Miami Spent $150K on Long-Shot Election Appeal

All of the city’s outside legal fees last summer and fall came after a judge blocked the city’s attempt to delay the 2025 election — including more than $60,000 tied to a rarely granted rehearing widely seen as a legal Hail Mary.

The City of Miami spent at least $150,414.68 on outside legal counsel in its unsuccessful effort to defend a controversial plan to delay the 2025 municipal election — with all of that spending coming after a judge had already ruled the measure unconstitutional, according to public records obtained by the Spotlight. 

The legal effort sought to push the November 2025 election to 2026 by way of a commission decree — rather than citywide voter referendum — extending the terms of current elected officials by a year.

A Miami-Dade circuit court judge struck down the plan in July, finding the city could not bypass voters to change its election schedule.

Rather than accept that ruling, the city appealed — and then continued to pursue the case even after losing again.

The payments, detailed in city invoices, went to Coral Gables law firm Kozyak Tropin & Throckmorton, which was retained specifically to handle the appeal in a case brought by former city manager Emilio Gonzalez, a candidate in the city’s November mayoral election, challenging the one-year election delay.  

In July, Circuit Court Judge Valerie R. Manno Schurr ruled that the city’s plan to delay the election and extend elected officials’ terms of office violated the state constitution, calling the effort a “semantic sleight of hand” that would have effectively amended the City Charter in the absence of voter approval, as required. 

The city’s appeal of the ruling produced a similar outcome, with Judge Monica Gordo of the Third District Court of Appeal calling the commissioners’ efforts “a charter amendment dressed in lesser clothes — fragrant in title but thorned with consequence.”

But even that ruling did not end the city’s legal effort. 

Instead, attorneys sought an “en banc” rehearing — a rarely granted request in which all judges on the appellate court reconsider a case. 

Legal experts describe such motions as extraordinary, typically reserved for cases involving conflicting precedent or issues of exceptional statewide importance.

By the numbers, the odds were steep.

In all, more than $61,000 of the city’s outside legal fees were for services after the appellate court had already rejected the city’s position.

Under the agreement, signed by City Attorney George Wysong, the city paid hourly rates of up to $750 for senior attorneys, $700 and $600 for other attorneys, and $300 for paralegal work.

The underlying proposal had drawn sharp criticism. 

Former District 2 Commissioner Ken Russell described it to the Spotlight as a “selfish power grab,” while political scientist Dario Moreno warned the approach was “a blow to democracy,” even if the broader idea of aligning elections had merit.

Pardo, the measure’s chief architect, has consistently defended that broader goal.

“We remain committed to increasing voter representation and decreasing electoral costs in the City of Miami,” he said last year after the courts rejected the ordinance, pledging to pursue the change through voter approval.

That shift came only after the legal strategy failed.

Today, the debate over even-year elections remains unsettled.

In January, the City Commission voted to move forward with a new approach — directing the city attorney to draft ballot language that would allow voters to decide whether to shift elections to even-numbered years.

Unlike the earlier proposal, the change would not take effect immediately. Instead, it would phase in over time, with future commission terms potentially extended to five years to align with the new election cycle beginning in 2032.

Mayor Eileen Higgins, who took office in December, has suggested shortening her own term, by way of a separate November voter referendum, to accelerate the transition. 

At the same time, a separate citizen-led effort by the group Stronger Miami is pushing a competing charter amendment that would move elections to even years sooner, potentially as early as 2028, while also expanding the commission from five to nine seats.

The group has collected more than 20,000 petition signatures, though the measure has not yet been certified for the ballot.

The records released to the Spotlight pertaining to legal fees do not indicate whether all invoices have been paid in full, nor do they include internal staff time or other legal costs incurred by the city.

They also do not reflect whether Gonzalez has sought reimbursement for his own legal expenses. Gonzalez’s attorney Alan Lawson has not responded to a request for comment.

Outside legals fees are a growing issue at City Hall. Last week, the City Commission voted to pursue a civil action against former Commissioner Joe Carollo to recover attorneys’ fees and costs the city incurred defending him in a high-profile lawsuit he lost in 2023.

That case, brought by Little Havana businessmen Bill Fuller and Martin Pinilla, resulted in a $63.5 million jury verdict after jurors found Carollo had orchestrated a campaign of political retaliation using city resources. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case last week, effectively ending Carollo’s appeals.

City officials have not provided a definitive total for legal fees tied to Carollo’s defense, but City Attorney George Wysong has estimated the cost at roughly $6 million, with insurance covering about $4 million. Court filings by the city’s insurer have suggested the total cost of related litigation could exceed $10 million.