Francis Suarez

Francis Xavier Suarez ( ; born October 6, 1977) is an American lawyer and politician serving as the 43rd mayor of Miami since 2017. The son of former mayor of Miami Xavier Suarez, he previously served on the Miami City Commission from 2009 to 2017. He was first elected mayor of Miami in 2017 and re-elected in 2021. During his mayoralty, Suarez has been noted for his advocacy for cryptocurrency. He is a candidate in the 2024 Republican Party presidential primaries.

Early life and education

The oldest of four siblings, Suarez is the son of Rita and Xavier Suarez, two-time Miami mayor. His aunt, Lala, is the mother of U.S. Congressman Alex Mooney from West Virginia.

Suarez attended Immaculata-LaSalle High School. He graduated in 1996 and went on to graduate in the top 10% of his class from Florida International University (FIU) with a bachelor's degree in finance. Following college, Suarez chose to attend the University of Florida Fredric G. Levin College of Law, receiving his J.D. degree ''cum laude'' in 2004. He then became an attorney with the law firm Greenspoon Marder, specializing in corporate and real estate transactions.

Alleged participation in voter fraud

In 1998, Suarez's father, Xavier Suarez, was removed from Miami's mayoral office by a Florida circuit court. The court found that Joe Carollo's lawsuit alleging voter fraud in the first round of the mayoral election had merit. During the lawsuit, the younger Suarez was a 20-year-old sophomore at FIU. Suarez was confronted with witness signatures for invalid absentee ballots by Carollo's lawyers. The signatory "F. Suarez" did not reside at any of the addresses given. Suarez denied any involvement with witnessing absentee ballots. Observers found that the sample of signatures given by Suarez did bear some resemblance to the signatures on the witness ballots.

Miami Commission (2009–2017)

Suarez was first elected as City of Miami Commissioner for District 4 in 2009. The general election to replace Tomás Regalado was on November 3, 2009. Suarez made it to the runoff election against Manolo Reyes after he received 44.74% of the vote, while Reyes received 40.50%. The other candidates in the general election were Denis Rod who had 5.15% and Oscar Rodriguez-Fonts with 9.61%.

The runoff election was on November 17, 2009. Suarez won with 51.41% of the vote. He was reelected unopposed in 2011 and 2015.

Mayor of Miami (2017–present)

Suarez was elected mayor of Miami in the 2017 election. Suarez is Miami's first local-born mayor. He is also the first mayor to not be born in Cuba since 1996, when mayor Stephen P. Clark died in office. Suarez was re-elected in the 2021 Miami mayoral election, receiving over 78% of the vote in the first ballot.

Miami has a weak mayor system under which the mayor holds little authority, The city's mayoralty is a part-time position and does not have power over the city's administration. Its limited powers include a veto over city commission legislation and the ability to declare emergencies. The mayor of Miami can also hire and fire the city manager who runs Miami's government, though the city commissioners have the ability to overrule a mayor's choice.

In June 2020, Suarez was elected by American mayors to serve as the second vice president of the United States Conference of Mayors and in June 2021, he was elected as the first vice president of the organization. From June 2022 to June 2023, he served as the president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors.

In 2021, Suarez was included in ''Fortune'' magazine's "World's 50 Greatest Leaders" list.

Unsuccessful "strong mayor" ballot measure

As mayor, Suarez pushed to transition the city to a strong mayor system. A November 2018 municipal referendum was held on a ballot measure that would have changed the mayor's authority, with a heavy majority of voters rejecting such a change. The adoption of the ballot measure, which would have led to the mayor having power over city administration (including power over staffing offices that administer permitting and zoning departments), had been supported by many the city's largest real estate developers, real estate brokers, and land use lawyers. More the $1.2 million dollars was raised from such sources for Suarez's political action committee to promote a "yes" vote.

Miami Forever Bond

As mayor, Suarez has overseen a $400 million municipal bond initiative, sometimes called the Miami Forever Bond, to combat rising sea levels and support affordable housing.

