Max Martinez and June Savage and first timers Alyssa Crocker, Ijamyn Joseph Gray and Linda Anderson, who doesn’t stand a chance as an official member of the Socialist Workers Party.
Read related: Miami-Dade Commissioner Eileen Higgins could join Miami Mayor’s race
But he is also sorta running against his son. Baby X is termed out in November and, by all indications, was counting on a bonus year in office to increase his net worth with side gigs and fundraise for his next influencer trip to Dubai. The city is appealing a ruling Monday from a Miami-Dade judge who cancelled the cancellation of the November election for mayor and commissioner because the vote last month to move elections from odd to even years was unconstitutional.
In his announcement Monday, Xavier Suarez congratulated Emilio Gonzalez for initiating the lawsuit to challenge the city commission’s change (read: cancellation) of election by ordinance — and took some credit. “I was directly involved in the selection of counsel and contributed significantly to the strategic approach, specifically advising that only indispensable parties be named as defendants,” reads his statement. Ladra thinks he means Carollo, whose attorneys filed an amicus brief.
The senior Suarez also said that his political action committee would campaign against the proposed ballot referendum on lifetime term limits, even though there is a carve out for him and Carollo because they did not serve two full, regular terms. He said the ballot question is misleading. “The city’s charter already provides for term limitations,” Xavier said in his statement. “This proposal seeks to implement retroactive lifetime restrictions and unfairly imposes constraints on individuals who previously served when such limitations did not exist.”
Instead, his PAC will support putting two other questions on the ballot, which are the petitions that have been collected by Stronger Miami, a coalition of community groups including the One Grove Alliance: One would move the elections to even-numbered years by a public vote and the other would expand the commission from five to nine members.
Hey! Isn’t that Russell’s issue?
Read related: Petition aims to add Miami commission districts, change election to even years
Suarez didn’t throw his son completely under the bus, saying that the “city has made commendable progress in maintaining public order, stimulating significant private-sector economic growth, and reducing the millage rate.” But, apparently, not enough progress on property tax relief. X said he supported measures proposed by state legislators and dropped the names of State Representative Vickie Lopez and Florida House Speaker Daniel “Danny” Perez.
Suarez, 76, hasn’t held elected office since he left the county commission in 2020.
Now, all eyes are on Carollo, who lives for this kind of political drama. Will he make it official and file paperwork to set up the rematch nobody asked for — but everybody will watch? Or will he just scream from the dais and call everyone a traitor until the November ballot goes to print?
The deadline to qualify is Sept. 20.
¡Aguántate, Miami! Because the ghosts of elections past are running again.

If you like what you read on Political Cortadito, please consider making a contribution to support the independent, government watchdog journalism on this website. Thank you!

The post Former Miami Mayor Xavier Suarez to file for crowded city mayoral race appeared first on Political Cortadito.

