With just over two weeks to go before Miami-Dade County residents choose a sheriff for the first time in six decades, the race for one of the most important elected posts in the state has turned ugly, with accusations of dirty politicking coming from both camps.
The tension is centered on a pair of ads running on local television stations in the final weeks of the contest. Democratic candidate James Reyes’ campaign aired a spot this week saying his Republican opponent, Rosie Cordero-Stutz, was sentenced to a week in jail for missing a deposition over a decade ago. Another ad run by Reyes blames her for a series of job cuts and attrition in the Miami-Dade Police Department.
Cordero-Stutz was never jailed in the 2013 civil case involving a timeshare in North Carolina. A judge did order her
“sentenced” to seven days in jail for failing to show up for depositions. But the same order said she could “purge herself of contempt” if she appeared for the deposition in the next 30 days. And there were no job cuts at Miami-Dade Police in 2014. And if there had been, Cordero-Stutz, a lieutenant at the time, had no power over hiring or firing.
“It’s absolutely dirty politics,” Cordero-Stutz told the Miami Herald last week. “I always said this race shouldn’t be partisan. It should be of the utmost integrity.”
Cordero-Stutz countered with an ad criticizing Reyes, the county’s chief of public safety, for the riot-like scene that broke out inside and outside Hard Rock Stadium during the Copa America final in July when thousands of fans showed up without tickets. She also blasted Reyes for accepting the endorsement of Florida Rising, a social justice and economic reform group that supported large budget cuts for police during the Black Lives Matter marches of 2020.
“I brought up the idea to open the gates and take responsibility,” said Reyes, who ran the command center during the soccer final. “It was a rough day. A lot of lessons were learned. But I also believe we saved lives that day.”
The two emerged from crowded partisan fields in August after a pair of weighty endorsements.
Reyes easily defeated the Democratic field with the backing of incumbent Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava. The mayor hired Reyes away from the Broward Sheriff’s Office in 2022 to oversee the county’s troubled department of corrections, which remains under a federal consent decree. A year later he was appointed to oversee public safety — which includes police, fire and corrections — after Police Director Alfredo “Freddy” Ramirez’s attempted suicide.
Cordero-Stutz, a Miami-Dade Police lifer who has served in top posts in several divisions in her 28 years and worked her way up from street cop to assistant director — won a much tougher primary . An endorsement from U.S. presidential candidate Donald J. Trump helped her squeeze past former Miami Commissioner and Florida Highway Patrol spokesman Joe Sanchez and a host of other candidates.
Since their August primary victories, the sniping between the two candidates for a post that that had been made by appointment since the 1960s has only intensified. It’s the reaction political observers feared but predicted when a statewide vote forced partisanship on a critical law-enforcement position long considered devoid of politics.
“This sheriff’s race is not about Rosie Cordero-Stutz and James Reyes. It’s about the R and D next to their names,” said Fernand Amandi, who manages a Miami public marketing and research firm. “This is the consequence of making this constitutional office partisan.”
The election for Miami-Dade’s first sheriff in 60 years is Nov. 5. Early voting begins Oct. 21 and runs through Nov. 3. Mail in ballots are already available.
STATEWIDE VOTE CHANGED MIAMI-DADE POLICING
When the votes are counted on Nov. 5, Miami-Dade will have an elected sheriff for the first time since a corruption scandal forced a change long before Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon. Until a statewide vote amended Florida’s Constitution in 2018, Miami-Dade had been the only county in Florida’s 67 with an appointed police director.
The election for sheriff in Miami-Dade was done away with in 1966 after Sheriff T.A. Buchanan was indicted for perjury and failure to disclose campaign contributions. The goal was to eliminate the politics that inevitably got in the way of electing a sheriff. For the most part, it seemed to work. Broward County, however, offers a window into the possible pitfalls of a partisan contest.
Broward Sheriff Gregory Tony has been in a political scuffle over his credentials since he was appointed by Gov. Ron DeSantis almost six years ago, when Scott Israel was forced out as sheriff in response to the Parkland school massacre. Before that, Broward Sheriff Nick Navarro took a hard political stance that gained national attention in the early 1990s when his war with rap star Luther Campbell over musical lyrics went all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Whoever wins the election will inherit one of the largest policing agencies in the U.S., with more than 3,200 sworn officers, more than 5,000 total employees and a $1 billion budget. It remains unclear if Miami-Dade’s new sheriff will also direct the department of corrections and its 3,000 employees and $500 million budget.
Though state law mandates that Miami-Dade commissioners make that determination, they have yet to have a final vote on the measure. The sheriff of most other law enforcement agencies in Florida oversees corrections. Once commissioners take a final vote, it will be up to the sheriff to create a budget for his office, then pass it along to commissioners who would vote on it.
A new wrinkle for the new sheriff: If he or she doesn’t agree with the commission’s final decision, it can be appealed to the governor, who would have the final say.
MAIN CHARACTERS AND THEIR THOUGHTS
As the election nears, the priorities of both Reyes and Cordero-Stutz have come into focus. Both would create oversight boards partially comprised of civilians, which were eliminated last legislative session. Reyes’ board would vote on disciplinary measures, which would be passed along to the sheriff, who would have final say, for enforcement. Cordero-Stutz said her board would focus more on community concerns instead of individual complaints against officers.
Both say the inability to fire rogue cops because of built-in protections like qualified immunity and some provisions in the state’s Law Enforcement Bill of Rights need to be reassessed, though neither candidate offered a direct plan. Both also said they would reinstall the agency’s Public Corruption Unit, which was dismantled years ago.
Cordero-Stutz said her first priority will be transitioning to a sheriff’s office. There’s no plan in place yet, she says, on basic necessities like how to move forward with county-owned buildings that house police, or how the cost for maintenance, support services or information technology would be covered.
She said after that she’ll worry about whether the new office should oversee corrections. She believes the issue should be negotiated between the sheriff and county commissioners and the mayor. Reyes, who spent 22 years at BSO and ran the administrative side of corrections, fire and police, said he hopes corrections falls to the new sheriff.
And both say they will look into community concerns about the discrepancy between the percentage of Blacks and whites who are stopped by police and charged with crimes — particularly in the wake of the confrontation between Miami Dolphins receiver Tyreek Hill and Miami-Dade Police just outside Hard Rock Stadium in September. Cordero-Stutz took a more cautious approach, saying she’d like to study statistics first.
“We’re not perfect. I understand that and will work with the community,” she said. “The first step is for an officer to be held accountable. And the sheriff is a good place to start.”
Reyes had a similar response.
“Every concern in our community has to be my concern as a sheriff,” he said. “It starts on how we’re recruiting and who we’re recruiting. And I plan to integrate more implicit-bias training for our officers.”
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