Miami mayor is lobbying behind the scenes for proposal to skip November election
Miami City Commissioner Damian Pardo is pushing forward with a controversial proposal to move the city's elections to even-numbered years through a City Commission vote, despite a new opinion from the Florida Attorney General's Office and a public rebuke from the governor, both saying the city needs to put the question out to voters instead.
Pardo is the official sponsor of the hotly debated City Commission legislation, a measure that would involve skipping the upcoming November election and giving the city's current elected officials an extra year in office.
But the Miami Herald has learned that, behind the scenes, Mayor Francis Suarez has been lobbying to push the proposal through. If the measure passes, Suarez — a former city commissioner who is reaching the end of his term limits as mayor — would get a 17th consecutive year in Miami City Hall.
The Miami mayor doesn't have a vote on the five-member City Commission, but he does have veto power. Because he does not have a vote, Suarez has the ability to meet privately with city commissioners to discuss legislation and whip up support. The commissioners, on the other hand, are bound by Florida Sunshine Law, which prohibits them from discussing legislative matters with each other outside of a public meeting.
In this case, Suarez's help may be essential to securing the three out of five votes needed to pass Pardo's proposal, which seeks to push the November election to 2026 through two City Commission votes, rather than letting voters weigh in via ballot referendum. To date, not a single city commissioner besides Pardo has publicly committed to voting in favor of it.
Commissioners Joe Carollo and Miguel Angel Gabela told the Herald they oppose the change and will be voting no. Newly elected Commissioner Ralph Rosado said that while he generally supports moving to even-year elections, he hasn't made up his mind yet. Commissioner Christine King, the chairwoman of the commission, declined to comment publicly on her stance ahead of the June 17 meeting where the commission is slated to cast the first of two votes on the measure. (The meeting was originally set for June 12 but has since been rescheduled.)
In need of two supporters on the dais to move his proposal forward, Pardo — who previously called for Suarez's resignation in late 2023 — has turned to the mayor for assistance.
'My general sense is that he thinks this is a good thing for Miami, and he has been willing to make those calls [at] my behest,' Pardo told the Herald. He said the mayor's goal is to 'garner support wherever possible.'
'Francis was involved from the beginning in order for us to find out if there was more support from the dais,' Pardo added.
When was the beginning, exactly? Pardo said he's been discussing various reform measures with the mayor since around early 2024, shortly after Pardo was sworn in. As far as their recent conversations, Pardo estimated that he and the mayor have spoken about this particular issue three to four times in the last couple of months, including this week.
Asked what has changed for Pardo since he called for Suarez's resignation in late 2023, Pardo cited the mayor's involvement in various city projects, including the Miami Marine Stadium development.
'He started doing his job,' Pardo said of Suarez, who declined to comment for this story.
Pardo added that while the mayor is involved in pushing for the election date change, 'This is not about Francis.'
'I think that's the fallacy here,' Pardo said. 'I'm the one pushing the initiative.'
Commissioners Rosado and Gabela both confirmed to the Herald that Suarez had discussed the proposal with them. While Gabela couldn't pinpoint exactly when the conversation took place, he said it happened 'a long time ago,' around when Pardo first introduced a separate proposal in April to introduce stricter term limits for elected officials — weeks before the proposal to push back the election was known about publicly.
Seeking more information on the legality of Pardo's proposal to delay the November 2025 election, Gabela asked for advice from the Florida Attorney General's Office, which issued a written opinion Wednesday saying the city cannot push its election back to 2026 without voter approval.
'My mind is made up,' Gabela said in light of the Attorney General's opinion. 'I'm a no.'
Nevertheless, in a statement Thursday responding to the Attorney General's opinion, Pardo indicated he plans to go full steam ahead: 'We are confident that this reform is both legal and necessary for the benefit of future generations of Miamians.'
Gabela's opposition makes Commissioner King a key vote to passing Pardo's proposal. But the Attorney General's opinion could create uncertainty for King, an attorney who has previously expressed concern at commission meetings about passing legislation that might not meet legal muster.
At a meeting in March, for example, King directed the city attorney to flag proposed legislation that 'clearly flies in the face of the law.'
'As a practitioner, although I am not representing myself as an attorney, but as an elected official here on this dais, I can still be held responsible by the Florida Bar if I pass any legislation that is not legal,' King said at the meeting, adding: 'I'm not voting on anything that I know is not legal.'
City Attorney George Wysong has said that the commission has the authority to move the election date under Florida law, and Pardo has pointed to two Miami-Dade cities that have done so already: Coral Gables and North Miami.
Unlike the Miami proposal, Coral Gables officials shortened their terms instead of extending them.
The stated purpose of Pardo's legislation is to move the city to even-year elections, which could increase the city's typically low voter turnout and also save the city hundreds of thousands of dollars in election costs. Miami residents have generally expressed support for moving to even years, and the mayor has also been a proponent of the change in the past.