Read Full Story

First step victory for mayoral candidate is appealed
The wannabe dictators at Miami City Hall just got a hard slap of reality from the bench. And Ladra is here for it.
In a fiery ruling, hot enough to singe the mayor’s eyebrows, Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Valerie Manno Schurr on Monday declared what most Miamians already knew in their gut: The Miami City Commission’s shady decision to cancel next year’s election and hand themselves an extra year in office without first taking it to voters was unconstitutional.
Basically, they tried to cancel your vote. And got caught and slapped on the ballot.
And thanks to former City Manager Emilio González, who is running for mayor, the election is back on.
Well, maybe. Fingers crossed. “While we respectfully disagree with the trial court’s decision,” City Attorney George Wysong said in a statement, “we are confident in the strength of our case and remain optimistic about the outcome on appeal.” That appeal was filed before the ruling came down based on Wednesday’s hearing. Because the city already knows the case is a stinker.
The issue is pressing, since the ballot for this year has to be ready for printing by September, so the judge has set a date of Aug. 8 to resolve it. Knock on wood.
Read related: First lawsuit filed to stop city of Miami from cancelling November election
González sued the city days after the commission voted last month to move municipal elections from odd to even years, effectively postponing the 2025 election until 2026 and extending their own terms without so much as a “¿te importa?” to the voters.
The ordinance — sponsored by “reformer” Commissioner Damian Pardo — is purportedly about increasing turnout a lot and reducing costs a little. The idea was to empower voters, Pardo said. But the change also just happened to keep voters out of the loop and ignored an earlier vote to limit terms to a max eight years by giving the bonus year to even term-limited commissioners.
“This is not just a victory for me,” González said in a statement, polishing his halo, “it is a triumph for all voters in the City of Miami and across Miami-Dade County who believe in upholding our charter and the rule of law.”
His legal team — including former Florida Supreme Court Justice Alan Lawson (the big guns) — called the move what it was: a charter-busting, power-hungry hijack. They compared it to stunts pulled in places like Venezuela, Nicaragua, Bolivia, and Cuba — countries where elections get postponed for “reform” and never really come back.
Sound familiar, Miami?
Lawson argued that the charter — Miami’s own governing rules — and the county’s Home Rule charter say you need a vote of the people to make election changes like this. And they trump any state law the city was relying on.
But city attorneys argued that, no, no, they were just tweaking the city code. Not the charter. As if voters can’t tell the difference.
The judge did not mince her words to say that the city was playing a magic trick with, um, words.
“The City’s contention that its Ordinance did not ‘amend’ its City Charter is nothing more than semantic sleight of hand. In one sense, of course, the City is correct, it did not effectuate a permissible amendment to its Charter because the Florida Constitution and Miami-Dade County Charter do not allow the City to amend or repeal its provisions by ordinance. That can only be accomplished with a vote of the electorate, as the Plaintiff correctly contends.”
Sounds like a Catch-22: “We didn’t change the charter because that would require a vote of the people. No, we don’t need a vote of the people because we’re not changing the charter.”
Read related: Miami Commissioners pass election date change — and steal an extra year
Even Assistant City Attorney Eric Eves had to admit, awkwardly, at a hearing last Wednesday that the city’s new ordinance puts the charter and code at odds. “Yes, it conflicts with our charter. But I haven’t heard anyone claim our charter supersedes the state.”
The city and Pardo kept using the example of North Miami — where they extended terms by 18 months in 2023, and later upheld by an appeals court — to say that, well, if that municipality can do it, why can’t we? Eves suggested that Manno Schurr read the opinion of Judge Reemberto Diaz in that case and copy/paste. “There’s no need to reinvent the wheel,” he said.
But the González team argued that the North Miami case did not set a binding precedent. “There’s no procedural value whatsoever in that opinion. The issue you’re being asked to decide was not raised in that case,” Lawson said, calling it irrelevant.
Assistant City Attorney Eric Eves, Judge Valerie Manno Schurr and plaintiff’s attorney, Alan Lawson
Pero, por si las moscas, the hearing was also attended by a North Miami resident who wanted to tell the “horror story” about the change of election in that city. “We ended up with someone serving 25 years in office,” said Eileen Bicaba, president of the NoMi Neighbors Association, who last year filed a lawsuit against three council members for violating the state’s Government in the Sunshine Law.
“This was nothing short of a coup in North Miami,” Bicaba said, passionately.
In her ruling, the judge mostly relied on one aspect: She said the city’s reliance on state law was misplaced. Perhaps a better word would be “selective.” Because the city actually omitted a tiny little wee part of the law it relied on, which reads, “The Florida Election Code… shall govern the conduct of a municipality’s election in the absence of an applicable special act, charter, or ordinance provision.” The judge’s bold letters, not Ladra’s.
The second part of the law only exists, Manno Schurr repeated, apparently for emphasis, “in the absence of an applicable charter provision.” Again, Ladra has to compliment her on the use of bold font when appropriate. In other words, you can only apply that law when the county or the city don’t have laws that conflict.
“Here, there are two charters that together apply and control: the Miami-Dade Charter and the City Charter,” Judge Manno Schurr wrote in her 14-page decision. So the state law “cannot be construed to authorize the City’s passage of the Ordinance.”
The Miami-Dade charter “unambiguously prohibits the City from cancelling an election, moving an election, or extending the terms in office for city officials without the consent of the electorate given at a properly held election,” the judge wrote. Keyword: Without.
“Furthermore, the Court will not presume that the Legislature intended [state law] to be construed as permitting municipalities to extend existing terms or change the term limits in the absence of express text granting such authority,” she writes in the ruling. Boom! She gets it.
“This omission stands in stark contrast to section… which expressly allows a municipality to effectuate ‘changes in terms of offices necessitated by . . . changes in election dates,’ provided the issue is not ‘preempted to a county,” Manno Schurr writes.
Which, as established, it is.
Read related: Miami commissioners should shorten their terms for election year change
All of this was unnecessary. Pardo could have taken this concept to the people, you know, like in a democracy. He could have campaigned for it. He already put lifetime term limits on the November ballot. It would have been easy to add the change in election year and let the voters decide. But it’s way easier to just bulldoze ahead because he “had the votes” on the commission, and, as he says, he had to seize the moment.
Who cares if people had already spent time and money campaigning for this year’s election? Ladra bets Pardo would have felt differently, however, if they had pulled this in 2023, when he was running for commissioner. Perhaps, as some critics say, extending his own term is the only way he’ll serve more than four years.
On Wednesday, Pardo posted a statement on social media that was the exact statement provided to Political Cortadito by the city’s spokeswoman on behalf of the city attorney. So it’s an echo chamber over there at City Hall. They got nothin’ to say.
Commissioner Joe Carollo, who has also threatened to run for mayor and voted against the election year change, had attorneys attend Wednesday’s hearing after they filed an amicus brief in support of Gonzalez, which is a nice change of pace. Not that González needed it or welcomed it.
Denise Galvez-Turros, an activist in Little Havana who filed to run for commission in District 3, also filed a lawsuit last week that challenges the validity of the ordinance and asks the court to find it void and unenforceable.
“This unlawful act is not merely a procedural defect. It is a calculated effort by a narrow majority of the Commission to entrench themselves in power, override the will of the electorate, and circumvent the very Charter provisions they are sworn to uphold,” wrote attorney Reid Levin on behalf of Galvez Turros.
“The people of Miami are entitled to choose their representatives at the ballot box; not have them imposed by ordinance.”
There is a little more than two weeks left before the Aug. 8 deadline to hear the city’s appeal of Manno Schurr’s ruling. Expect another round of lawyerly acrobatics from the city attorney’s office.
Maybe more excuses about turnout, costs, traffic, climate change, Mercury in retrograde — anything to avoid putting this to a real vote.
Emilio T Gonzalez v City of Miami — Judge says ordinance to change election year without public vote uncon… by Political Cortadito on Scribd

