Politics
North Miami disqualified a City Council candidate, then put him on the ballot anyway
Two North Miami lawsuits filed less than an hour apart last week seek court intervention on the same narrow question: Does a candidate’s signature on his own campaign check void his qualification for office?
The parties involved — incumbent North Miami Vice Mayor Kassandra Timothe, her challenger, retired physician Hector Medina, and the city itself — agree on the basic facts of the case.
Medina submitted and signed two checks on Aug. 11 to pay a qualifying fee for the District 2 race. The problem is, state law requires a campaign’s Treasurer or Deputy Treasurer to make the payment and sign the check, and Medina had designated his wife, Alina Medina, as his Treasurer.
That’s disqualifying, Timothe argued in an Aug. 27 emergency complaint through lawyer Dedrick Straghn, requesting Medina’s removal from the Nov. 3 ballot.
Medina’s lawyer, former Rep. J.C. Planas, said the challenge is meritless, was never the Clerk’s to decide and came too late.
The city initially concurred with Timothe’s assessment and removed Medina from contention on Aug. 25 after Straghn sent a demand letter to City Clerk Vanessa Joseph, City Manager Theresa Therilus and Miami-Dade Supervisor of Elections Alina Garcia.
A day later, however, the city put Medina’s name back on the ballot it sent to the county after Planas threatened litigation, without rescinding the disqualification.
One day after that — about 52 minutes after Timothe’s lawsuit came in — the city filed a suit of its own asking the 11th Judicial Circuit Court for guidance, known as declaratory relief, on a question it contends it can’t answer while facing litigation threats from both sides.
As defendants, the city listed Timothe, Medina and District 2 candidate Brian Jinks, who was included because the court’s decision affects his race.
In a brief phone interview Monday, Timothe told Florida Politics that on Aug. 20, the day qualifying closed at noon, she had her campaign team comb through the qualifying paperwork of everyone in the District 2 race, and the signature on Medina’s check stood out.
“The state law is clear,” she said. “You have to have a properly executed check, and only the campaign Treasurer can sign it.”
She added that Medina could have named himself as Treasurer or Deputy Treasurer, as outlined in both the state and city candidate handbooks, but he didn’t. The city now lists Medina’s status as “pending judicial review.”
Planas said the challenge fails on jurisdictional grounds, pointing to Planas v. Planas, the 2006 case in which he successfully disqualified his second cousin for filing under an unused nickname in a House District 115 race.
That decision, he said, clarified that alleged violations of Florida statutes governing campaign finance belong before the Florida Elections Commission and can’t be repurposed to knock a candidate off the ballot, since they don’t concern eligibility to hold office.
Planas also noted that Medina submitted the check on Aug. 11, nine days before the qualifying deadline, meaning there was ample time to rectify the issue, had the Clerk’s Office determined there was one.
“They didn’t. They accepted the check. They cashed it. They qualified. So, that’s it,” he said.
“They have a right to refuse to accept it, and that’s why I tell people, ‘Don’t qualify at the last minute.’ They have a right to refuse to accept it and say, ‘Can you please fill out your Deputy Treasurer form?’ And he could have done just that, but they didn’t tell him, and they cashed the check. So, guess what? He qualified, and there’s no other campaign finance issue. It’s not a disqualifier in this race.”
Timothe’s motion asks the court to bar Garcia from finalizing, printing or mailing ballots bearing Medina’s name, or to enter narrower relief preserving the ability to remove it later.
The city’s filing notes that if ballots are already printed, state law allows notices at precincts and with vote-by-mail ballots advising that votes for a disqualified candidate won’t count.
A hearing is set for Tuesday afternoon.
Timothe, a 36-year-old Democrat, runs a public relations and brand management agency. She worked as a legislative aide in the Florida House and as North Miami’s Public Information Officer before winning her City Hall seat in 2021.
She is the first Black person, the first woman of Haitian descent and the youngest person elected to serve District 2, which includes Downtown North Miami, Iron Manors, Palomar and San Souci.
Timothe reported raising $1,600 between April 1 and June 30, with nothing spent during the period.
Medina, 68, has no party affiliation and is making his fifth run at public office in North Miami, having previously run for Mayor in 2017, 2019 and 2024, and for District 2 in 2021.
He is the co-founder of the city’s Palomar Neighborhood Association and was the founding director of half a dozen community health and family planning clinics in New York and throughout the Midwest, according to his campaign website.
Through June 30, he reported raising and spending about $10,000.
Jinks, a 64-year-old Republican, raised about $2,000 and spent close to half that by the end of the last reporting period.
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