Annette Taddeo eyes run for Miami-Dade Clerk

Annette Taddeo lines up the endorsements.

Former state Sen. Annette Taddeo is weighing another campaign for public office, this time for Miami-Dade County Clerk of Courts.

Taddeo, who left the Legislature’s upper chamber last year for an unsuccessful congressional bid, confirmed she is strongly considering a run to be the county’s first elected Clerk since late fellow Democrat Harvey Ruvin.

“I am considering it, but I’m not there yet,” she told Florida Politics. “I’ve got to check and make sure I do everything I need to do before I make the final decision. But I’ve been having a lot of conversations.”

Ruvin, one of the most well-regarded local politicians in Miami-Dade history, died late last year after serving as Clerk for more than three decades. Chief Judge Nushin Sayfie then appointed longtime Clerk’s Office General Counsel Luis Montaldo to lead the 1,100-person office as interim Clerk.

That arrangement would have remained in place through the 2024 election had Gov. Ron DeSantis not stepped in on June 9 and appointed his own replacement. The Governor selected then-state Rep. Juan Fernandez-Barquin, a Republican ally of his, for the job.

Fernandez-Barquin vowed then to “work (his) hardest to streamline services, enhance technological capabilities, and increase outreach to (county) residents.”

Taddeo said she would not be thinking of running for Clerk if Montaldo still had the job, but Fernandez-Barquin — who filed paperwork this month to run for the post next year — is too partisan for the role.

“The last thing that office needs is someone who carried water for the Governor with horrible bills that are detrimental to our country and have been called unconstitutional in our courts,” she said, referring in part to Fernandez-Barquin’s so-called “anti-riot” bill lawmakers passed in 2021, which a federal judge partly blocked later that year.

Taddeo also cited as problematic Fernandez-Barquin’s support of measures preempting local governance, including a bill he carried solidifying law enforcement powers under the county’s returning Sheriff’s Office and another he backed allowing businesses to halt enforcement of local ordinances through lawsuits.

“There’s been such an attack on home rule from Tallahassee in particular,” she said. “It’s important we have people in office who are there for the good of the whole county, not to do harm, and continue the great work Harvey Ruvin did for so long.”

Taddeo served for five years in the Senate before leaving office last year to challenge Republican U.S. Rep. María Elvira Salazar. She previously sought election to Congress in 2008 and 2016, ran for a Miami-Dade Commission seat in 2010 and was former Gov. Charlie Crist’s running mate in 2014.

Last year, she placed second in a contest to lead the Florida Democratic Party.

Her other involvements included serving as elected Chair of the county’s Democratic Executive Committee, Chair of the Miami-Dade Women’s Chamber of Commerce and board membership with the Miami Beach Chamber, among others.

She said she doesn’t have a specific date set for when she’ll make a final decision about whether to run, but it will likely be “sometime after Labor Day.”

“That’s when people’s heads are back on,” she said. “At some point around then is when I’ll have more of an opportunity to make the decision.”