The post Miami-Dade Judge: Miami Commission can’t cancel election without public vote appeared first on Political Cortadito.

Read Full Story

Former Miami City Manager Emilio Gonzalez, who has been campaigning for the mayor’s race for months, has filed a challenge to the city commission’s cancellation of the November election — the first of what could be several lawsuits.
City commissioners voted 3-2 last week to change the election date from odd to even years, effectively cancelling this year’s election for mayor and commissioners in districts 3 and 5 and extending everybody’s terms by a year. Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier had warned them a day earlier that they could not do that and that there would be consequences. But he has not filed any legal motion to stop the change.
Could he, like some other would-be candidates, be waiting the 10 day period before Mayor Francis Suarez‘s deadline to veto the measure? Because that’s not gonna happen. This is his idea, after all. Sure, the ordinance was sponsored by Commissioner Damian Pardo but that’s only because Baby X convinced him.
Read related: Miami commissioners should shorten their terms for election year change
Both Suarez and Pardo are named in the lawsuit, as are every other commissioner (even though Commissioners Joe Carollo and Miguel Gabela voted against it), City Clerk Todd Hannon and Miami-Dade Supervisor of Elections Alina Garcia.
“The City of Miami Commissioners unconstitutionally bypassed the democratic will of the people in a way that the Florida Constitution, the Miami-Dade Charter, and the City’s Charter expressly prohibit,” said Alan Lawson, former Florida Supreme Court Justice and lead counsel at Lawson, Huck, Gonzalez PLCC, which is representing Gonzalez. “This repugnant and deliberate act was done without a single electoral vote in defiance of Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier’s clear warning that doing so was illegal. Miami voters are the only ones who can decide to change the election date thus extending the terms of elected officials, which is the immediate concern of our client,” Lawson said in a statement.
“We are stunned by the brazen actions of Miami’s elected officials,” Gonzalez said, though he should probably be the least surprised.
“Canceling a regularly scheduled election and extending their own terms in office is in direct defiance of Florida law. Doing so without the consent of voters is an outrageous abuse of power. Attorney General James Uthmeier has already warned that this violates the law, and Governor Ron DeSantis has strongly supported that position. Disenfranchising voters undermines our democracy and robs citizens of their voice at the ballot box,” he said.
“If they can steal an election, what else can they steal?”
In the complaint for declaratory and injunctive relief, the attorneys for Gonzalez write that the commissioners did “three legally impermissible things” when they passed the ordinance on final reading Thursday.
“First, they cancelled the election scheduled for November 4, 2025, less than five (little  more than four) months away — the stuff of failed regimes around the world,” the complaint states. “Second, they fundamentally changed when the General Municipal Elections — i.e., the  elections for the city of Miami Mayor and its City Commissioners — occur, from being held in odd numbered years, as the City of Miami’s Charter unambiguously mandates, to even years concurrent with midterm and general elections.
“This point bears repeating: Without a referendum — i.e., without a single vote cast by  the people of the City of Miami — the Commissioners have overridden the City of Miami’s Charter (its constitution) to change how and when the City of Miami’s elections take place,” the lawyers wrote. “But it gets worse.
Read related: Miami Commissioners pass election date change — and steal an extra year
“The third, and perhaps most concerning, thing the Commissioners did …  is decide that they and the already-term-limited mayor get to stay in office longer than the voters elected them to be in office.
“The Commissioners unconstitutionally bypassed the democratic will of the people in a way that the Florida Constitution, the Miami-Dade Charter, and the City’s Charter expressly prohibit. Once more, they did so without a single electoral vote,” the lawsuit states.
“Reminiscent of regimes in Venezuela, Nicaragua, Bolivia, or Cuba — the very places so  many of Miami’s people come from—those in power, while in power, forced upon those voters what  they think is best for elections going forward—and secured for themselves additional time in power,  without a vote of the electorate.
“That cannot stand.”
Meanwhile, Gonzalez has not stopped campaigning.
Emilio Tomas Gonzalez v. City of Miami, Et Al by Political Cortadito on Scribd

The post First lawsuit filed to stop city of Miami from cancelling November election appeared first on Political Cortadito.

Read Full Story