A ballot measure on petitions sparks a fight over recalling Miami-Dade’s mayor

A Miami-Dade commissioner this week launched a radio ad attacking a proposed ban on letting petition gatherers get paid per signature, claiming the ballot measure would make it harder to recall Mayor Carlos Gimenez.

The Spanish-language ad by Commissioner Xavier Suarez’s political committee targets Miami-Dade’s Referendum 5, which would amend the county charter to ban per-signature payments for petition gatherers used to get items on the ballot.

In the ad, Suarez warns listeners the proposed amendment is “intended to protect the same politicians” who have mismanaged the county’s transit dollars and toll roads. “For example, to recall Gimenez, you have to collect 60,000 signatures. If you can’t pay a couple of dollars to collect a signature, how can you possibly collect 60,000?”

The charter amendment is up for a countywide vote in the general election that ends Nov. 6, and backers call it a sensible reform to eliminate a financial incentive for petition gathers to boost their compensation with forged or coerced signatures.

“If a petition gatherer has to work for five or eight hours, and only gets five signatures, it’s pretty tempting to go ahead and make up fake names,” said Marisol Zenteno, president of the Miami-Dade League of Women Voters, which endorsed the charter change. “But if you’re being paid by the hour, you don’t have that incentive. It’s just your job.”

Suarez holds Gimenez’s old seat on the County Commission, and the two are political foes. Gimenez came to the mayor’s office in 2011 after the recall of then-Mayor Carlos Alvarez.

Like Alvarez at the time of the recall, Gimenez is in his second term and is barred by the county charter from running again in 2020. County rules require a recall petition to have signatures from at least 4 percent of the county’s registered voters. That currently sets a bar of just over 56,000 signatures.

Gimenez rejected Suarez’s ad as deceptive and a political stunt.

“It’s misleading the people,” Gimenez said. “If you’re being paid by the signature, you’re going to be very aggressive. ... You may really overstate what you’re trying to get a person to sign. Whereas, if you’re paid by the day — okay this is what I’m being paid. I’ll gather these signatures. And hopefully really inform the individual what they’re signing.”

The proposed charter amendment was put on the fall ballot in June on a 10-0 vote by the County Commission, which Suarez missed. In an interview, Suarez said he wasn’t calling for a recall of Gimenez “at this point,” and was only citing the county mayor as an example of how a recall works.

But the script seems aimed at Gimenez, who serves as the appointed chairman of the Miami-Dade Expressway Authority toll board. Suarez has clashed with Gimenez on toll roads and the county’s transit dollars, and his ad says the proposed charter amendment “is intended to protect the same politicians who have misspent the half-cent sales tax and who have put tolls on highways built many years ago.”

Norman Braman, the billionaire auto magnate who bankrolled the 2011 recall effort against Alvarez, said he agreed with Suarez’s argument that the charter amendment is designed to make it it harder for voters to expel politicians from office.

“That’s all it is — to prevent them from being recalled,” Braman said Wednesday. “They’re just protecting their butts. They’re afraid of the public.”

Braman said some of the petition gatherers hired for the 2011 recall drive were paid by the signature, and some weren’t.

The Miami-Dade Democratic Party also opposes the proposed charter change, saying it “will disincentivize signature gathering.” The local Republican Party did not weigh in on any of the five proposed Miami-Dade charter amendments, which would change some rules for elections and how citizens can pass county ordinances by referendum.

The ad, which aired on Actualidad 1040 AM this week, is the latest volley in an ongoing feud between the Gimenez and Suarez families. Gimenez’s political committee is sending out mailers opposing a ballot initiative by Miami Mayor Francis Suarez — who is the county commissioner’s son — that would grant the city mayor executive authority over Miami’s department directors and employees.

Xavier Suarez, an attorney, drafted an August lawsuit by a Coral Gables commissioner and activists against the county and Gimenez, claiming the mayor’s proposed transit budgets have violated the terms of the 2002 referendum that authorized Miami-Dade’s half-percent transportation tax.

Gimenez was later dropped from the suit, leaving the county as the lone defendant. County lawyers are urging a judge to dismiss the suit, which they say misrepresents the rules of the 2002 referendum.

This story was originally published October 24, 2018 at 6:58 PM.