Jesse Scheckner
It’s hardly the first race in the county that comes to mind when discussing the most heated contests this election cycle, but the post at stake is vital.
Miami-Dade’s Clerk and Comptroller is the chief custodian of all county records. In accordance with voters’ wishes from a 2018 referendum, the job will also soon encompass overseeing all county funds, auditing duties and recording responsibilities.
For decades, the position was synonymous with one person: Harvy Ruvin, a widely respected public servant who spent nearly two-thirds of his life in public office, the preponderance of which as Clerk.
A Democrat who did all he could not to politicize his office, Ruvin died on New Year’s Eve 2022. Gov. Ron DeSantis appointed then-Rep. Juan Fernandez-Barquin, a Republican, to replace him six months later.
Since then, Fernandez-Barquin has maintained a relatively low profile, stressing that he wants to continue the “Harvey Ruvin tradition” of not keeping the Clerk’s Office a neutral institution.
But voters have not yet confirmed that they approve of DeSantis’ pick, and former Sen. Annette Taddeo, a Democrat, thinks they should choose her instead.
The winner between Fernandez-Barquin, Taddeo and independent write-in candidate Rubin Young will be responsible for running an office of some 1,100 employees spread across 16 court facilities and a $105.6 million annual budget.
Fernandez-Barquin, 41, has proven he can do the job. Taddeo, 57, says she can do it better.
A lawyer born in Miami to Cuban parents, Fernandez-Barquin started his career as an Assistant Public Defender in Palm Beach County before working on the private side of the legal divide, first with a civil law firm and later in private practice.
In 2018, he won a race to represent House District 119, which spans a western portion of Miami-Dade’s Kendall neighborhood. Voters re-elected him twice.
Taddeo was born in Colombia, where she spent her first 17 years before fleeing to the U.S. after terrorists kidnapped her father. She is the owner and operator of a translation business called LanguageSpeak.
A past Chair of the Miami-Dade Democratic Party, Taddeo became Florida’s first Latina Democratic Senator in 2017, when she won a Special Election. She won a full, four-year term the year after but resigned early to mount an unsuccessful congressional bid in 2022.
Since then, she’s been in something of a political limbo. She ran for Chair of the Florida Democratic Party last year, but came up short. About six months later, after DeSantis replaced Ruvin’s preferred successor from the Clerk post, she started mulling a run. She filed in February.
Despite his comparatively short time in appointed office, Fernandez-Barquin has some accomplishments to run on. He extended Clerk office hours and created a mobile unit to increase accessibility, launched a property fraud registration system and established an online payment portal for traffic and court fees.
If elected to a full four-year term, he vows to make his office and the areas of government it influences more transparent while enhancing its technological abilities with the use of artificial intelligence. He also wants to improve customer service, create a paperless lobbying registration system and simplify payment processes for court, parking and traffic fees.
Those and other “customer-oriented moves” earned Fernandez-Barquin an endorsement from the Miami Herald editorial board, which tempered its nod with criticism about how he has at times seemingly used his public position for political advantage.
The Herald took exception with Fernandez-Barquin’s decision to issue lanyards to employees with his name on it, which the outlet noted “feels like an unfair way of boosting name recognition.”
Taddeo’s campaign has also called him out for similar practices elsewhere. In September, Taddeo accused Fernandez-Barquin of using taxpayer money to promote his campaign. At issue was an ad the Clerk’s Office ran about its long-running Operation Green Light program, which helps motorists with suspended licenses regain their driving privileges.
While the ads included no mention of Fernandez-Barquin’s campaign or any call for voter action, they featured a photo of him and were placed prominently on the websites of several local periodicals. Radio ads about the program also mentioned his name.
Taddeo’s team also called attention to the fact that Fernandez-Barquin ran the program and marketed it in September, while all other counties run Operation Green Light between April and June.
Fernandez-Barquin pointed out that this was the second year in which Miami-Dade had Operation Green Light in September. He also runs the program in April, as Ruvin did for years, but said a second round was needed to address the sheer number of drivers in the county with suspended licenses.
“This woman is grasping at straws,” he told Florida Politics when asked about the issue. “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 she’s trying to get elected to this position.”
Taddeo fired back in a September interview that of Florida’s 67 counties, 57 have Clerks who are businesspeople like her. She told Florida Politics it’s Fernandez-Barquin, not her, who is a truly scary prospect for what should be a politically neutral position.
As evidence, she cited a so-called “anti-riot” bill he successfully sponsored while a member of the House in 2021, which a federal Judge partially blocked later that year. She also pointed to a measure he backed that eroded Miami-Dade’s home rule, including laws solidifying policing powers under the county’s returning Sheriff’s Office, and another enabling businesses to halt enforcement of local ordinances through lawsuits.
“The last thing that office needs is someone who carried water for the Governor with horrible bills that are detrimental to our county and have been called unconstitutional in our courts,” she said.
With a win in November, Taddeo said she wants to provide taxpayers with a yearly report outlining the county’s finances, make the Clerk’s Office more accessible and transparent, improve staff morale and go beyond programs like Green Light to help residents struggling to make ends meet amid high insurance and housing costs.
Fernandez-Barquin carries a larger war chest than his challenger. Between when he filed to run to keep his Clerk job in July 2023 and early October this year, he raised $538,000 between his campaign account and state-level political committee, Floridians United.
After a healthy amount of spending, he had roughly $84,600 left a month from Election Day.
That isn’t to say Taddeo was a slouch in the fundraising department. Through Oct. 4, she amassed $362,000 between her campaign account and county-level political committee, Accountable Miami-Dade. Of that, she had $121,500 remaining heading into the election’s home stretch.
She also racked up a wave of notable endorsements from groups like Moms Demand Action, Ruth’s List Florida, SAVE Action PAC, AFSCME Florida, United Teachers of Dade, Latino Victory Fund, South Florida AFL-CIO, three SEIU chapters and a slew of current and former local leaders.
The General Election is on Nov. 5.
