Good Luck, Democracy

The Miami Herald reports

With less than five months to go before Miami residents were scheduled to head to the polls to vote on a new mayor and city commissioners, the city of Miami has postponed the upcoming November election to 2026 in a move that critics have described as a “power grab.”

On Thursday, the Miami City Commission voted 3-2 to move the city from odd- to even-year elections — a change that its proponents said will drastically increase voter turnout. But the decision also comes with fine print.

As a result, the city’s elected officials will get an extra year in office. That includes Mayor Francis Suarez and Commissioner Joe Carollo, who are both term limited. Suarez, a former city commissioner, will get a 17th consecutive year in Miami City Hall, and Carollo will get a ninth. 

Commissioners Damian Pardo, Ralph Rosado and Christine King voted in favor of the election date change, and Commissioners Miguel Angel Gabela and Carollo voted against.

Pardo, the item’s sponsor, has argued that changing to even-year elections is a much-needed reform that will significantly increase voter participation while also saving the city hundreds of thousands of dollars in election costs. But some have questioned whether the city actually has the authority to change the election date without voter approval. The city charter states that municipal elections take place in odd years, and charter changes require voter approval.

 

Four weeks ago, Elizabeth Goitein of the Brennan Center for Justice told Steve Inskeep of NPR's Morning Edition

Unfortunately, the National Emergencies Act, even though it was passed to rein in a presidential use of emergency powers, does not include a definition of national emergency, and it doesn’t include any substantive criteria that have to be met. So the president actually has significant discretion to decide whether a national emergency is. Now, of course, even the broadest of discretion can be abused, and the word emergency does have a definition. So at least in theory, a president could go so far that the courts would step in and say, that’s not an emergency. But so far, courts have been very, very reluctant to do that.

If in a year he believes Democrats are in striking distance of winning back the Senate or the House of Representatives, the President will declare a national emergency and jeopardize congressional elections. (War, anyone?) At that point, the Supreme Court may be the only institution standing between the man who has called for termination of the Constitution, declared himself the Chosen One, King, the greatest President ever. and absolute rule. And as Charlie Pierce puts it, what the mad king wants, the mad king gets.

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