Miami-Dade voters reject term limits

Miami-Dade County voters rejected a change to the charter that would have limited commissioners to two four-year terms to replace the current system of unlimited tenure. County residents voted 54 to 46 percent Jan. 31, 2012, against term limits.

It may not have been the idea of term limits that bothered voters but the fact that the term limits would have been accompanied by a massive pay hike for commissioners from the current $6,000 to about $92,097 a year based on a state formula that relates to population. 

The question on the ballot had three parts asking voters if they wanted to amend the charter to require that County Commissioners: 

• Devote full-time service to the office of County Commissioner and hold no other employment;

• No longer receive the $6,000 annual salary established in 1957, but receive instead the salary provided by state formula, adjusted annually (currently approximately $92,097)

• Serve no more than two consecutive four-year terms in office excluding terms of service prior to 2012

During the 2011 campaign for mayor, County Commissioner Carlos Gimenez argued that eight years was enough.

"For years, I have tried to get before the voters a charter amendment for two 4-year terms," he wrote on his campaign website April 25, 2011. "In addition to offering more choices for voters, term limits eliminate the advantages of incumbency, break ties to special interests, improve the tendency for elected officials to vote their conscience rather than engage in quid pro quo, and open the door to fresh thinking and new ideas. In short, term limits inhibit political careerism."

The promise of enacting term limits isn't dead, though. Vanessa Brito of Miami Voice, the group that spearheaded the recall of Commissioner Natacha Seijas in 2011, told the Miami Herald that she plans to collect signatures to get term limits on a the ballot in November, coinciding with the general presidential election. That election will get a higher turnout than the approximately 14 percent who showed up for the presidential primary on Jan. 31 -- and not all bothered with the charter questions.

Brito's proposal may stand a better chance since she is working toward only term limits -- not the salary increase. 

Term limits won't happen in the next few months, and we haven't seen Gimenez take much action. If Brito succeeds and gets a question about term limits back on the ballot, we may move the meter to In the Works. But for now we rate this promise Stalled.