As rumors swirl about delaying November’s vote – and extending officeholders existing terms – Miami mayoral candidates and political experts say the move is a blow to democracy and a “selfish power grab.”
Former Miami District 2 Commissioner and mayoral candidate Ken Russell is not hiding his disgust at recent news of a rumored proposal to delay the City of Miami’s November elections by a year.
In a recent Instagram post he labels as “bullshit” a claim by City Attorney George Wysong that the city commission has the authority to dictate such a move.
“This is a selfish power grab that is being used to give the commissioners and the mayor an extra year in office that they’re not entitled to,” Russell says in an interview.
Rumors of the proposal have been circulating informally in Miami City Hall in recent weeks. Under the plan, first reported by the Miami Herald, November’s mayoral and city commissioner elections would be pushed to 2026 to allow all future races to be decided during even years.
Election experts say even-year voting would likely boost voter turnout by aligning the local races with state and federal elections.
A permanent shift to even-year voting is also part of a City of Miami charter change initiative launched last month by Stronger Miami that would expand the city’s commission from five to nine districts.
The present proposal – which has yet to be formalized for a commission vote — would extend by one year the terms of Mayor Francis Suarez, District 5 Commissioner Christine King, and District 3 Commissioner Joe Carollo, all of whom are scheduled to leave office in November.
The proposal, if moved forward, is expected to be linked to District 2 Commissioner Damian Pardo’s so-called “lifetime term limits” legislation – limiting city officeholders to any part of two terms in the same elected position – that would require both commission and voter approval.
Pardo could not be reached for comment.
The possibility of pushing back city elections by a year was referenced by Suarez in his State of the City speech in January 2024.
Suarez declined a Spotlight request for comment.
In a brief Spotlight survey of local candidates and political experts, the proposal is widely condemned.
“Outrageous,” declares veteran Miami-Dade political observer Dario Moreno, a professor of political and international relations at Florida International University. If Miami’s election timeline is to change, he argues, voters should make that decision.
Moreno agrees that aligning local and national elections would increase voter turnout, but he says any one-year gaps of service created by the move should be filled through special, partial-term elections that are decided by voters.
“In the long term it’s not a bad idea. The problem is the methodology,” Moreno says.
In general, Moreno explains, allowing existing officeholders to extend their own terms is a blow to democracy. And in purely practical terms, it leads to an uneven playing field for future elections. “By having another year in office, [Suarez] has another year to raise money for whatever his next step is,” he says.
Coconut Grove resident June Savage is one of six candidates vying to be Miami’s next mayor. She tells the Spotlight city residents are “burned out” and “exhausted” by ongoing elections, corruption and a lack of transparency. The latest proposal is yet another example of city officials placing their own interests above those of residents. “It’s time to put the vote back into the voters’ hands and save democracy,” says Savage.
Mayoral candidate Michael A. Hepburn, a longtime community activist who has never held public office, argues the proposal ignores the larger challenge of what he calls the ‘civic empowerment gap’ – a disengaged and uninformed electorate.
“Just having more people vote for the sake of increasing voter turnout numbers does not help us if people don’t actually understand who they are voting for or against,” says Hepburn.
In any case, he adds, even-year voting could have the effect of increasing turnout but decreasing candidate awareness and engagement by overwhelming voters with a crowded general election ballot.
“Our mayoral and commissioner elections and ballot initiatives will be thrown into the pot with so many other races, including high-profile ones and not,” warns Hepburn. “We would just be relying on hope that the majority of our residents are doing their homework on all of the candidates, judges, ballot questions, charter amendments, and everything else before they vote. That’s a risky assumption.”
Another mayoral candidate Ijamyn Joseph Gray, who grew up in Coconut Grove, has mixed feelings about the proposal. While he doesn’t like the prospect of delaying this year’s election, he says even-year voting “Can help with voter turnout, get more people to come out and vote.”
Besides Russell, the other high-profile candidate for Miami mayor is District 5 Miami-Dade County Commissioner Eilleen Higgins who represents downtown, Brickell, Shenandoah, the Roads, Silver Bluff and parts of Little Havana.
She tells the Spotlight that voters shouldn’t get too worked up – yet — about a proposal that remains long on intrigue but short on specifics.
“Right now, this is just speculation and political chatter among insiders,” says Higgins.
But Russell worries that voters might turn their backs on the shift to even-year elections if the rationale for doing so is linked to the current officeholder’s brazen efforts to extend their terms. “It’s a good policy,” says Russell, “but it could die for bad politics if it’s attached to this power grab.”
FIU students Sofia Baltodano and Cassie Martinez wrote this story as part of a cooperative agreement between FIU’s Lee Caplin School of Journalism & Media and the Spotlight.