Bureaucracy digitalization

Suarez has advocated for the modernizing of Miami's bureaucracy. In 2018, the city adopted the Electronic Plans Review System to digitize the submission to the Planning and Zoning Department of site plans and zoning requests. This was something that Suarez had pushed for. Miami further digitized its bureaucracy by adopting the eStart system to digitize its process for getting building permits. Suarez touted this as streamlining the ability for businesses to get needed permits. Suarez proposed eStart in 2019, and it was launched in January 2021.

Climate change

In February 2019, Suarez wrote an article with former Secretary-General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon about how Miami is defending itself from the effects of climate change.

Business

Suarez has promoted the city of Miami to investors as being a profitable location for tech and finance firms to locate their offices. In 2022, Suarez spoke at the World Economic Forum. Suarez is a cryptocurrency-friendly politician, who has promoted the development of Miami as a cryptocurrency hub. He intends for Miami to be the next Silicon Valley

As part of his friendliness towards cryptocurrency, Suarez touted the naming rights deal for Kaseya Center (renamed "FTX Arena") with cryptocurrency exchange FTX, appearing repeatedly with Sam Bankman-Fried. When the company filed for bankruptcy amid charges of fraud, the deal was terminated.

MiamiCoin

In September 2021, Saurez revealed that his ultimate plan for the city of Miami is to abolish taxes. Instead, he hopes to fund the city's activities via the issuance and continued mining of a city-specific blockchain token called MiamiCoin – which has led to him being nicknamed "Mayor Ponzi Postalita" by documentary-maker and director Billy Corben. He also stated that Miami is looking to allow its residents to get paid in Bitcoin, and to be able to pay their taxes using Bitcoin. In November 2021, Suarez became the first U.S. politician to take their salary in cryptocurrency.

Less than a year after the launch of MiamiCoin, the token was delisted from its last exchange, OKCoin, after losing over 90% of its value. Suarez lost $2,500 personally on MiamiCoin. Suarez continued to tout the money earned from MiamiCoin, and maintained his support for cryptocurrency.

Transportation

In 2021, after seeing the Las Vegas Loop constructed by Elon Musk's The Boring Company, Suarez raised the possibility of using tunneling to relieve congestion problems in Miami, proposing, "something that could potentially connect Brickell to downtown to the Grand Central station to Miami World Center to the Omni area to Edgewater, potentially to Wynwood."

Payments from real estate developer

In a disclosure of financial statements to investors, a real estate development company named Location Ventures revealed that they had paid Suarez at least $170,000 to push a development project in Coconut Grove. Records showed that Suarez, Location Ventures CEO Rishi Kapoor, and City Manager Art Noriega met to discuss a zoning hurdle for the development. As mayor, Suarez also works as a private real estate attorney, and has not disclosed his clients. This was criticized, since city officials cannot avoid potential conflicts of interest. On June 10, the ''Miami Herald'' noted that "special agents with the FBI's public corruption squad began questioning witnesses this week" on whether $10,000 monthly payments made to Suarez from London Ventures constituted bribery.

Response to COVID-19 pandemic

On March 2, 2020, Suarez responded to the COVID-19 pandemic by announcing preparations for a potential outbreak in Miami. Though no cases had yet to reported in Miami, two cases were confirmed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in other areas of the state of Florida. On March 4, 2020. Suarez announced plans to cancel the upcoming Ultra Music Festival, stating that the tourists attending would greatly enhance the likelihood of Miami having cases of COVID-19. On March 6, 2020, Suarez and the Miami municipal government responded to the outbreak, which by then had resulted in even more confirmed coronavirus cases in the state of Florida, by cancelling the local Calle Ocho Festival as well. Suarez and two other city officials confirmed this during a press conference.

Suarez contracted the virus, which he confirmed during an interview with the ''Miami Herald'' on March 13, 2020. He was the second person confirmed to be infected in Miami-Dade County. He began posting daily video diaries to Instagram, showing the progression of his COVID-19 infection.

