Attorneys from Lawson Huck Gonzalez PLLC on Monday filed a lawsuit with the Circuit Court of the Eleventh Judicial District Circuit on behalf of Miami Mayoral candidate Emilio T. Gonzalez after City Commissioners cancelled the 2025 mayoral election and moved it to November 2026. Gonzalez is running to succeed Francis Suarez as Miami's next mayor.
The 3-2 vote last Thursday to move the election date effectively grants Saurez and City Commissioners an extra year in office and puts Gonzalez's political ambitions currently in limbo. The commissioners who voted in favor, Damian Pardo, Ralph Rosado, and Christine King, are all named as defendants in the complaint along with Suarez, which calls for "Declarative and Injunctive Relief."
Under city rules, voter approval is required to move election dates. The Commissioners are instead apparently looking to run Miami like a Banana Republic, bypassing the will of voters in the process.
"In passing Ordinance 17723, the City of Miami Commissioners unconstitutionally bypassed the democratic will of the people in a way that the Florida Constitution, the Miami-Dade Charter, and the City's Charter expressly prohibit," Lead Counsel Alan Lawson of Lawson, Huck, and Gonzalez PLCC said on behalf of Gonzalez.
Before the vote, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier warned Suarez and City Commissioners not to cancel the election without first getting voter say. Gov. Ron DeSantis also agreed the city couldn't just make up its own rules.
"This repugnant and deliberate act was done without a single electoral vote in defiance of Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier's clear warning that doing so was illegal," Lawson continued. "Miami voters are the only ones who can decide to change the election date thus extending the terms of elected officials, which is the immediate concern of our client, Col. (Ret.) Emilio Gonzalez."
Under city rules, Saurez has 10 days from the date of the vote on June 26 to issue a veto. If he does not veto the ordinance, the election date change will take effect.
"We are stunned by the actions of Miami elected officials," Gonzalez said. "Canceling a regularly scheduled election and extending their own terms in office is a direct defiance of Florida law. Doing so without the consent of voters is an outrageous abuse of power."
"Attorney General James Uthmeier has already warned that this violates the law, and Governor Ron DeSantis has strongly supported that position," Gonzalez continued. "Disenfranchising voters undermines our democracy and robs citizens of their voices at the ballot box. If they can steal an election, what else can they steal?"
