Miami commissioners want to make it harder for residents to remove them from office

Three Miami commissioners voiced support Monday for a measure that would make it tougher to recall elected officials accused of wrongdoing, despite resistance from some residents who say the move would weaken the public’s power to hold their leaders accountable.

The ordinance would force residents to wait a full year before pursuing the recall of an elected official after an initial recall effort fails. The move comes weeks after a recall effort was launched against Commissioner Joe Carollo, although it was not immediately clear whether the new legislation would apply to that petition. City Attorney Victoria Méndez declined to comment after Monday’s meeting.

The three commissioners who voted for the ordinance on first reading — Carollo, Manolo Reyes, and the measure’s sponsor, Alex Díaz de la Portilla — all said the ongoing effort against Carollo had nothing to do with their views on this proposal. The measure still needs a second vote to be approved.

“My approval of this resolution has nothing to do with Mr. Carollo and it will not affect Mr. Carollo’s recall initiative,” Reyes said, adding that the current system subjects officials to the prospect of “double jeopardy,” or being tried twice for the same offense. “This legislation protects the rights of the elected officials. We have rights, too.”

Carollo suggested the measure would also protect the rights of voters by honoring their picks for the commission and for mayor. As it currently stands, newly elected officials can’t be recalled within a year of their first election, but they can theoretically be subject to recall drives repeatedly without time limits after that.

“It’s not the American way,” Carollo said. He said Miami-Dade County has language in place that’s similar to what the Miami commission could adopt. “I do not understand why there is a problem with this here, and there’s not a problem with the county law that’s been here for some time,” he said.

But Commissioner Ken Russell said he sees it differently, preferring to err on the side of protecting residents’ power.

“I can’t support it at the expense of residents having the ability to [have] accountability over us,” Russell said.

The measure passed on first reading, 3-1, with Russell opposed and Keon Hardemon absent from the dais when the vote took place. The commission will take a final vote at a future meeting.

A local attorney, David Winker, raised several questions about the legislation that largely went unanswered Monday. For one, he argued, the city charter prevents the commission from limiting residents’ recall rights without holding a referendum.

“Any ordinance passed by the city commission that limits this right will be null and void as being contrary to the rights reserved to residents in the Charter,” Winker wrote in a letter to the commission. “I believe a court would see this for exactly what it is — a cynical and undemocratic effort by commissioners to immunize themselves from the protections afforded residents by the city Charter and state law.”

But Méndez, the city attorney, said state law doesn’t speak to whether residents should be limited in how often they can pursue recall petitions, leaving municipalities free to do so. The city of Miami’s laws do not outline a procedure for recall, so residents defer to state law.

“If the state wanted a continuous recall process, they would have said so,” Méndez said during Monday’s meeting. The city, she said, would merely be “clarifying an area of state law that has not been dealt with.”

Winker suggested that the ordinance, if passed on second reading and signed by Mayor Francis Suarez, could offer a loophole for officials to shield themselves from future recalls. All it would take, he said, is a political operative intentionally filing a recall petition against an official that doesn’t get enough signatures to move forward. Then, the official would be safe for a year.

“I think that shows the absurdity and the illegality of it,” he said.

On Jan. 30, a group of activists filed paperwork to begin a recall petition against Carollo. The petition states that Carollo should be recalled as the District 3 commissioner “for committing misfeasance and malfeasance,” referencing his well-publicized efforts to identify and push for enforcement of code violations at the Little Havana nightclub Ball and Chain.

The petition also cites an incident where Carollo hosted a paella luncheon for seniors in his district, and Díaz de la Portilla, then a County Commission candidate, was present and greeted residents. Both Carollo and Díaz de la Portilla, who lost the county election but was elected to represent the city of Miami’s District 1 in November, have denied any wrongdoing since prosecutors began an inquiry in June 2018.

Former Miami-Dade County Commissioner Bruno Barreiro and former Miami City Manager Joe Arriola publicly announced their support for the recall effort against Carollo earlier this month. Arriola said he has committed $100,000 to the effort.

Mounting a municipal recall is a tall order due to state laws that require the use of volunteers and two stages of gathering signatures. The petitioners have 30 days from the day the first signature is collected to gather signed petitions from at least 5% of the district’s registered voters. In District 3, which has 31,536 voters, the recall effort would need 1,577 signatures to move forward.

If the requisite number of signatures are verified, Carollo would have the right to write a 200-word statement defending himself against a recall. This statement would then be included on the petition for a second round of signature-gathering, where the recall campaign would need to collect petitions from 15% of District 3’s voters, or 4,730 signatures.

If the recall effort reached this point with enough verified signatures, Carollo could either resign or go to a recall election, where voters would decide whether he should be removed from office.

This story was originally published February 25, 2020 at 6:30 AM.