As expected, the battle over whether former City Commissioner Frank Carollo can stay on Miami’s runoff ballot isn’t over.
One day after a Miami-Dade Circuit Judge ruled Carollo could remain in the Dec. 9 contest despite new lifetime term limits that would otherwise bar him from holding office, the plaintiffs in the case are appealing.
Miami voters Victor Milanes, Alex Almirola and Oscar Alejandro — the latter of whom placed third on Nov. 4 behind Carollo and runoff candidate Rolando Escanola for the Commission’s District 3 seat — have filed a notice of appeal for the ruling.
The notice, filed Thursday morning with the 3rd District Court of Appeal, again names lawyers J.C. Planas and Natalie Kano as the plaintiffs’ legal representation.
Those on the service list include Carollo’s lawyer, Robert Fernandez; Lydecker partner Forrest Andrews, who is representing Miami; Assistant City Attorney Eric Eves; Miami-Dade Elections General Counsel Oren Rosenthal; Escalona’s lawyer, Peter Solnick; and lawyers representing mayoral runoff candidates Emilio González and Eileen Higgins.
Voters this month overwhelmingly approved a charter amendment imposing a lifetime limit of two four-year terms for City Commissioners and Mayors, a change the plaintiffs argued should disqualify Carollo from the ballot.
Carollo led the Nov. 4 race for the District 3 seat with 38% of the vote, but fell short of the majority needed to win outright, placing him in a runoff with Escalona, a restaurant manager and fellow Republican who faced a separate lawsuit last month challenging his residency bona fides.
Milanes, Almirola and Alejandro, a Democrat who hopes to take Carollo’s place on the ballot, sued after the election last week to boot Carollo from the ballot. They argued that allowing “a candidate who already served two full terms to continue in a runoff would directly undermine” the new term limits “and risk nullifying the very reform voters just enacted.”
Fernandez, Carollo’s lawyer, successfully contended that removing him now would be unconstitutional and disenfranchise voters who supported him and the referendum.
Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Peter Lopez sided with the defense. He said the court would not interfere with an ongoing election and said voters, not the judiciary, should decide Carollo’s fate.
Carollo and Escalona are competing for the right to succeed Carollo’s brother, Joe Carollo, who has held the District 3 seat since 2017. Frank Carollo previously served in the seat from 2009 to 2017.
By the time the appeal is decided, it may be too late to intervene before Election Day. Rosenthal cautioned Monday that ballots for the city’s runoff were already being printed. Reprogramming and retesting them to reflect any change in the District 3 lineup, he said, could delay distribution of mail-in ballots that are scheduled to go out Nov. 17.
City races are technically nonpartisan, but party politics is still frequently a factor.