Finalist: Isadora Rangel of the Miami Herald

There’s a common expression in Miami politics: Everyone knows how to count to three.

Three is the number of city commissioners required to pass legislation with a simple majority. It allows a small group of commission members to hijack the legislative process and intimidate colleagues who don’t want to see their priorities killed on the dais.

Miami has been embroiled in a legal battle over how commission seat districts were redrawn last year following the 2020 U.S. Census. In May, a federal judge sided with a coalition of civic groups that argued in a lawsuit that commissioners broke up neighborhoods like Coconut Grove and Flagami for the sake of hitting “racial quotas” and maintaining the ethnic makeup of the commission. The judge ordered the city to redraw its district boundaries.

Instead of temporarily fixing a broken system by moving district lines, it’s time for Miamians to demand more.

Miami’s City Commission must grow from five districts to seven or nine, as many community advocates suggested to the Herald Editorial Board. The exact number should be part of a discussion we hope to spur.

Miami is the largest city in South Florida. It projects itself as a hub of tech and financial companies rivaling New York and San Francisco. Yet Miami is run like Mayberry. The city has the same number of commission seats as Stuart, a sleepy retirement community on Florida’s Treasure Coast, population 18,200. Miami Beach and Hialeah, smaller neighboring cities, have larger commissions.

U.S. Census numbers show Miami’s population has grown to almost 450,000 since voters adopted single-member districts in 1997. The population was fewer than 372,000 back then. Miami voters opted for districts because they wanted more diverse representation after the city ended up without a Black commissioner for the first time in 30 years.

Compare Miami to cities of similar size across the country. Tampa (population: 398,000) has seven council members, four of them elected in districts and three at-large. Atlanta (population: 500,000) has 12 council districts plus three members elected at-large. Long Beach, California (population: 451,000), has nine districts.

POWER CONCENTRATION

Size is not the only reason to reform Miami’s system of government.

It is not an overstatement to say that a lot of dysfunction stems from how Miami structures its elected body. That has allowed Commissioner Joe Carollo to abuse his position for so long. With few at City Hall willing to stop him, it took a federal jury in June to conclude Carollo weaponized the Miami’s code enforcement against two Little Havana businessmen as retaliation for supporting his 2017 election opponent. Carollo has been ordered them pay $63.5 million in damages and is expected to appeal that decision.

Other commissioners and staff must have known this was going on, but Carollo holds 20% of the power on the commission. Add the vote of his ally/frenemy Commissioner Alex Diaz de la Portilla and they only need one more vote to control the commission on most matters.

“Frankly, [more districts] may be the only thing that saves the city of Miami,” J.C. Planas, an election lawyer who was part of an unsuccessful effort in 2020 to recall Carollo, told the Herald Editorial Board. Planas, a former Republican state representative is planning to run for Miami-Dade County supervisor of elections as a Democrat next year.

To be clear, this is not a Carollo problem. If it were, we could wait until he reaches his term limit. Any commissioner can become too powerful. More districts would dilute the power of elected officials who hold too much of it.

We recognize the arguments against a larger commission. Representatives elected in smaller districts run the risk of focusing too much on parochial issues, like fixing pot holes, and less on big-picture challenges like sea-level rise and mass transit. Diluting the power of commissioners also dilutes the power of the individual communities they represent. But the reasons for more districts are abundant.

The current system has allowed three commissioners elected with a voter turnout of no more than 15% in the past four municipal elections to control decision making for Florida’s second-largest city. Miami holds municipal elections in odd years instead of presidential or midterm elections, when voters are more likely to go to the polls. That election calendar guarantees low turnout.

These factors together have created a disconnect between Miami’s needs and its government. More voices on the dais will force commissioners to build consensus, leading to better decisions.

CITY MISSED THE BOAT

The city is missing the perfect opportunity to enact these changes. The lawsuit and order by federal Judge K. Michael Moore that the city redraw districts boundaries should have kicked off a conversation on the dais. It didn’t. The commissioners wouldn’t vote to dilute their own power.

On June 14, they approved a new set of five districts that still require court approval. The American Civil Liberties Union and the community organizations that sued the city — among them two NAACP branches and Coconut Grove community group GRACE — have said they will oppose the new maps, arguing it is still gerrymandered.

On June 14, they approved a new set of five districts that still require court approval. The American Civil Liberties Union and the community organizations that sued the city — among them two NAACP branches and Coconut Grove community group GRACE — have said they will oppose the new maps, arguing it is still gerrymandered.

