Miami Commissioners pass election date change — and steal an extra year

Lifetime term limits moved forward to November ballot
There will still be an election in the city of Miami this year — but it might be for a charter amendment, not for candidates.
Miami commissioners on Tuesday took the first step toward moving city elections from odd to even years, which extends everybody’s terms by 12 months, including Mayor Francis Suarez (who worked behind the scenes to make this happen) and Commissioner Joe Carollo, who were both termed out this year and has been threatening to run for mayor. Elections for mayor and two commission seats scheduled for Nov. 3 could be moved to Nov. 4, 2026, if the ordinance passes on second reading later this month.
Maybe.
Ladra expects a bunch of lawsuits. Not just from Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, who said in an opinion issued last week that any such change would first need to go to a public for approval. Candidates who have already been campaigning this year — including former Commissioner Ken Russell, former City Manager Emilio Gonzalez and perennial candidate Michael Hepburn — might also take the city to court over this. Is the city disenfranchising voters?
Carollo, who has been threatening to run for mayor this year, voted against it. So did Commissioner Miguel Gabela, who got into it with Carollo later in the meeting on the Bayfront Park Management Trust (more on that later).
Read related: Miami commissioners Damian Pardo and Ralph Rosado have private lunch
Commissioner Damian Pardo, who sponsored the measure (and had a very good day), Ralph Rosado, who was elected earlier this month to fill the seat vacated by the late Manolo Reyes., and Chairwoman Christine King, after she talked for several minutes against the measure, voted in favor. King said she was just moving it along to second reading. That means that people need to reach out to her before June 26 and convince her to switch her vote and remove her support for this power grab.
Rosado was the swing vote, as everyone expected. But he swung the other way, voting opposite of his benefactor, Commissioner Carollo, who ran and funded Rosado’s campaign, pouring hundreds of thousands into it from his political action committee.
So much for the Reyes legacy that Rosado promised to continue. Manolo would never have voted to give himself an extra year.
Rosado was also the swing vote on the lifetime term limits (again, against Carollo’s “no” vote) that are absolutely part of the election year change, no matter how many times Pardo denies it on the dais. He did tell Ladra earlier that one was “instructive” to the other. What does that mean? Basically, that the election year change — perhaps a positive change for increased turnout that other cities are also making — was only proposed right now to make the lifetime term limits stick. Current term limits allow term-limited electeds to run again after a break from office. If voters pass lifetime term limits in November — which would prohibit former electeds who served two terms from running for the same seat — it would make a mess if they also elected former Commissioner Frank Carollo, who has filed to run in District 3 and brother Joe to the mayor’s seat.
Read related: Miami commission to talk term limits, election date, DDA, Watson Island…
The change in election year will avoid, allegedly, any legal challenges that may come from having lifetime term limits on the same ballot as former or current electeds that would suddenly become ineligible because of that amendment. Even if the change in election year practically guarantees a legal challenge in its own right. It’s a ‘means justifies the ends’ kind of thing.
People spoke both in favor and against the change, citing “dynasty” politics that have reigned in Miami for decades.
Some speakers said that it was worth the “sacrifice” of an extra year of Joe to “get rid of him” forever. His threat to run for mayor is the fear driving most people who support the move is that Carollo would run for mayor this year and win among the current clown car of candidates. While Ladra believes that’s not as much a done deal as they think, it is not “worth the risk,” they say, of another four or eight years of Carollos — because former Commissioner Frank Carollo is running again in District 3.
Among the supporters, was journalist Michael Putney, an Aventura resident who endorsed Pardo and also posted a video for him in favor of the “common sense” change. “Eight years is enough,” he said, citing what he said was “pathetic turnout.”
Joe Carollo said it should be called the Carollo amendment because it targeted him and his brother. “You know very well that you can’t find a candidate who can beat Frank,” Carollo said. “That’s why you want to knock him out.”
Pardo, who lobbied hard for the change, invited other “advocates” to come to the meeting and has even provided them with talking points for both the election year change and the lifetime term limits. So if the public comments sound similar and rehearsed, that’s why. His political action committee paid for a poll that he says shows widespread support. But it was his own PAC doing the poll, not an independent party.
Read related: Miami lifetime term limits, election year change intertwined, like bait & switch
Pardo posted videos on social media, including a clip from a Telemundo interview with former Miami-Dade Mayor Alex Penelas, basically giving both items on the agenda a thumbs up, and another video of iconic restauranteur Monty Trainer, who must be 120 years old, supporting both measures as well.
But every single comment on that Instagram post is against the change. “This is quite crazy,” says one. “This is so wrong,” says another. “Shameful. Should be sent to the voters. You keep pushing this like you are giving us a choice,” wrote Donald G.
“Moving the elections is all well and good if it’s approved by residents in a referendum. Elected officials voting to give themselves more time in office is not democracy,” said someone under the handle MannyFernandez04.
But Ladra likes Jessica Johnson‘s (at doubleagentjj) comment the best: “Damian, the pesky thing about the democratic process is: it’s tedious and due process matters above all. You seem to be falling into a power grab trap. How many authoritarian dictators said they were dictating in the name of democracy and upholding democracy? All of them.”
There were some public speakers Tuesday who said it was just not worth another year of Carollo and Suarez and that they would support the move another time, after Carollo and Suarez are already termed out. Pardo’s sponsored sister legislation to adopt lifetime term limits — which would make anyone who served two terms as mayor or two terms as commissioner ineligible for that same seat ever again — would be retroactive, which is something that was already challenged in Miami Beach and upheld by the courts. So it would still count against Carollo in the future.
Fernand Amandi, a Democrat strategist who lives in District 2 and has otherwise supported Pardo’s items, said it was “indefensible,” and that “this sacred decision” had to be made by voters.
“I find myself in the unfamiliar position today where I wholeheartedly agree with Governor DeSantis and Attorney General Uthmeier, and even Commissioner Joe Carollo,” Amandi said, and it did sound weird. Amandi said he would likely vote for Pardo again for another four years. “But not nine years.”
Carollo joked about it. “My wife’s gonna think you have a man crush on me,” he quipped.
Activist Denise Galvez Turros, a public relations specialist and former candidate who has filed to run again — in the same seat as Frank Carollo — asked the commission and Pardo to trust the voters to reject the Carollos. And if they don’t?
“So be it.”
She said that she knew, from walking her district, that people did not want to cancel the election.
“I trust the people of this city,” Galvez Turros told Ladra before the meeting. “They’re awake, immured and ready to speak through their vote this November.
“We don’t need backroom deals,” she said. “We need election. We need democracy.”
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