Political consultant sues Miami Beach over law banning him from post-election lobbying
A political consultant and lobbyist who has helped get candidates elected in Miami Beach — while working with private companies to score political victories — has sued the city over a 2017 ethics law banning campaign consultants from lobbying the commission for 12 months after their candidate is sworn into office.
David Custin, who helped get former Mayor Philip Levine elected and most recently represented a towing company on the Beach, filed a lawsuit last month in Miami-Dade Circuit Court alleging the law violates his First Amendment rights. The legal complaint states that Custin “may suffer lost future earnings and impaired earnings capacities” as a result of the law.
Custin’s attorney, former Miami Beach Commissioner Jonah Wolfson, wrote in a statement Monday that commissioners “abused their power to inflict political retribution” when they voted unanimously to approve the ordinance in the summer of 2017.
“It is our position that some current and former members of the commission abused their power to inflict political retribution at the expense of the First Amendment,” Wolfson wrote in the statement to the Miami Herald. “They adopted an unconstitutional ordinance, all to negatively impact David’s livelihood and free speech rights. This lawsuit seeks to rectify that injustice and the abuse of power.”
Once a prominent lobbyist in the city, Custin has not represented private interests on the Beach since 2018, when he was registered with the city as a lobbyist for Beach Towing, one of the two tow companies in the city.
That was his only client that year, according to city lobbying records. In 2015, he registered as a lobbyist nine times. During that time, he represented The Betsy Hotel in South Beach related to a bridge connection to the former Carlton Hotel, and Ocean Terrace Holdings for a large-scale redevelopment in North Beach.
“When your campaign adviser also is going to lobby before you, that can create the appearance of a conflict of interest,” said Commissioner Ricky Arriola on Monday.
He and Commissioner Micky Steinberg are the only current members who voted on the ordinance. Levine, who left office in 2017 and then ran for Florida governor, also voted to pass the law.
Arriola said that the ethics law “wasn’t targeting any one individual.” The one-year lobbying ban, he said, is “reasonable.”
Parameters of the law called ‘narrow’
Rob Rosenwald, Miami Beach’s first assistant city attorney, wrote in a statement Monday that he believes the “narrowly drawn restriction ... will be upheld by the court.”
“Mr. Custin has sued the city so that he can lead a commissioner’s election efforts and then immediately lobby that newly elected commissioner on behalf of other clients,” Rosenwald said. “We can’t comment in the press as to our legal strategy for this case, but I can tell you this: The U.S. Supreme Court has made clear that government has a compelling interest in preventing impropriety or the appearance of impropriety through its campaign finance and lobbying rules. When the dust has settled, we believe that the city’s narrowly drawn restriction on lobbying by a campaign consultant for a 12-month cooling off period will be upheld by the court.”
Custin did not comment for this story and referred questions to Wolfson. In 2017, he called the legislation “as politically cutthroat as you can get.” At the time, he appeared to be the only consultant actively running a political campaign while under contract to lobby for private interests on the Beach.
Custin had been managing the mayoral campaign of former city commissioner and now-state Rep. Michael Grieco, who dropped out of the mayor’s race after the Miami-Dade state attorney’s office began investigating him and later pleaded no contest to a criminal violation of Florida’s campaign-finance laws. Grieco had been running against now-Mayor Dan Gelber, a candidate backed by Arriola and then-Commissioner Joy Malakoff.
Custin previously managed the campaigns of Arriola, Malakoff and former Commissioner John Elizabeth Alemán.
“That doesn’t reflect a proposal being done for public policy,” Custin told the Herald prior to the 2017 vote. “That indicates the motivation of the legislation is political vendetta.”
Lawsuit filed months before election
Custin’s legal challenge comes less than a year before the city’s jam-packed November election, which involves three commission races and a mayoral race. It remains to be seen whether Custin will work on the campaigns.
“It’s uncertain whether he will or not at this time,” Wolfson said.
The most recent commission campaign he worked on was in 2019, when he ran real estate broker Stephen Cohen’s run for local office. That business agreement ended with Custin filing a lawsuit against Cohen for alleged nonpayment, which remains active today.
The deadline for candidates to qualify for the election is Sept. 10. Two of the four at-play seats on the commission will be filled by new members because term limits prevent Steinberg and Commissioner Michael Góngora from running for the commission again.
The other two seats are currently occupied by Commissioner Mark Samuelian and Mayor Dan Gelber, who are permitted to run for reelection but have not publicly announced their candidacy.
The only two candidates who have filed to run so far are Blake Young in Group 1 (Steinberg’s seat) and Michael Barrineau in Group 3 (Góngora’s seat). Cohen said he is exploring another run. So, too, is Mitch Novick, the owner of the Sherbrooke Apartments in South Beach.
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