The Miami City Commission will vote next week on whether to let voters decide on a proposal to impose lifetime term limits on elected officials, barring them from returning to the same office after serving any part of two terms.
The proposed change would replace the current system, which allows officials to run again for the same office after sitting out one election cycle following two consecutive full terms.
Miami District 2 Commissioner Damian Pardo, who campaigned for office in 2023 as a reform candidate vowing to tackle corruption and cronyism at City Hall, is sponsoring the resolution.
In an interview with the Spotlight, Pardo described lifetime term limits as a means of “bringing different people to the table, different voices, different ideas.”
New faces, he adds, will help rejuvenate “an environment that has less thinking, less openness, less diversity.”
The proposal, which requires commission approval before going to voters, would apply retroactively, potentially disqualifying candidates from future elections who had already served all or parts of two terms as commissioner or mayor.
Pardo is asking the commission to place the measure on the November 4 general election ballot.
The proposed change also would disqualify candidates elected on the same November ballot in races for city mayor and commission districts 3 and 5, which would essentially bar them from taking office even if they won the election.
While such a provision would not impact any of the candidates presently running in this year’s races, District 3 Commissioner Joe Carollo, who has been floating a run for mayor to replace the term-limited Francis Suarez, would presumably be disqualified from taking office, despite the election’s outcome.
Carollo, who is barred from seeking reelection to his commission seat by existing term limits, served two stints as city mayor in the late 1990s.
Notably, Pardo points out, the proposed charter amendment avoids the thorny legal definition of what constitutes a “term” in office, and instead is worded to apply more narrowly to anyone who has “been elected or appointed two times.”
The distinction is not lost on some observers who point out that Carollo’s first election to city mayor in 1996 was a special election to serve a single year in office, which perhaps arguably, could be construed, under a more expansive legal definition, as falling short of an actual “term.”
Also impacted by the proposed change, if approved by voters, would be Frank Carollo – Joe’s brother – a previous two-term commissioner rumored to be eyeing the soon-to-be-open District 3 seat.
To be sure, there has been no love lost between Pardo and Joe Carollo during their brief tenure together on the commission. The two have repeatedly clashed over both policy and personality, including a high-profile spat last year featuring name-calling and allegations of possible campaign finance violations. At the time, Pardo accused Carollo of “weaponizing the government.”
Pardo insists that the proposed charter change is not an effort to prevent Carollo from returning to elected office. “Absolutely not,” Pardo says. “Joe Corolla has said that he is going to finish his term, and then he’s leaving to Shangri-La. He’ll be done.”
Carollo did not respond to a request for comment.
If approved, this would mark the second time in a year that voters have imposed new restrictions on city election candidates. Last November, they passed a referendum requiring candidates to reside in the district they seek to represent for at least one year before qualifying to run.
