Rep. Fabián Basabe vowed ahead of the 2024 election, on video, to resign if it was ever proven he sexually harassed, battered and defamed a pair of former employees who accused him of doing so.
Now, most of the elected officials in his home city want to see him follow through on that commitment.
Five of the Miami Beach Commission’s seven members believe Basabe should vacate his House District 106 seat after a jury found him liable and ordered him this month to pay $450,000 to the two men who sued him.
They join a growing list of elected officials demanding he leave office.
Commissioner Laura Dominguez, whom Basabe attacked ahead of her landslide re-election last year, said the Republican lawmaker and one-time City Commission candidate “made clear in his own words that if a court found him guilty in any form, he would resign.”
“Any independent jury has now done so,” she told Florida Politics, “and he should carry through his promise and resign immediately.”
Commissioner Alex Fernandez, another target of Basabe’s ire who has sponsored multiple measures at City Hall calling out the lawmaker’s behavior, agreed.
“If it isn’t already obvious from the 2023 resolution I sponsored calling out Fabian Basabe and condemning his voting record for failing to represent our city, the resolution I later joined censuring him, and my refusal to endorse his re-election as reported by Florida Politics last December,” he said, “I firmly believe he should resign immediately, and Election Day can’t come soon enough.”
Commissioner Tanya Katzoff Bhatt took to Facebook to share her thoughts.
“Time to resign,” she wrote. “Or is that just another promise he won’t keep?”
Commissioner David Suarez told Florida Politics by text, “He should resign,” adding that taking that position “seems like a no-brainer.”
Commissioner Monica Matteo-Salinas, the City Commission’s newest member, feels the same.
“He should resign like he promised he would,” she said.
Two other officials who sit on the City Commission — Mayor Steven Meiner and Commissioner Joseph Magazine — did not share their thoughts.
Meiner, who faced accusations in 2024 that he made unwelcome romantic advances toward three former female employees while working for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, did not respond to Florida Politics’ query.
Magazine said he was on vacation and had disconnected from most media in an effort to “tune out from all the noise and drama.”
“Haven’t followed (the Basabe story) other than a headline I’ve seen,” he said.
Dominguez, Fernandez, Bhatt and Matteo-Salinas are Democrats, while Magazine, Meiner and Suarez previously belonged to the Republican Party, but now have no party affiliation.
Notably, Basabe was a frequent agitator at Miami Beach City Hall, where he accused officials of running afoul of Florida’s anti-campaign law by enforcing the city’s homelessness ordinance. In December, he successfully pushed for Florida lawmakers to approve a state audit of Miami Beach’s government operations, prompting a censure from the Commission later that month.
The resignation calls from officials in Miami Beach, where Basabe has listed his primary residence since 2021, follow multiple endorsement rescindments by prior supporters of his 2026 re-election campaign.
They include Kissimmee Democratic Rep. Jose Alvarez, Sunny Isles Beach Vice Mayor Jennifer Viscarra, Surfside Commissioner Ruben Coto, Sunny Isles Beach Commissioner Alex Lama and Bal Harbour Council Member Buzzy Sklar.
Florida Politics has asked every official who endorsed Basabe this cycle whether they still support him in light of the July 15 court verdict and will continue to report on the matter as they respond.
On Wednesday, Basabe — who represented himself in the sexual harassment trial, against advice from the court and conventional wisdom — asked the Judge who ruled over the case for a new trial or to reduce the six-figure verdict.
Lawyer Peter Ticktin, a high school friend of President Donald Trump whom Basabe has hired along with two other lawyers from Ticktin’s firm, filed the 25-page motion, which among other things criticizes the exclusion of material from two House investigations that previously cleared Basabe, finding “inconclusive” and “no evidence” of wrongdoing.
Basabe’s accusers, former aide Nicolas Frevola and former intern Jacob Cutbirth, through their lawyer, Cindy Myers, have filed a separate lawsuit against the House, accusing its GOP leadership of insufficiently investigating their claims.
That case remains pending.
In a written statement he said he composed while he “was driving,” Basabe said he “will continue serving … while this legal process moves forward.”
HD 106 covers a coastal strip of Miami-Dade County between Miami Beach and Aventura. It is considered to be among Florida’s most flippable districts, having gone to Trump by 9 percentage points in 2024 and to former President Joe Biden four years earlier by 10 points, according to MCI Maps.
Basabe, a former reality TV personality and socialite, defeated former Bay Harbor Islands Mayor Jordan Leonard in 2022 by less than a percentage point to succeed term-limited Democratic Rep. Joe Geller — who has since replaced Báez-Geller, no relation, on the Miami-Dade School Board — in HD 106.
He won re-election by a 4-point margin two years later.
This cycle, former Miami-Dade School Board Member Lucia Báez-Geller and lawyer Ashley Litwin Diego are competing in an Aug. 18 Democratic Primary for the right to challenge Basabe in the Nov. 3 General Election.