The new maps also have another problem: They keep the questionable decision of drawing the lines of District 3 to include Carollo’s Coconut Grove home. The six-bedroom house on Morris Lane previously was in another district, so when Carollo ran for his seat in 2017 he rented a West Brickell apartment to meet the city’s residency requirements. The new maps also pushed the home of Diaz de la Portilla’s opponent in the November elections, Miguel Angel Gabela, outside his District 1.

It’s clear that Miami commissioners used the redistricting process to amass and maintain power. A small commission only makes it easier for them to run the city for such personal gain.

The Herald Editorial Board spoke to several of the plaintiffs who sued the city. Although their lawsuit deals with the maps that currently exist, they, too, are having conversations about pushing the city to have seven to nine commission seats.

“Our services would be improved,” said GRACE board member Clarice Cooper, who lives in West Coconut Grove.

THE WAY FORWARD

Changes to Miami’s government system require a city charter amendment, which must be approved by voters. The easiest way to accomplish that would be if the commission put the proposal on the ballot, but there’s little appetite for that. The only other way is a citizen-driven referendum. That would require the certification of petition signatures from 10% of registered voters as of the last municipal general election, according to state law. That’s 21,760 signatures based on the 2021 elections.

A citizens’ initiative needs to be organized and ironclad. Paying signature collectors and mounting a campaign to convince voters could cost upwards of $500,000, Planas said. There may be legal hurdles, too, as the proponents of the Carollo recall learned in 2020.

After the city clerk’s office rejected a batch of more than 1,900 petition signatures, saying they were delivered too late, the recall committee sued the city. After months of litigation — and a lawsuit by Carollo himself — a district judge ruled the petitions were indeed late. Although they were submitted online before a deadline, they were physically delivered after it.

It’s only wise to anticipate Miami City Hall would try to undermine any efforts to increase representation. It’s time for Miami to grasp its own future. People who care about the city must take action and start a petition process soon. If Miami wants to be the city of future, it cannot afford a dysfunctional system of government any longer.

This is the first editorial in a series that examines flaws in the city of Miami’s structure of governance.

Miami Mayor Francis Suarez announced his 2024 Republican presidential primary bid with a big claim.

Speaking at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California, Suarez boasted about turning his “Democrat-dominated city into one that has successfully reelected this Republican mayor in 2017 and 2021 by nearly 80% of the vote.”

Suarez is right. He won election and reelection in Miami with 85% and 78% of votes cast, respectively. And that sounds impressive. But here’s what he didn’t say: Just 14% of voters went to the polls — fewer than 31,000 in a city with more than 217,000 registered voters in 2021.

That’s not a mandate from his constituents. Far from it.

Poor voter engagement is not a Suarez problem — it’s a Miami problem. It’s partly — though probably not entirely — the result of the elections for mayor and City Commission taking place in odd years when no other big races are on the ballot. Off-cycle voter turnout is generally lower.

So why does Miami put important decisions on the ballot when voters aren’t paying attention? In November, most of the City Commission will be up for reelection, and we doubt many residents know about it.

Voter participation is an embarrassment for Miami-Dade County’s largest city — a world-class destination, tech hub and financial center. Turnout hasn’t surpassed 16% in any election in the past decade. It once got as low as 8.5% in a 2015 runoff, data from the county’s Supervisor of Elections office shows.

Miami has been plagued with scandal after scandal recently, from the payments Suarez received from a developer doing business in the city to a federal jury’s decision that Commissioner Joe Carollo abused his powers to retaliate, by weaponizing code enforcement against two Little Havana businessmen who supported his opponent.

It’s impossible not to wonder whether voter apathy and the city’s dysfunction are related.

There are no perfect solutions to this problem. Voters, of course, need to show up. But we should make it easy.

One idea that deserves serious consideration would be changing Miami’s elections from odd-numbered years to midterms and presidential elections, when turnout is higher because voters are more engaged. Miami isn’t the only municipality in Miami-Dade with such off-year election timing, but given its size — almost 450,000 residents — and $2.5 billion annual budget, it requires special attention.

There’s evidence to back up the effectiveness of this solution.

A 2016 study by Rice University found that cities in California that held mayoral races in the same year as presidential and midterm elections had turnout of up to 22 points higher. Faced with similar issues as Miami, places like Los Angeles changed the timing of their local elections. The number of voters casting ballots in L.A. grew 400% in 2020 compared to 2015, according to a study by the University of California, San Diego.

