Miami Can’t Delay Its Election by a Year, Judge Rules

Miami city commissioners violated the Florida Constitution when they voted last month to postpone this fall’s election to November 2026, a state judge ruled on Monday, saying that such a change required voter approval.

The judge, Valerie R. Manno Schurr of Florida’s 11th Judicial Circuit, ruled in favor of Emilio T. González, a candidate for mayor. He sued in late June after the City Commission voted 3 to 2 to delay the election, a move it said was meant to save money and improve turnout. Critics noted that it would give elected city officials an extra year in office.

The postponement had led to public outcry from candidates who had already filed to run, and from some voters who said the process had been undemocratic.

Mayor Francis X. Suarez and one city commissioner, Joe Carollo, are supposed to leave office at the end of this year because of term limits. Mr. Carollo voted against postponing the election; Mr. Suarez signed the approved ordinance into law.

The commissioners and the mayor cannot lawfully change the date of a municipal election by ordinance, the judge wrote. Postponing the election from an odd-numbered year to an even-numbered one amounted to amending the city’s charter, which would require approval from the electorate, she ruled.

The judge cited the Miami-Dade County charter, which governs cities in the county, including Miami, under the Florida Constitution.

Lawyers for the city had argued that the ordinance changed the city’s code, not its charter. The judge dismissed that argument, saying what mattered was the decision’s substantive effect.

“Our Constitution deals with the substance of matters, not mere semantics,” she wrote. “The city’s contention that its ordinance did not ‘amend’ its City Charter is nothing more than semantic sleight of hand.”

Judge Manno Schurr dismissed the city’s emergency request to toss out Mr. González’s lawsuit and granted his request for summary judgment. Mr. González praised the judge’s ruling, saying that Miami voters had been “disrespected” by the election’s postponement.

The city immediately said it would fight the ruling. “While we respectfully disagree with the trial court’s decision, we are confident in the strength of our case and remain optimistic about the outcome on appeal,” the city attorney’s office said in a statement.

The Third District Court of Appeal previously let stand a lower-court ruling that allowed the city of North Miami to change its election date by ordinance. But the appellate decision in that case did not create a binding precedent.

The three commissioners who voted to postpone the Miami election said at a meeting in June that doing so would align with the midterms, lowering the election costs and probably leading to higher turnout. Before their vote, James Uthmeier, Florida’s Republican attorney general, opined that changing the election date without voter approval would be unlawful. Gov. Ron DeSantis, a fellow Republican, agreed.

On Monday, Mr. DeSantis reposted Mr. González’s post on X that the judge had “put the kibosh” on the city’s “scheme.” “Great to see the law and common sense prevail,” Mr. DeSantis wrote.

Mr. DeSantis has often been at odds with Mr. Suarez, a fellow Republican. Both men sought the Republican presidential nomination in 2020; Mr. Suarez failed to receive much traction or qualify for the first debate, and he dropped out after about two months.

Mr. Suarez tried to grow his political brand by courting finance and cryptocurrency executives to Miami during the coronavirus pandemic. But he has been far from a dominant figure at City Hall, and his political future remains unclear. On Monday, after the judge ruled, Mr. Suarez’s father, Xavier Suarez, a former mayor, said he would file on Tuesday to run for mayor.

That could set up a rematch against Mr. Carollo, another former mayor, who has said that he, too, might once again seek the office. Xavier Suarez and Mr. Carollo previously ran against each other in 1997. As a commissioner, Mr. Carollo has often been the loudest voice on the dais.

His brother, Frank Carollo, a former commissioner, is one of the candidates running to succeed him in November.