Miami Beach voters went for sweeping change Tuesday, throwing out both incumbents and choosing a fresh face over a longtime activist. But the change was cultural as well as political.
Because for the first time in almost 20 years, there is not one single Hispanic elected official to represent the majority of the population in Miami Beach.
Tuesday’s runoff election in three commission races did what many say is unthinkable in the 305: It shut out all three Hispanic candidates, including two incumbents who join a third once-elected Hispanic beaten in the mayoral primary Nov. 6.
And some say that was the intention all along.
There have been accusations for weeks of an anti-Hispanic campaign waged by Mayor Elect Philip Levine and his slate. Levine and his team have denied any such monstrosity.
But Wednesday, when the city awoke to find it was now completely represented by non-Hispanic whites, the argument was renewed among critics of the new reign.
“Phil has taken back the beach from the Hispanics,” posted activist Carla Probus on twitter, referring to Levine’s “Let’s Take Back Miami Beach” campaign slogan that some complained referenced an anti-Hispanic bent.
“Take back from what? That’s what I want to know,” said Mayor Matti Herrera Bower, who was termed out of her current office and beaten Tuesday in a commission race by retired banker Joy Malakoff, who got a whopping 60 percent of the vote. Bower says the inference is to take it back from Hispanics, who have slowly come to power in the city of 90,000 residents where 54 percent today are de origen hispano.
“It’s a sad day for Hispanics in Miami Beach,” Bower told Ladra Wednesday. She hadn’t yet analyzed the voting breakdown by demographics, but she has a sinking feeling Latinos didn’t support her as much as they used to.
“There was a lot of wooing in the Hispanic community. He had massive amounts of people in the public housing buildings, massive,” Bower said, referring to Levine, who was supporting Malakoff against her and who spent more than $2 million of his own money for a job that pays $10,000 a year.
“If you didn’t have that kind of money, you couldn’t keep up,” Bower said, echoing comments from others — which Ladra was unable to confirm by law enforcement but which seems reasonable — that investigators are looking into whether certain people in the public housing units were compensated for collecting ballots from their neighbors.
But while on one hand Team Levine seemed to pander to Hispanic voters, Bower and Commissioner Michael Gongora — who lost his mayoral bid in the first round — say that he used a back hand to appeal to the anti-Hispanic sentiment with the other.
The slogan “certainly appeals to those who would have an anti-Hispanic sentiment,” said one political observer who added that if it was used nationally in today’s arena — as in “Let’s Take Back the White House” — it may be perceived as racist.
Some of the incumbents’ supporters agree and pointed to a debate in which Levine accused Gongora of having a “mañana, mañana” attitude, calling him racist for that remark.
While Levine said that he meant a track record of procrastination — and that he used the word to appeal to the senior Hispanics that his campaign had bussed to the event in the first place — some of us Latinos found it a bit insensitive, seeing as how “mañana attitude” is a well-known phrase and stereotype used against Hispanics. You know, ’cause we like to siesta! Dale!
So, he simply chose one word, and only one word, to utter in Spanish to pander to the viejitos he had taken there and this is the word he chooses? Really? Again, someone should get fired.
Levine and his people scoff at any allegation that there is an anti-Hispanic sentiment and point to two Spanish-language campaign video ads on YouTube — two of 28 videos, one of which was made to address the anti-Hispanic allegations — as proof of his so-called sensitivity. His political consultant, David Custin, has said that the “Take Back Miami Beach” slogan refers to special interests and electeds who have been mired in slow responses and government corruption.
“Take it back from people who are incompetent,” Custin told me earlier in the campaign. He worked for three anglo candidates who won and one of the losing Hispanics, activist Elsa Urquiza, who lost to Micky Steinberg, wife of a former state representative.
Urquiza has said it was laughable for there to be an anti-Hispanic slate with a Cuban-American like her on it. But she was the only slate mate who was not included in a “friend raiser” rally of support party that Levine threw Friday night, the eve before early voting started Saturday. Only the anglos on his slate — Malakoff and Michael Grieco — were to benefit from that.
Really? Really?
Grieco, who beat Commissioner Jorge Exposito with 53 percent of the vote Tuesday, scoffed at any notion that his campaign was linked to any anti-Hispanic tactics.