“Moving elections to be on-cycle would be the best way to increase turnout,” Aaron Weinschenk, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay who researches political participation, told the Herald Editorial Board.

“Every study that I have ever seen on local turnout . . . has shown that turnout is way higher in local elections when they occur during presidential elections or midterm elections.”

WHAT IS MIAMI WAITING FOR?

Mayors and council members arguably are even more consequential than governors, members of Congress and presidents. They directly impact your quality of life, from how much development is allowed in your neighborhood to what you pay in property taxes.

Voters who sit on the sidelines may wind up with a government that doesn’t put their needs first. That could easily mean younger and poorer constituents are overlooked. The median age of Miami’s voting population age was 68 in 2013, the oldest among 50 U.S. communities analyzed for a project called Who Votes for Mayor?, by Portland State University and the Knight Foundation. The median age of Miami’s adult population, meanwhile, was 45.2 years.

Low voter turnout is just one of many reasons Miami is dysfunctional. The Herald Editorial Board has also advocated for a larger City Commission.

All of these changes require political will.

Moving elections requires a city charter amendment approved by voters. Voters, themselves, can put the amendment on the ballot, through an expensive and long petition process, or the City Commission can do it. The latter is, unfortunately, unlikely.

Commissioners benefit when only their most faithful supporters show up at the polls. That ensures there are few repercussions for bad behavior like Carollo’s abuse of power, which has been common knowledge for decades.

There are downsides to moving Miami elections to coincide with on-cycle contests. Local issues might be drowned out by bigger races for state and federal offices. Local nonpartisan races run the risk of becoming embroiled in a greater amount of partisanship. The turnout in the August primary in midterms isn’t particularly good, though it increases in the November general election and in years when there’s a presidential race.

There’s no guarantee that politicians like Carollo wouldn’t get elected, or that City Hall would be fixed if more Miamians voted. But greater voter participation could force elected officials to appeal to a larger number of constituents.

MIAMI IS AN OUTLIER

Odd-year elections are a common American practice intended to push voters to focus on community issues. But less than a quarter of the country’s adult population usually votes in these contests, according to the study by the University of California, San Diego.

Miami stands out as being among the worst. Turnout in Miami Beach and Coral Gables, for example, was up to 13 points greater than Miami in the past four elections, even though those cities have odd-year elections. Miami had the ninth-lowest voter turnout in mayoral races among the 50 U.S. communities included in the project Who Votes for Mayor?

What’s wrong with Miami?

It depends on whom you ask. Some of the experts who spoke with the Herald Editorial Board blame a reduction in local news coverage, voters’ lack of understanding of the importance of city government, a transient population in parts of the city like Brickell and downtown and a feeling among voters that Miami is so bad there’s nothing they can change.

Those voters are mistaken. They can, and should, take responsibility to improve the city.

Don’t like Miami’s dysfunction?

Vote.

They’re in it for themselves.

That is the only conclusion we can reach when half of Miami’s elected politicians are either under investigation or facing legal challenges for allegedly using their office for personal benefit.

Commissioner Alex Diaz de la Portilla was arrested on Sept. 14 — and suspended by the governor — on charges that include money laundering and bribery.

A federal jury in June found Commissioner Joe Carollo liable for violating the free-speech rights of two businessmen — a ruling he vowed to reverse on appeal. They accused him in a lawsuit of using the city’s code enforcement rules to retaliate against them for supporting his opponent.

Mayor Francis Suarez received $170,000 in consulting payments from a developer who received help from his office to overcome a permitting hurdle. It’s unclear if what Suarez did was illegal, but the FBI began investigating the issue in June, the Herald reported. He also faces a state ethics investigation over expensive tickets he accepted to sporting events, including the 2022 World Cup.

All three deny any wrongdoing.

Political scandals, corruption and arrests of elected officials are part of Miami history. In the 1990s, a massive FBI investigation resulted in the conviction of a commissioner and city manager.

That was almost 30 years ago.

Why hasn’t Miami shed its reputation for dysfunction? Because there are no consequences at the polls for bad behavior.

Suarez was reelected two years ago, before Herald reporters revealed his lucrative outside employment. But Carollo and Diaz de la Portilla have decades-long records that range from Carollo’s “Crazy Joe” days to Diaz de la Portilla’s “bad boy” reputation during his years in the Florida Legislature.

Yet, in the past five years, Miami voters have put them back in office — twice, in Carollo’s case.

