The arguments have been made by both sides, now its up to the Third District Court of Appeals to decide if the city of Miami has the right to determine that the recall petitions against Commissioner Joe Carollo were late or if City Clerk Todd Hannon has to simply deliver them to the Miami-Dade Elections Department, as ordered by a lower county judge last month.
If this story sounds familiar, you can blame the city attorneys. They regurgitated the same basic arguments they lost already.
Miami city attorneys previously made their case before a Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Alan Fine, who ruled that the city clerk had no 
discretion to determine the petitions were late and ordered the city to have them delivered to the county the next day. But it looks like their appeal is based on practically the same argument: That the city can and has a responsibility to determine timeliness.
Oh, and the crybabies also said the recall attorneys complained far too much about the city attorneys conspiring and creating a recall “cheat sheet” to construct the most limited and strict timeline, researching everything they could to stop or challenge the recall even before the first petition was signed.
Take a minute to let that sink in: The city attorneys, paid by the taxpayer’s dime, spent weeks researching ways to stop a legally provided recall process to protect a sitting commissioner from voters who signed the petitions, which ended up being 1,914 — about 300-some more than the group needed. A chain of emails between City Attorney Victoria Mendez and her cadre of minions, er, assistants show that they conspired since Jan. 29 to jam up the 
process, one way or another.
Read related: Miami city attorneys conspired, created ‘cheat sheet’ to stop Joe Carollo recall
As far as the conspiracy theory goes, the city says “nothing to see here,” in the appeal, and that it’s perfectly normal for attorneys who work for taxpayers to research recall issues to ensure an orderly process.
Except they weren’t researching procedural issues. They were researching, among other things, how to challenge it in court, how to pay for the challenge and how to compute the time. More importantly, when Tricky Vicky did not like the first interpretation of the time computation for the petitions — which jives with the recall group’s deadline — the city attorneys tweaked it to reflect the harsher interpretation she wanted.
That’s why they call it a “cheat sheet,” people.
JC Planas and David Winker, attorneys for Take Back Our City, the political action committee behind the recall, say the clerk 
has no right to make the determination and that, even if he did, which he doesn’t, the petitions were submitted timely under well-established computation rules. Oh, and the city attorney was always conspiring against them on the timing issue anyways.
But the most important thing they say — and Ladra only plays a lawyer on this blog — is that the city’s own argument goes against a June 2000 House committee analysis that made changes to Florida’s municipal election procedure. Specifically, the legislature eliminated any perception of discretion by the clerk to determine whether a municipal recall petition is valid or not.
Aha!
“The City of Miami’s actions in this entire endeavor, including the arguments made in their brief, can best be characterized as an attempt to interpret the statutes in a manner that that adds words that do not exist, with the ultimate goal of giving the City administration power over the recall process that is not granted to it by the Legislature,” Planas and Winker wrote.
Read related: Miami attorneys win and Joe Carollo recall petitions sit in judge’s chambers
“Not only do the Florida Statutes NOT give the City such power, in amending the recall legislation in 2000, the Legislature specifically stated it was removing the ability of a municipal clerk to make any determinations on recall petitions because ‘This process may present an actual or perceived conflict of interest 
within the governing body.'”
In non-attorney words: The city clerk is an employee of the official being recalled and cannot really be trusted to say yay or nay on a petition that could get his/her boss fired. Like, duh. This is nothing on Todd. He seems great and everyone says he’s the most trustworthy guy at City Hall. But he’s under a lot of pressure. He shouldn’t be.
The recall attorneys further argued, yet again, that the only thing Hannon is allowed or can do, per the state law, is turn the petitions over to the county Supervisor of Elections. And because the city stays stuck on the deadline, it shows they know this.
“The fact that both the City and Carollo continue to make arguments regarding the timing of the petitions only illustrates their awareness that they have no legal argument on mandamus and thus seek to deflect from the actual issue. Although the Petitions would still be considered timely filed under further Court review, that matter is NOT before this Court.”
So, again, in non-lawyer speak that means they city attorneys are arguing the wrong thing at the wrong time. And they know, and everyone said in Judge Fine’s courtroom, they’ll argue this again later. Really, it should only be Carollo’s attorney, Ben Keuhne, who makes any challenges from here on out. But it won’t be.
Read related: Video: Joe Carollo has investigated the recall petitions himself; lawyer denies it
A panel of three judges will read the parties’ respective mumbo jumbo and could request oral arguments next week, which begs the question: Will it be remote? Will Ladra be the only one in the courtroom again? They will likely take a couple of days to rule.
If the city loses, Mendez could ask for the entire appellate panel to review the arguments or try to take it to the Supreme Court, but the chances of either are pretty slim. If they win, the appellate court could theoretically kick it back to the trial court to determine the issue of timeliness, rather 
than just ruling that it is a ministerial duty and nothing more.
One might think, why would they want to? Why would the city want to continue to delay the process when it would be harder to get the nearly 5,000 signatures needed in Round 2 in the era of COVID19? Ladra bets Carollo is sorry he didn’t let Tricky Vicky allow the recall effort to move forward. Those activists and canvassers would have to knock on doors right about now and you just know nobody is going to answer, let alone touch anything they might have to sign. Eeewwww. Slam!
But it would be awfully suspicious if the city and Carollo did suddenly drop all their protests over the recall and allow the process to move forward. Especially after saying last month that this hearing was only the first in a lengthy legal battle.
City’s second stab to stop Commissioner Joe Carollo recall effort moves forward added by Ladra on
View all posts by Ladra →
