Will election jolt Miami-Dade police after nearly 60 years without a sheriff?

When the votes are counted after Tuesday’s primary election, Miami-Dade voters will have made an important decision that is likely to affect how one of the largest law enforcement agencies in the nation does business behind closed doors and in the public for years to come.

For the first time since 1966, registered voters will choose the Democrat and Republican they want to face off in November’s general election for Miami-Dade County sheriff. The winner would direct one of the largest law enforcement agencies in the United States, with a budget bigger than the city of Miami’s and a workforce larger than some small cities.

And like many newly created bureaucracies, the transition comes with many unanswered questions. Miami-Dade County commissioners have yet to decide whether a new sheriff would oversee the county’s Department of Corrections and its $500 million budget and 3,000 employees. Miami-Dade’s law enforcement budget alone is $1 billion. And the county police department has about 5,000 sworn and civilian employees.

READ MORE: Who’s running for Miami-Dade sheriff this year? Here’s the final list of candidates

Some candidates said if they’re unhappy with the budget awarded by the mayor and commissioners, they’d have no compunction about visiting the governor and asking for an increase. Also still undetermined: How to move forward with Miami-Dade-owned assets, like the multiple buildings that house police, and who’s going to pick up the cost of maintenance, support services and information technology?

“The easiest thing is going to be the deployment of personnel,” said former Miami-Dade Police Director Juan Perez. “It’s going to take time to acclimate and there’s going to be a transition. This is the most important sheriff’s race, for the future.”

11 running in GOP contest

All the unknowns have not dampened spirits in a race that was thrown into disarray a year ago when the odds-on favorite, Miami-Dade Police Director Alfredo “Freddy” Ramirez, tried to take his life on the side of a highway just outside of Tampa. He survived and dropped out of the race.

With early voting already underway and Election Day on Tuesday, 15 candidates remain in a field that will be winnowed to one from each party. Primary elections don’t have a run-off. The highest vote count on each side wins.

Most political analysts reached by the Miami Herald expect Tuesday’s contest to come down to a pair of candidates from each side of the aisle, with the Republican winner expected to be a slight favorite in the November general election. There’s also a concern that the electorate hasn’t been educated enough on the importance of a new sheriff’s office.

“This is a huge change and I’m really concerned about the quality of discussion around this very important decision,” said Barry University political science professor Sean Foreman. “Whoever squeaks through as the Republican should have a better shot in November.”

One of the leading contenders on the Republican side is a former homeowners association president who was appointed to the Miami city commission before rejoining the Florida Highway Patrol. The other is a Miami-Dade Police veteran who reached the top ranks and ran its communications department.

Joe Sanchez, 59 , was plucked from his presidency of The Roads Homeowners Association by then- Florida Gov. Lawton Chiles in 1999 to fill the seat of disgraced Miami Commissioner Humberto Hernandez after his indictment during a political corruption scandal. Sanchez spent the next decade on the commission, including a term as chairman and takes credit for helping lead it through the recession. He would later join the Florida Highway Patrol, where he was assigned to the dignitary protection of Florida’s Lt. Gov. Jeanette Nuñez.

Sanchez says public safety and police presence are high up on his priority list and he believes the agency would be better served by someone who hasn’t spent a lifetime working from the inside. He considers morale the biggest issue facing Miami-Dade Police, especially since Ramirez stepped down last summer.

“It’s a department right now that’s adrift without a leader,” he said.

Sanchez also doesn’t hesitate to point fingers at his two biggest rivals, Republican opponent Rosanna “Rosie” Cordero-Stutz and presumptive Democratic nominee James Reyes, both of whom live in Broward County. Living in Miami-Dade is not a requirement in the sheriff’s race.

“He can’t even vote in Dade County,” Sanchez said of Reyes.

Cordero-Stutz, 55, has been with Miami-Dade Police for almost three decades, working her way from street cop, to detective, to major in the highest levels of the agency. She oversaw communications. She also received an early endorsement from former President Donald J. Trump and is now supported by U.S. House Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, the Republican who represents the western part of Miami-Dade through Naples, and U.S. Sen. Rick Scott, the Republican running for reelection.

Cordero-Stutz claims support from 27 sheriffs in the state and was recently sworn in as president of the Florida chapter of the FBI National Academy. Cordero-Stutz has lived in Broward County for 27 years, which she says has not hindered her commitment to policing in Miami-Dade. She says she and her husband are looking at homes in the Miami Lakes area and would likely move if she were to win.

Cordero-Stutz says her strengths are executive leadership and she sees the sheriff’s main job as creating the blueprint for the agency.

“I plan on setting the tone for the future. I love this department,” she said. “From Day One, it’s about the future. If we don’t get this right from Day One, I can’t walk that back.”