In April 2020, Suarez wrote to President Trump urging the president to take action to stop flights from COVID-19 "hot spots" from entering Miami International Airport. Carlos A. Giménez, the mayor of Miami-Dade County, came into conflict with Suarez over this. As Gimenez's position held oversight of the airport, he urged Trump to ignore Suarez's letter since the airport was not Suarez's purview.

In July 2020, Suarez dedicated 39 police officers to the task of enforcing a Miami-wide mask-wearing ordinance.

Republican Party politics

During the 2018 Florida gubernatorial election, Suarez voted against Republican nominee and eventual winner Ron DeSantis and instead voted for his Democratic opponent Andrew Gillum. He voted for DeSantis in the 2022 gubernatorial election. Suarez did not vote for incumbent Republican Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election; he wrote in Marco Rubio instead.

2024 presidential campaign

In April 2021, reports that Suarez could serve as a running-mate to potential 2024 presidential candidate Nikki Haley emerged. A report by '' The Hill'' in September 2021 indicated that Suarez was interested in running for president in his own right. Suarez spoke on '' Fox News Sunday'' on June 11, 2023, touting visits to early primary states, saying "when I take the message to people, they want to hear more." He urged people to tune into a speech he is due to give at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library on June 15, calling it a "big speech" about the "future of our country," the clearest indication yet of a presidential campaign announcement. Suarez filed to run for president with the Federal Election Commission on June 14 and officially launched his bid the next day.

While appearing on Hugh Hewitt's podcast on June 27, 2023, Hewitt asked Suarez about the ongoing persecution of the Uyghur people in China, to which Suarez asked "What's a Uyghur?" Suarez then assured Hewitt that he would research the ethnic group. After the podcast concluded and news of the gaffe broke, Suarez told the media that he was confused by Hewitt's pronunciation of the term 'Uyghur' and is very familiar with the crisis.

On July 5, 2023, a super PAC supporting Suarez launched a chatbot that uses his face and voice to answer questions about his campaign. The bot directs users to campaign videos based on the questions asked, and is capable of mocking other presidential candidates such as Ron DeSantis. The program is one of a number of examples of the use of artificial intelligence in the 2024 election, with major presidential contenders DeSantis and Trump using text-to-image models in official campaign videos.

Political positions

Suarez identifies himself as a conservative Republican. According to an analyst for '' FiveThirtyEight'', Suarez's "policies remain conservative (lowering taxes and keeping them low has been a focus of his administration, for example), but he takes a slightly more moderate stance on issues like climate change and immigration." He has said climate change is real and he declared a climate emergency in Miami.

Suarez has supported LGBT pride events. He supported the Florida Parental Rights in Education Act as originally signed, which prohibited some classroom instruction on LGBT issues from kindergarten through third grade. However, he opposed its later expansion to all grades.

Suarez identifies as "pro-life" or anti-abortion and supported the Supreme Court's decision in ''Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization'' to overturn ''Roe v. Wade,'' the decision which had legalized abortion nationwide. He announced that he supports a nationwide ban on abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy. Suarez would not say whether he supported a ban on abortion after six weeks of pregnancy, saying instead, "the country is not there yet."

Suarez, a first generation Cuban American, criticized the idea of repealing the 14th Amendment and birthright citizenship during his presidential campaign. Suarez noted that without birthright citizenship he would have lacked American citizenship. This opinion was in contrast to other candidates in the race such as Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis, and Nikki Haley. He also argued that refugees from Venezuela should be granted temporary protected status in the US.

See also

* List of mayors of the 50 largest cities in the United States

References

External links

Miami Mayor's website
*

{{DEFAULTSORT:Suarez, Francis
1977 births
Living people
21st-century American politicians
American politicians of Cuban descent
Candidates in the 2024 United States presidential election
Florida International University alumni
Florida lawyers
Florida Republicans
Fredric G. Levin College of Law alumni
Hispanic and Latino American mayors in Florida
Latino conservatism in the United States
Mayors of Miami
Politicians from Miami
Presidents of the United States Conference of Mayors