Miami-Dade Commissioners silence voters, appoint District 5 replacement

The fix was always in for Vicki Lopez
Well, District 5 will not get to vote, after all, to replace its outgoing Miami-Dade commissioner. Instead, Miami-Dade commissioners did what they’ve now done twice in five years: they chose for the people. Because nothing says “democracy” like elected officials refusing to let residents elect anyone.
In a 7-5 vote Tuesday, commissioners appointed State Rep. Vicki Lopez — a Republican, Tallahassee regular, and condo-reform crusader — to fill the seat vacated by Eileen Higgins, who abandoned it effective earlier this month to run for Miami mayor.
Lopez wasn’t even in the room. She was in Tallahassee. But that did not matter. Este bacalao ya estaba corta’o.
Read related: Push for special election could throw wrench in Miami-Dade D5 appointment
In other words, this outcome wasn’t exactly shocking. The good money had been on Lopez from the moment Higgins announced her intentions. Or really even before that. Because Commission Chair Anthony Rodriguez, who has been Lopez’s biggest booster (a favor to House Speaker Danny Perez?), had a trick up his sleeve — a legislative hold on anything having to do with special elections.
Funny, he didn’t mention that in any of the interviews leading up to Tuesday’s decision. Ladra talked to Rodriguez at least twice about the decision-making process. He never said the special election was not an option at all. He declined to answer the phone after Tuesday’s vote and did not respond to text messages. He knows what he did.
Rodriguez didn’t just resist a special election. He didn’t just argue against it. He blocked it. When Vice Chair Kionne McGhee tried to introduce a motion to have a the decision made by the people, Rodriguez shut him down like a nightclub bouncer who’s already told you three times you are not on the list.
“You’re not recognized, Mr. Vice Chair,” Rodriguez said, in the kind of tone that he normally uses to hush members of the public who come to speak on an issue.
Translation: The script is written. Sit down. Shut up.
Commissioner McGhee, who voted against the appointment, made the point loud and clear: “Today is not about who gets to fill the seat,” he said. “It’s about who gets to choose.”
Exactly. District 5 residents — from Little Havana to Fisher Island, from downtown Miami to South Beach — will now get Lopez whether they like it or not. At least until August, when she’ll have to run to keep the seat. But by then she’ll have the advantages of incumbency, staff, and county visibility — the whole package.
Read related: Let the jockeying begin to fill Eileen Higgins’ Miami-Dade commission seat
Lopez’s appointment wasn’t strictly partisan. Commissioner Oliver Gilbert, a Democrat, made the motion to appoint her. And several commissioners praised her as a strong leader, even if they disagreed with the process. But las malas lenguas say this was orchestrated by Democrats to push for a special election in House District 113, which they think they can win after Nov. 4’s national results.
But make no mistake: seating Lopez gives Republicans a temporary one-member advantage on the officially “nonpartisan” board. Ladra puts “nonpartisan” in quotes because we all know what’s up.
Among the few public speakers who called for a special election was former Miami City Commissioner Joe Sanchez, a former contender for the sheriff’s seat, who had applied for the appointment but asked commissioners to hold an election — basically because he knew he wasn’t going to get picked.
“It’s about respecting the voices of the people,” he said.
Three others submitted applications for the appointment: former Miami-Dade Commissioner Bruno Barreiro, onetime Miami commission candidate Anthony “Tony” Diaz, — who already filed for the state 113 race (more on that later) — and former Miami Beach Commissioner and state rep David Richardson.
In a short video posted on Instagram after the meeting, Diaz called the decision a “coronation,” which showed a level of astuteness for this newbie.
“It almost seemed like a choreographed dance,” Diaz said.
“Rodriguez made the asinine argument that the elections would not be good elections, as did Gilbert, because there would be low turnout,” he added, citing that the June 3 special election for Miami’s District 4 commission seat got almost 20%. “We can’t force people to go vote. But we sure can give them a chance.”
But Rodriguez called his appointment maneuver “the democratic option.” You can’t make this stuff up. Because, apparently, democracy now means: We appoint someone so more people can vote later, because letting fewer people vote sooner is undemocratic.
Got it.
One of the stated reasons is cost. A special election in February could have cost up to $1.2 million. But this is the same commission that threw $46 million to the FIFA World Cup host committee and the same commissioners who considered a plan to buy a building on Quail Roost Drive for $160 million, while two appraisal firms valued it at an average of $122 million.
In other words, they find the money when they really want to.
Commissioner Raquel Regalado, who also voted against the appointment — as did commissioners JC Bermudez, Rene Garcia and Micky Steinberg — threw some justified shade at the outgoing commissioner, who is facing a Dec. 9 Miami mayoral runoff against the city’s former manager, Emilio González. If Higgins had resigned effective months earlier, the county could have held the special election for the District 5 seat on Nov. 4, when Miami and Miami Beach voters were already heading to the polls for their municipal races and ballot questions.
“An election doesn’t have to cost money,” Regalado said. And she’s not wrong.
Read related: Eileen Higgins officially resigns Miami-Dade seat to run for Miami mayor
But Higgins didn’t want to cut off the bully pulpit that also served as a fundraising strategy. Some could say she timed her resignation in a way that all but ensured an appointment. Lopez was always the favorite, and that triggers a special election that Democrats and some consultants, ahem, would be very happy about.
But whether it was intentional or political convenience, the result is the same: voters got cut out.
Instead of a choice, they get Lopez, 67, who already represents a chunk of District 5 in the Florida House. She’s known for condo reform, pushing to ease financial requirements for associations. She’s also been part of state talks to lower property taxes — the same ones county leaders say would blow a crater in Miami-Dade’s budget if Gov. Ron DeSantis gets his referendum.
In the 1990s she served on the Lee County Commission and was once convicted of fraud — a conviction later vacated, after she served 15 months in prison. That chapter always resurfaces, but commissioners seemed unbothered by it on Tuesday. Similarly, they didn’t seem to remember that her family members got cushy jobs with Bus Patrol — the company outfitting school buses with cameras — after she ushered the law that allows for the cameras to catch vehicles that illegally pass.
This is Miami. What’s a little fraud and favoritism among friends?
Read related: Miami-Dade School Board to revisit flawed, ‘connected’ BusPatrol program
District 5 is a political kaleidoscope: Little Havana, downtown, Brickell, Fisher Island, South Beach, parts of Mid-Beach, Silver Bluff, and Shenandoah. It includes the priciest real estate (property values) in the county. It’s diverse, high-turnout, high-profile, and high-stakes.
And Tuesday, it got a commissioner chosen by seven people on the dais, not the tens of thousands who live there.
Rodriguez insisted he was “supporting democracy” by blocking a special election.
“I am giving, with my vote, the constituents of District 5 a voice,” he said.
Except the only voice District 5 got was his.

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