A SELF-SERVING ALLIANCE

The two commissioners have dominated City Hall — often through intimidation and political payback — since their elections two years apart. Diaz de la Portilla and Carollo benefit from a small City Commission of only five members. The Herald Editorial Board’s series Miami Dysfunction has proposed adding more commission seats so that no two politicians can come so close to controlling it.

Carollo denies doing anything wrong and accused the Editorial Board of painting him as a “bad person” because he refused to attend a candidate interview with the Board during his 2021 reelection.

“This is the image that you and the Editorial Board have been trying to put out for a long time,” he told Board member Isadora Rangel.

For the record, our criticism of Carollo has nothing to do with his interview two years ago, and everything to do with wanting Miami to have elected officials of integrity.

It’s an open secret that those who cross the duo often pay the price, whether they are the wealthy entrepreneurs who sued Carollo, or regular citizens who speak at public hearings and are berated from the dais. In 2021, Carollo infamously orchestrated a two-day political circus that led to the firing of former Police Chief Art Acevedo that included bizarre footage of Acevedo’s crotch area in a tight Elvis Presley costume.

POWER PLAY

“The day Alex got elected, everything changed,” former Miami Commissioner Ken Russell told the Editorial Board. ”Joe knew he had a partner in revenge.”

Shortly after Diaz de la Portilla’s 2019 election, the two commissioners led a political power shift in city agencies in charge of millions of dollars.

A 3-2 vote gave Diaz de la Portilla chairmanship of the Omni Community Redevelopment Agency, ousting Russell from the post. Diaz de la Portilla’s arrest affidavit accuses him of using that position to champion an athletic facility in exchange for $245,000 in political contributions. He calls the charges politically motivated.

Last year, Miami-Dade’s ethics commission found probable cause that Díaz de la Portilla abused his power in using the Omni CRA to hire a friend for a no-show job and who then used a city-issued car to pick up alcohol for him and drop off his dry cleaning. The other commissioners, including Carollo, stripped him of his chairmanship, but later reinstated him.

Diaz de la Portilla asked for a meeting with the Editorial Board, to which we agreed, but then didn’t show up, saying afterward that his attorney had advised him not to discuss his case.

Chairmanship of another agency, the Downtown Development Authority, went to Commissioner Manolo Reyes, who provides the third deciding vote on the commission.

Meanwhile, Carollo maintained control of the Bayfront Park Trust Management, which he used to push a no-bid giveaway of nearly $1 million for a pet project of his: the installation of metal dog and cat statues at Maurice A. Ferré Park in downtown.

Carollo also pushed the commission in 2020 to pass restrictions on outdoor music that were widely believed to target the Little Havana night club Ball & Chain, co-owned by one of the businessmen who were suing him. Carollo has always contended that his efforts to crack down on Bill Fuller’s establishments were meant to protect Little Havana residents, but Russell said, “We all knew what it was all about.”

And then there was the redistricting process this year, subject of a federal racial gerrymandering lawsuit. Carollo’s longtime house was added to his district, allowing him to officially reside in it, and Diaz de la Portilla’s main opponent in the November election was drawn out of his, though a judge ruled on Wednesday he could still be on the ballot.

Carollo said the city’s paid consultant, not him, drew district lines to account for population growth. Yet it’s hard to believe it was a coincidence how the two commissioners personally benefited in the process, as seems to be the motto of many Miami politicians.

WHERE’S THE MAYOR?

On paper, the mayor should have been the relief that Miami needed from its bad reputation. Instead, Suarez seems to have cashed in on his high-profile position.

Aside from the payments he received from a developer with business before City Hall, in the past 20 months Suarez had 15 consulting arrangements or jobs that contributed to an income between $2.1 million to $12.9 million, the Herald reported. Some of those arrangements were in industries he promoted, such as cryptocurrency, as he branded himself Miami’s next-generation leader and presidential candidate. He dropped out of the race within a few months of his speech announcing his run.

As a part-time mayor, Suarez is allowed to hold outside employment. But Miamians should ask how his net worth grew 400% in his first term as mayor, as the Herald reported. Unfortunately, accountability is not his forte. Suarez even tried to grab a Herald reporter’s cell phone when she asked him questions.

Ironically, perhaps a sensible solution to Suarez’s potential conflict of interest comes from no one other than Carollo: making the mayor position full-time.

Miami residents should demand that their elected officials work for them, not to protect their self interest.

Francis Suarez has reinvented the office of Miami mayor — and Suarez benefits the most.