“If it wasn’t for my Hispanic supporters, I would not be elected,” Grieco said, adding that about “80 percent” of the people celebrating with him Tuesday night at his office were Hispanics.
“They helped us win. They worked the polls for us. Some volunteered for us.”
But the new lack of any Hispanic representation in a city that is 54 percent Latino, according to the latest estimates, is raising eyebrows.
“It is significant, at the very least symbolically,” said Sean Foreman, a professor of political science at Barry University in Miami.
“Also for issues like affordable housing, worker’s rights, immigration there will be no champions on the dais,” Foreman said.
Beach voter Alberto Sard said it was “the first thought that came to mind” when he saw the results Tuesday night. “I hope the new leadership shows interest in reaching out to the Hispanic community,” Sard said.
This sudden departure of all sabor on the dais has already spurred at least one Hispanic candidate for 2015: Andres Asion, a lifelong Beach resident and realtor who congratulated the winners Wednesday but lamented the lack of Latino representation.
“I am sure the commission will do a great job for the city,” Asion said. “The one negative side is that starting next week there will be no Hispanics on the Commission for the first time since the 1990’s.
“It is important to have a diverse representation of our diverse community on the commission,” Asion said.
“There were a lot of people unhappy with the current commission, unhappy with the current situation, the corruption,” Asion told me. “And, unfortunately, the Hispanic candidates were the incumbents and they took the brunt of it.”
Asion said he is already getting ready to run in 2015. He would have run in this election, but he was urged to stay out of the races as to not divide the Latino vote, he said.
Asion, who serves on the Community Relations Board, is one of several residents also concerned with what they see as too little representation on city boards and committees. But statistics provided by the city show that Hispanics do make up between 14 and 43 percent of most boards, and consist of 57 percent the Loan Review Committee.
But while there is only one board that is 100 percent Hispanic — and that is, naturally, the Hispanic Affairs Board — at least seven boards or committees are 100 percent “white,” according to the city. Their word. Not mine. That includes the important Planning Board and the Visitors and Convention Authority and the Convention Center Advisory Board.
Some political observers might think this is the right time to bring up the possible change of electing commissioners by district in order to better ensure Hispanic representation. But that failed once before. The first stab was in 1994 when six residents who had sued, saying the city’s election process violated the federal Voting Rights Act — since, yeah, I guess that could be the only reason that no Hispanic had ever been elected, right?
U.S. District Judge James Kehoe disagreed in his ruling the next year, saying there was “no evidence of official discrimination against Hispanics by the city of Miami Beach, which has historically been a liberal and tolerant community.”
Within two years, in 1997, voters elected their first Hispanic city officials: Commissioners Jose Smith and Simon Cruz. Back then, the city’s Hispanic population was close to half.
Today, it is a slight majority and there have been a number of Hispanic electeds come and go — at the city, county and state level. That is why it may be hard to make a case, based on this election alone, that the Voting Rights Act is being violated.
“A federal judge may require you to establish a trend longer than this election cycle,” said attorney Stephen Cody, who represented the plaintiffs in the 1994 case. “It might be two elections. It might be three elections.”
The breakdown of votes by ethnic background, which are not available until after the election is certified Friday, may also come into play. Did the Latino vote play a big role? Did Hispanic voters show up? Did they support the Anglo candidates? Were they split down the middle?
If Bower and Exposito got as much support from Hispanics as non-Hispanics, it may not be an issue – even if it leaves more than half the residents unrepresented. “Under the law, you are entitled to equal opportunity, not proportionate results,” Cody explained.
Whatever the case turns out to be, the lack of Hispanic representation on the commission is likely to be an issue for the next two years and in the 2015 elections, where three Anglo commissioners will be out due to term limits.
Steve Berke, who came in third in the mayor’s race with 12 percent, said that hopefully the Hispanic community won’t be hoodwinked again, as he says they were this year by the Levine campaign team.
“The majority Hispanic population went to the polls and made their choice. Essentially, Hispanics have no one to blame but themselves for this situation. They bought into Levine’s phony narrative and elected his all-white slate,” Berke said.
“The milk has been spilt, so there’s no use in crying now.”
Miami Beach elections leave no Hispanic representation added by Ladra on
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