Here comes a sheriff we never asked for – fasten your seatbelt

As we watch Miami-Dade commissioners struggle with a state mandate that creates an elective office of county sheriff in 2024, we get little comfort from the fact that we should never have faced this mess in the first place.

Commissioners are trying to sort out just what police powers to hand the sheriff. At a recent meeting Oliver Gilbert illustrated the dilemma, saying he didn’t want to vote on what to put into the sheriff’s purview until he knows who the sheriff will be.

Unfortunately, commissioners can’t wait until after a 2024 election to decide what the winner will actually win – and even if they could wait, who knows what sort of sheriff the following election could bring?

That means commissioners will decide on a sheriff’s scope of duty with absolutely no idea whether voters will elect a law enforcement professional with management ability or a political hack without the faintest idea of law enforcement, or whoever.

What powers of policing a metropolis do you hand over not knowing what manner of person will be elected now, or who will follow?

And so commissioners are busily carving out piece by piece duties that might fall under a sheriff’s control and making sure they remain under the mayor, who is term limited to eight years in office whereas a future sheriff with no terms limits could keep winning elections for life.

Today, Miami-Dade alone among 67 Florida counties has no sheriff. As Mayor Daniella Levine Cava has said, because she appoints the police chief and other officials who deal with police-related powers like jails she is actually our sheriff. 

But not for long, and that’s what the fuss is about.

Half a century ago Miami-Dade had sheriffs. But after several were indicted, voters under our home rule charter did away with the sheriff’s position. Since then, each mayor has named as chief a police professional. 

But our future will be different.

Becoming sheriff will not require a resumé listing law enforcement – or anything else. If the commission hands police control to the sheriff, trained and vetted deputies will work for whoever can get the most votes. 

If nothing worse, it will be hard for police to rely for policy and leadership on a sheriff who might be a career politician or anyone at all. By law, there can be no requirements of law enforcement experience or knowledge. And in policing, staff respect is key to success.

But then, so are management skills and budget control. The sheriff will control everything in his purview, separate and apart from county finance or personnel specialists or any of the county’s structures or policies. The first elected sheriff will create a whole new world, for better or worse.

That elected sheriff must raise campaign funds countywide. Some contributors will expect the sheriff to remember their wants. That’s a terrible position to put a sheriff into, entering office beholden to donors. Law enforcement is supposed to be impartial, and asking for campaign cash every year makes that difficult.

Electing police leadership makes no more sense than passengers boarding a plane and electing a pilot. We could get lucky and find someone competent, but in neither case should we rely on luck, and it’s very hard for laymen to judge whether a candidate for pilot is really competent or a candidate for sheriff is really solid. Vetting professionals in sensitive technical situations is vital.

An election gives voters the illusion of control, but without a way to judge abilities of candidates they really have no control at all. Maybe that’s why many sheriffs have been removed from office.

It also may be why Mayor Daniella Levine Cava formally proposed that police stay under county control rather than go under a new sheriff. 

Of course, that proposal would maintain her power and staff rather than yield them to another countywide elected official, but it has a safeguard because appointed police chiefs can be fired or demoted immediately if they fail. 

A failing sheriff, on the other hand, might have years left before the next election could oust him (most sheriffs are male), and even that would depend on voters detecting a failure.

Unfortunately, all sorts of issues arise in electing sheriffs without a police department or with only some police powers. They might decide to build an alternative policing team or mechanism that competes with the county’s department. Duplication could be costly. And would withholding policing powers from a sheriff violate the new state requirement? 

Commissioners have no easy answers. Remember, one or more of them may run for a sheriff’s job that pays far more than all 13 commissioners get combined and could last for life. The job will be powerful and attractive, with or without a large police force.

At the outset we noted that the county need never have faced this dilemma. Our policing system has worked well for decades. Local voters never asked for change. But a state constitutional amendment that rolled multiple proposals into a single vote forced creation of a sheriff’s office.

Whatever powers commissioners ultimately keep in county hall to control, a new separate sheriff will answer only to voters. We can pray that a competent candidate runs and that voters detect who can be a top police official, or at least a politician smart enough to bring in competent professionals to actually run the operation.

It’s like airplane passengers electing the pilot. 

So fasten your seatbelts. It may be a bumpy flight.