But another benefit to the election date change is that — in a roundabout matter — it clears the way for Pardo's other reform measure, a proposal to create lifetime term limits for elected officials. Although the two proposals — even-year elections and lifetime term limits — are different items that will be voted on separately, they've become linked for both practical and political reasons.
Currently, elected officials in Miami are limited to two four-year terms as mayor and two four-year terms as a commissioner, but they are allowed to return to the same position a few years later. Under Pardo's term limits proposal, elected officials would be capped at two terms in each position for their lifetime.
In its current form, that legislation would block Suarez from seeking elected office in Miami again. It would also block Carollo from office since he has already served at least two terms as both mayor and a commissioner, and it would keep his younger brother, former City Commissioner Frank Carollo, from running for the City Commission again. Frank Carollo has already filed to run for the District 3 City Commission seat — currently occupied by his brother — in November, and Joe Carollo has long been mulling another run for mayor.
The issue is that the term limits proposal would need to go to voters for approval, and Pardo is aiming to get it on the ballot in November, when residents are scheduled to head to the polls to vote in three races: mayor, District 3 commissioner and District 5 commissioner. But that timing could create legal roadblocks, according to Pardo, because the term limits proposal would be on the same ballot as candidates who would be affected by it.
For example, if Frank Carollo or Joe Carollo win in the November election and the term limits proposal also passes and invalidates their victories, they could have standing to sue the city.
Why can't the term limits proposal just go on the ballot next year instead?
Pardo said he didn't want to risk changes to the 'composition' of the City Commission as a result of the November election that could thwart his efforts. In other words, come November, he might not have the votes for it, depending on who wins.
'I don't want to run that risk of the reshuffling of the cards,' Pardo said.
Pardo added that while he is concerned about the possibility of Joe Carollo becoming mayor in November, 'none of this was targeted at anybody.'
Carollo sees it differently.
'Damian Pardo and the people that own him are petrified that I might decide to run for mayor,' Carollo said, ' ... because they don't feel they can beat me, and they certainly know that my brother — they have nobody to beat him, either.'
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Wysong cited three Florida statutes that he argues give the city the green light. One of those statutes states that the governing body of a city can 'by ordinance, change the dates for qualifying and for the election of members of the governing body of the municipality and provide for the orderly transition of office resulting from such date changes.' Changes to the city charter require voter approval, and the provision stating that Miami elections take place in odd years is enshrined in the city charter. But in his opinion, Wysong cited a Florida statute that says, regardless of the provisions in a municipal charter, the governing body of a city can 'move the date of any municipal election to a date concurrent with any statewide or countywide election' by ordinance. 'Even if the City Charter conflicts with the statutes, the statutes control,' Wysong wrote. Uthmeier, on the other hand, pointed to the Miami-Dade County Home Rule Charter, arguing that 'the electorate of the City of Miami, by way of the County's provisions in the County Charter, has a direct role in amending its charter' and that 'ignoring this procedure would render meaningless' certain provisions in the Florida Constitution. 'The charter specifies that the electors of municipalities must decide directly, by way of referenda, whether to amend their charter,' Uthmeier said. He added that 'a decision in which the municipality's governing body alone purports to amend unilaterally the municipality's charter simply contradicts the county's charter.' 'The fact that the result of the charter amendment might achieve a specific objective stated in a general law is of no consequence,' Uthmeier said. Three votes needed Pardo needs support from at least two of his colleagues on the five-member City Commission to move the proposal forward. Commissioners Joe Carollo and Gabela have stated they are opposed to the proposal and will be voting no. That leaves Commissioners Christine King and Ralph Rosado — who was elected in a special election last week — as Pardo's potential allies. King declined to share her thoughts about moving the election before Tuesday's commission meeting. Pardo has also gotten assistance from Mayor Francis Suarez, who has been lobbying behind the scenes to whip up commission support for Pardo's proposal. If the change passes, Suarez — who is term-limited as mayor — would get a ninth consecutive year as mayor and a 17th consecutive year in City Hall. Suarez was previously a city commissioner from 2009 to 2017. Carollo, who is also reaching the end of his term limits, would get a ninth consecutive year as the District 3 commissioner. The other four elected officials — Pardo, Gabela, King and Rosado — would get an extra year in office as well. That means Tuesday's meeting puts Rosado in a position to vote to give himself an extra year in office at his first City Commission meeting. Rosado has previously said he's in favor of moving to even-year elections, but he has not committed publicly to voting for or against Pardo's proposal. While the attorney general's opinion gave him some pause, Rosado told the Miami Herald that 'I trust our city attorney and the way he's guiding us.' 'George [Wysong] is adamant that the commission does, in fact, have the right to vote on this on Tuesday,' Rosado said. Asked if he thinks it would disenfranchise voters to extend or shorten city commissioners' terms without voter input, Rosado said, 'I'm gonna have to think about that.' The newly minted District 4 commissioner noted that many people have been reaching out to him about the proposal. 'Folks feel strongly one way or the other,' Rosado said. 'I don't think there's a solution that is somehow perfect, that makes everybody happy.'