The 46-year-old lawyer had a negative net worth when he was first elected commissioner in 2014. His personal wealth soared while in office, especially once he was elected mayor in 2017, reaching $3.4 million by the end of 2022, the second year in a row in which Suarez more than doubled his net worth, the Herald reported. In the past 20 months, he’s had more than a dozen lucrative side gigs not disclosed until he had to under federal rules during his short-lived presidential bid.

There are serious questions about whether Suarez used his high-profile position to connect to powerful people and businesses that have given him employment arrangements.

Most recently, the Herald reported on his six-figure advising arrangement for two financial firms run by close associates of a Russian oligarch. Other sources of income include a cryptocurrency mining company whose branded shirt he wore while he promoted Miami as a crypto capital, and a developer whose company sought help from the mayor’s office to overcome a regulatory hurdle. The latter is under federal investigation, the Herald reported. Suarez denies wrongdoing.

Accountability shouldn’t stop with law enforcement investigations.

Already, the Florida Legislature this year tightened personal finance disclosure requirements for local officials, requiring an itemized breakdown of all sources of income above $1,000. That’s an important step because previous loose requirements allowed Suarez to fly under the radar.

Even if Suarez hasn’t broken any laws, the city of Miami should look into how its mayor can receive a $130,000 annual compensation package from taxpayers while holding multiple side gigs that bring into question his commitment to public service.

It’s time to revisit Miami’s unusual mayoral system, which gives him a bright spotlight, but little authority.

As a part-time mayor, Suarez is entitled to hold outside employment, even though former mayors who spoke to the Herald Editorial Board said that’s more of a full-time occupation. Suarez’s controversies look like a symptom of a larger issue that has prompted the Herald Editorial Board to examine the city’s government in a series called Miami Dysfunction.

There is no foolproof way to build a city government immune from people who are seeking personal gain. We acknowledged that when we proposed a larger City Commission and moving city elections to boost citizen involvement. Yet it’s clear the status quo isn’t working, as seen with Suarez, the recent arrest of now-suspended Commissioner Alex Diaz de la Portilla and a $63.5 million federal jury verdict against Commissioner Joe Carollo.

While in previous editorials we proffered specific reforms, when it comes to the mayor’s job we hope to spur a discussion among residents. We understand there are different ideas after talking to about half dozen people with deep knowledge about the city.

Carollo, who’s appealing that federal verdict, has proposed making the mayoral position full time. Former Mayor Tomas Regalado said the only measure that will restore voters’ faith in City Hall is a city charter amendment that prohibits the mayor from holding outside employment. Former Commissioner Ken Russell said a “strong mayor” system that allows that person to run the city would make them more accountable to voters.

“In my view, [Suarez] decided to vacate his position as head of the government,” Regalado, who’s considering running again after Suarez leaves office in 2025, told the Board.

To us, Miami’s government — from its small five-member commission to embarrassingly low voter turnout — seems outdated for a city whose boom in recent years has attracted some of the richest and most powerful people in the country, along with economic interests looking to buy influence at City Hall.

FLORIDA MAYORS

Florida municipalities generally have two types of figure heads. A “weak mayor,” which is the case in Miami Beach, is a member of the commission or council and doesn’t have more power than other commissioners. A “strong mayor” — like the mayor of Miami-Dade County or Hialeah — runs the government like an executive.

“Each of these two would work better than what we have [in Miami],” former state representative and elections lawyer J.C. Planas told the Editorial Board.

Miami’s system falls somewhere in between. The mayor isn’t part of the commission, but his powers are limited to vetoing legislation, proposing a budget, declaring emergencies and hiring and firing the city manager who runs city government, though commissioners can overrule that decision.

In other words, the Miami mayor title carries lots of buzz but relatively little power.

A skilled politician could use that high-profile position to push for their priorities. Suarez did that when he whipped up commission votes that approved a controversial deal to allow Inter Miami to build a soccer stadium and commercial complex on public land.. But that person can also use the status of Magic City mayor for influence peddling and personal gain.

In 2018, Suarez tried to pass a strong-mayor referendum that would give him, among other responsibilities, power over a 4,000-person municipal workforce. Suarez had just been elected mayor and his proposal irritated powerful politicians who fought the measure — which the Herald Editorial Board also opposed — and eventually helped defeat it with voters.

Could a successful referendum have prevented Suarez from taking so many outside gigs? Like every other alternative, a strong mayor would have benefits by giving that person authority to execute policies, as well as pitfalls — the possibility of too much political interference in the city’s administration.

If there’s a way to improve Miami, it won’t be easy. Democracy is messy, but it is worth preserving in the Magic City.