As of Aug. 2, Miami-Dade records show Sanchez had raised $161,397 in campaign contributions to Cordero-Stutz’s $172,625. Those amounts do not include money raised by political action committees.

Nine others are also in the running for the Republican ticket. They include: retired Miami-Dade Police major and attorney Ignacio Alvarez; Jose Aragu, a major with Miami-Dade Police; Ruamen DeLaRua, a Miami police officer with experience at the Marion County Sheriff’s Office; Alex Fornet, who owns a credit repair business in Doral; private investigator Jeffrey Giordano; suspended Miami-Dade Commissioner Joe Martinez Jr., who is facing trial later this month on corruption charges. Also in the running are retired Miami Dade Police Major Mario Knapp, who held every civil service rank in the department and helped create use-of-force policy; retired Miami-Dade Police union president John Rivera Jr.; and Ernesto Rodriguez, a lieutenant with Miami-Dade Police.

Four Democratic candidates running

The Democratic field for sheriff is much smaller with four candidates running in the primary, compared with 11 on the Republican side. Poll watchers say the Democrats’ front-runner is much more clear.

It would be a big surprise if James Reyes, hired by Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava in 2022 as Miami-Dade’s public safety director overseeing police, fire and the corrections department, doesn’t come out of Tuesday’s vote ahead in the polls.

“He seems to have it in the bag,” said Foreman, the Barry University political science professor.

Reyes, 47, joined Levine Cava’s team after spending 22 years with the Broward Sheriff’s Office where he was a jail warden, ran the jails, headed up police development and training and helped create Broward’s first Real Time Crime Center.

The director takes credit for Miami-Dade’s Operation Community Shield, which he claims has cleared the streets of 3,000 weapons. And he helped create a co-responder model of policing in the hope of de-escalating law enforcement officers who confront mentally unstable people.

“It all but eliminates the use of force in those instances,” he said.

He said in the first 30 days he’ll reinstall the police department’s Public Corruption Unit, which was eliminated under the previous administration.

Reyes also veered away from taking responsibility for the crowd surge and chaos that led to arrests and injuries during the Colombia-Argentina final of the Copa-America futbol tournament at Hard Rock Stadium last month. Thousands of fans without tickets stormed the gates, scaled walls and jumped turnstiles. Reyes spun the incident, saying there was no pre-game intelligence suggesting the surge.

“We saved lives that day,” he said.

Reye’s treasurer’s report shows that as of Aug. 2, he’d raised $160,075.

Of his three opponents, only retired Miami-Dade Police veteran Rickey Mitchell has come close to Reye’s fundraising total. Mitchell’s records show he has raised $294,791, though almost all of it came from personal loans. Mitchell, who retired as a lieutenant after 25 years with the department, has also run a funeral home business for almost four decades.

Mitchell said he plans to fight corruption and abuse of power inside the law enforcement agency, and will beef up the county’s community policing efforts, which will include hiring mental health experts.

The two other Democratic candidates are Susan Khoury, a former U.S. Marshal and civilian who helped create Miami-Dade’s police oversight board and who fought for de-escalation strategies and mobile response teams during mental crises calls to police; and John Barrow, a Miami-Dade Police major who also wants to focus on de-escalation techniques.

Dismantled almost 60 years ago

Whoever wins will inherit a sheriff’s office that was dismantled almost 60 years ago, after a grand jury indicted then-Sheriff T.A. Buchanan for perjury and failure to report campaign contributions.

Since then, the county’s police director has been appointed by the manager or the mayor. But six years ago, voters statewide stripped the county mayor of that responsibility, deciding Miami-Dade law enforcement should be run no differently from the state’s 66 other counties.

The goal, according to some who fought for the change, was to eliminate the politics that inevitably got in the way of an appointed director. Others feel the move to sheriff will simply inject politics into an agency that for the most part, managed to avoid it for decades.

The book on which scenario fits, is still out to most — but not to Florida International University political science professor Dario Moreno. He said just take a look one county north to see what political travails may await Miami-Dade’s future sheriffs.

There, current Broward Sheriff Gregory Tony has been in a political scuffle over his credentials since he was appointed five years ago by Gov. DeSantis to replace the sheriff who was in charge when the Parkland school massacre took place. And former Broward Sheriff Nick Navarro took it to a new level in the early 1990s when his war with rap star Luther Campbell made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

“Of course it’s going to inject politics into it,” said Moreno. “Compare Dade to the track record in Broward where they’ve had very political sheriffs. We’re creating probably the second most important political office after the mayor.”

Political observer Fernand Amandi, who manages a Miami public opinion research firm, agreed with Moreno that the new system will only inject politics into an agency that has done its best to avoid it in the past. But he has a plan to keep it at arms-length.

“The winner must immediately register as an independent and say they will govern as an independent and not allow politics to interfere,” he said.