Miami Dade County Commission elections: the dominant minority wins again... by gimleteye

Incumbents won. Unsurprisingly, campaign money (and the use of county facilities and money to highlight the "achievements" of incumbents) was determinant on the order of 10 to 1.

The money, as eyeonmiami points out, is mostly raised from interests profiting from county contracts or from zoning and permitting decisions related to land use. (See our most recent post on Krome Gold.)

Give the Miami Herald credit for endorsing two challengers despite long odds; especially Lourdes Aguirre, the challenger in Hialeah against the de facto chair of the county commission Natacha Seijas (VNS). Don't give up.

There is an enormous divide in the awareness of voters in Miami-Dade county, between pot-hole issues and those that determine the future of Miami. In the Herald, Marco Rubio-- outgoing Speaker of the Florida House and prospective candidate to be the next mayor of Miami-Dade County (Carlos Alvarez is term-limited out, in the next election cycle) said, "''I do think people are unhappy with county government and the commission, but people like their commissioner... They do things like community outreach, they're involved and, come campaign time, they have a bank of goodwill.''

How about, a bank. Period. Challengers can't be competitive because campaign donors, mostly organized by insider lobbyists, know that giving money to a challenger is a kiss of death. This unilateral arming of incumbents by a powerful elite is a stain on the region's appeal to investors and business interests, who might otherwise instill some fresh air to community leadership.

And so, the unreformable majority is a self-fulfilling prophecy: a political elite insulated from change, from accountability, and from new directions. Rubio knows this as well as any Miami politician: in the recent legislative session his efforts to undermine Governor Crist played to his own bank of "goodwill"; developers, contractors, and engineering firms who depend on the failed economic model of suburban sprawl-- a model that nonetheless has retained enough earnings to shield and insulate the dominant minority.

So, how does Miami Dade County change?

Voters need to hear a steady drumbeat against the unreformable majority. In this regard, the mainstream media has been inconsistent. Its two best series of recent years: the Miami Herald's House of Lies, about corruption in the Miami Dade Housing Agency, and the outstanding series on fraud in the mortgage industry have both focused on the lower rungs of corruption, focused on the abuse of poor people.

It is as though Jim Morin, the Herald's Pulitzer Prize winning editorial cartoonist, is the only voice let out of the box to make connections to the ladder's higher rungs: the special interests that fund political campaigns.

I believe that rational people at the Herald, at Miami Today, and in the business community know that the actions of the unreformable majority harm the local economy and prospects for attracting new business and higher paying jobs. It is not a problem that will be solved by $3 billion of infrastructure projects proposed by the Megaproject.

Maurice Ferre, former Miami mayor and county commissioner, is right-- as quoted in the Herald: that there are a lot of angry people. But are they voting? The turnout at local election cycles are particularly dismal-- on the order of 13 percent of eligible voters. Ferre is also right: that attention will now shift to specific referenda that can be drafted, pass muster of court review, and garner enough signatures to qualify for a county-wide vote.

It will take a lot of creativity, organization and funding to force changes at the ballot to the County Charter; changes that the Charter Review Commission recommended in 2008 and that the County Commission ignored. What the county commission elections show is that citizens have to fight for representative democracy. What some call the triumph of parochial politics is really a drug, creating a rock-solid codependency between suppliers and abusers.

The first change I would propose: banning campaign contributions from corporations and individuals who have contract applications or permits pending before the county commission, or, who have received contracts or permits from the county within a two year period of an election cycle.