‘Grasping at straws’: Miami-Dade Clerk candidates trade barbs over taxpayer-funded ad

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The race for Miami-Dade Clerk, long one of the county’s most politically innocuous offices, is getting a little hostile.

This week, Democratic candidate Annette Taddeo accused incumbent Republican Clerk Juan Fernandez-Barquin of using taxpayer dollars from his office to pay for a Spanish-language radio ad promoting his campaign.

The ad does not mention Fernandez-Barquin’s campaign. It includes no call for voter support or action. Instead, it tells listeners about Operation Green Light, a statewide program through which motorists with suspended licenses can more easily regain their driving privileges.

Taddeo’s campaign nonetheless insists it’s covertly a campaign commercial, pointing to the timing of the ad and program — in September, when all other counties run Operation Green Light between April and June — and the ad’s airing only on Spanish stations.

Fernandez-Barquin, a former state lawmaker whom Gov. Ron DeSantis appointed to the Clerk job last year, said Taddeo is “grasping at straws” and her accusation reinforces his belief that she is ill-suited for the job.

The 30-second spot, translated to English, says: “Was your driver’s license suspended for traffic tickets? Are your tickets in collections? Do you need a payment plan? My name is Juan Fernandez-Barquin. I am the Clerk and Comptroller for Miami-Dade County. From Sept. 23 to Oct. 6, we will have Operation Green Light, where the collection rates will not be applied. This could be a saving of 30%.”

The ad then provides a link to the county’s Operation Green Light webpage.

Taddeo, a former state Senator, said Miami-Dade voters “deserve answers” from Fernandez-Barquin and called on him to “release all documents” on all the advertisements he’s taken out for both his public office and campaign this cycle.

“It’s quite ironic,” she said, “that my opponent campaigns on saving residents millions of dollars when he is in fact wasting taxpayer money on promoting his campaign and sending them the bill to finance his paid advertising efforts.”

While there’s nothing inherently suspect about a public official advertising a special promotion his office offers, such tax-funded marketing activities often see more scrutiny in election years.

And some of Fernandez-Barquin’s Operation Green Light policies are unique. He runs the program in April, like an overwhelming share of Florida’s 66 other Clerks. But he’s the only one to also have it in September.

This is the second year Fernandez-Barquin included the September program, which runs Sept. 23-Oct. 6, in addition to an earlier one the Clerk’s Office ran for years under Harvey Ruvin, who died Dec. 31, 2022, after three decades as Clerk.

“With inflation and the cost of living here and the sheer population of South Florida, we need to have it at least twice a year for multiple reasons, including just to make sure word gets out about it,” Fernandez-Barquin said.

But according to Taddeo’s campaign adviser, Christian Ulvert, the September program is also politically expedient. He also noted that the program ran a week earlier last year, Sept. 1-17.

“Given that every other Clerk in the state of Florida does this earlier in the year and Miami-Dade is the only one that does it the week before absentee ballots go out, it looks like he’s utilizing tax dollars to campaign,” he said.

And why, Ulvert asked, was Operation Green Light only being advertised in Spanish?

The answer, according to Fernandez-Barquin, isn’t that exciting. He said he recorded ads in both English and Spanish, but he was unhappy with how the English one came out. He has since re-recorded that version, and it’s set to begin airing Monday.

Fernandez-Barquin said he also promoted Operation Green Light in a pair of English-language radio interviews, including one on WHQT Hot 105. As for why he waited to advertise the program until just before it began, he said he had been advised not to give too much advance notice because in the past, it prompted people to hold off on paying their fees until they could get a discount.

“If you give even a week’s notice, you’ll see a dip,” he said.

Palm Beach County was the first to roll out an Operation Green Light program in 2014 under then-Clerk Sharon Bock. The initiative later expanded statewide when lawmakers approved a measure by future House Speaker Paul Renner and Jacksonville Democratic Rep. Kimberly Daniels in 2019, by which time several other counties — including Miami-Dade — had rolled out versions of the program.

An estimated 600,000 people in Miami-Dade had suspended driver’s licenses in 2022, according to the county’s Driver’s License Suspension Task Force. Fernandez-Barquin believes that figure is an overestimation.

“But it’s still a massive amount of individuals, and I’m just trying to help them. I was a Public Defender for four and half years. I was at the front lines of this and saw its impacts firsthand — over half my cases in County Court were driving with a suspended license,” he said, adding that under his leadership, the Clerk’s Office has reinstated more than 38,000 driver’s licenses and waived roughly $3.5 million in collection fees.

Fernandez-Barquin said he has made it a priority since taking over the Clerk’s Office last year to keep it as apolitical as possible, “in the Harvey Ruvin tradition,” which is why Taddeo’s accusation so offends him.

“This woman is grasping at straws,” he said. “She’s not qualified for this office. She’s not an attorney. She doesn’t know the function of this office and, quite frankly, it’s scary that she’s trying to get elected to this position.”

Ulvert said that if Fernandez-Barquin truly wanted to honor Ruvin’s legacy of neutrality, “he would avoid even a whiff of politicization while in office.”

No-party candidate Rubin Young has also qualified to run for Clerk as a write-in candidate.

The General Election is on Nov. 5.