Part 1: Federal and State non-judicial offices and state referendums
Part 2: Judicial elections and judicial retention elections
Part 3: Coral Gables Commission & Miami-Dade County referendums (coming soon)

This prospect of doing a voter guide including the Coral Gables Commission was so depressing that it put me off the entire enterprise which is why this guide is so late this year.

County Referendums

So let’s start with the easy parts, the six, count them six, County Referendums. TL/DR: NO on 4 & 6, Yes (especially) on 1 and also Yes on 2 & 5. No recommendation on 3, sorry. The tough part, the Commission races, is below.

And, Yes on the School Board referendum.

Here’s why:

County Referendum 1 would establish an independent salary commission with members appointed by the chief judge of the local circuit court, the state attorney, the public defender, the head of the county ethics commission, and the inspector general. Current pay is insanely low at $6,000 per year. One consequence of this change would likely raise it to the county ethics commission pay scale, currently $127,779/year. Crazy low salaries ensure only rich people can afford to serve, and also that everyone has a distracting day job. Crazy low salaries raise the odds of bribery and if not that then conflicts of interests. This is a strong YES from me.

County Referendum 2: Require at least one-year residency to run for County Commissioner. This is a housekeeping measure to fix an arguable loophole in the current Charter. Vote YES.

County Referendum 3 would allow the County Commission to line up special elections for mayor or commissioner vacancies with other scheduled elections when the vacancy happens because someone resigned to run for another office. This saves money, but also allows for more political manipulation as to timing which may result in a seat being vacant longer. I don’t really have strong views here. No?

County Referendum 4: Poorly drafted. Supporters claim it cleans up issues to reflect that four county offices are now elected, including Sheriff and Tax Collector. But it messes up things for employees in a department who might want to run for boss. On balance this isn’t helpful. I suggest you Vote NO.

County Referendum 5: The “Miscellaneous Matters and Technical Changes” label is vastly unhelpful, but broadly accurate. It fixes place names, grammar, and allows for wider forms of public notice when state law allows them. Sure, why not. Vote YES.

County Referendum 6: Expanding Allowable Advertising at Parks. You kidding me? While I get the argument that sponsors of events want credit, and that allowing more signage can provide revenue, this amendment is so vague it allows the Commission to allow ads where they like and of any size. Vote NO.

The School Board Referendum would keep the existing property tax of one mill ($1 for every $1,000 of taxable value) for Miami-Dade public schools, including charter schools, from July 1, 2027, through June 30, 2031, earmarked for staff and teacher salary plus quite a lot for school safety. Not a tax increase, but the stopping of a tax decrease – which would hit teacher pay hard. Vote YES.

Coral Gables Commission Groups I, IV & V

There are three seats on the Commission up for election including the Mayor. And there are city charter amendments too.

Let’s bite the bullet and do the Commission races first.

The past two years have been the lowest point in the history of the Coral Gables Commission since I started following local politics some thirty years ago. The past was not necessarily wonderful, commonly being dominated by a mix of country-club Republicans and Realtors but there was, within that limited circle, a spirit of civility and cooperation. (As one of my sons said, “You don’t realize the value of not rocking the boat until someone tries to capsize it.”)

Today’s reality is just ugly and there have been times when, maxed on national political horrors, I can’t even bear to keep current with the local tempests. The Commission is polarized between on the one hand the pro-Mayor Lago and largely pro-development majority, and on the other hand the somewhat incoherent minority. As the face of the majority, Lago has been anything but civil, and seems to me to be as much about his political ambitions as anything else. It’s all quite sad. A plague-on-both-your-houses sad.

I would say that, abstractly, steering between allowing all development and being a NIMBY is the most urgent issue facing the Commission, with the lurking danger of Amendment 3 taking a big bite out of revenues being the next big issue. But that said, the City’s hands regarding development are more tied than previously due to state laws overriding local zoning powers to allow much more building than previously. One way or another, we’re going to get a lot of it.

So in fact, my voting recommendations are primarily shaped by three issues:

• Will the Commission have people on it who will stand up to the Lago steamroller, not just on development but other issues too?
• Support for Florida Constitutional Amendment 3, which I see as putting ambition and party over the interests of the City.
• Responsiveness to constituents, In this regard I sent an email (and when no response a follow-up) to each candidate asking them the following:
  

  Coral Gables currently maintains both Automatic License Plate Readers (ALPRs) and Closed-Circuit Television Cameras (CC-TVs) that take images of cars and people in public places. The Coral Gables ALPRs alone capture literally tens of millions of images a year, of which at most only a minuscule fraction have any value to law enforcement.

  In light of Governor DeSantis’s recent decision to order Flock cameras off Florida state roads, will you pledge to do the same in order to protect the privacy of City residents and visitors by eliminating all ALPRs of any brand, and removing all city CC-TVs in Coral Gables? In other words, will you pledge to cancel any existing contracts for these, order the removal of the surveillance hardware, and then not replace them with new ones?

  Only three candidates answered.

Group I

Mayor Vince Lago is running for a third term against lawyer Laureano Cancio and Jackson “Rip” Holmes.

My advice is to vote against Lago. I think that claims that Lago stood to benefit financially from a recent vote don’t rise to the level of a legal violation – but the likely legal vote shows a classic disdain for both niceties and appearances. The real issue is, not to put too fine a point on it, he’s mean and sometimes rude to people who disagree with him. Lago did not reply to my emails asking his views about Flock cameras in Coral Gables.

Plus, let’s roll the tape: See my April 2025 post, Vince Lago Campaign Has No Shame and the MAGAlific story about Lago vs Carrollton School of Sacred Heart (page down about halfway on the April 2021 post Who to Vote for in the Coral Gables 2021 Mayoral Election? It’s Not Easy). Not good stuff.

The problem is, if not Lago than for whom?Jackson “Rip” Holmes is a long-time observer and Commission gadfly. If anyone off the Commission has attended more meetings then I don’t know who that is. You might say he’s earned his shot. But he’s also, well, a bit strange. Over the years his big issue has been attracting a big anchor store to Miracle Mile, where he happens to have a business. And he’s more than a bit random on other things. To his credit, of the three candidates who replied, Holmes gave me the best answer on the Flock and CCTV camera issue, saying he opposes them and also CCTV. I wish that could persuade me to vote for him, but it likely won’t.

Laureano Cancio is an experienced local lawyer, and his bio says ‘safe pair of hands’. But he hasn’t campaigned hard, and hasn’t been that visible. It’s hard to endorse him too, although he may well get my vote, even without a reply on the privacy issue.

Group IV

Incumbent Melissa Castro is running against the super-well-financed Lago ally-to-be (it may not be official but it’s no secret) Nestor Menendez. Castro has not been a model Commissioner, but I will suggest you vote for her anyway. The main reason to vote for her is that she will keep alive a (loud) voice in opposition to the Lago machine. This despite the as yet unadjudicated claims before the Florida Commission on Ethics that her permit expediting business has done business in the Gables since her election, which would be a violation of ethics rules. Castro’s response is that permit matters involving the Gables are sent to another company in which she has no involvement. (Other claims of dirt being thrown around online don’t do anything for me.)

Castro was one of only three candidates who replied to my question about Flock and CCTV. Her unsatisfactory reply was very much of the trying-to-have-it-both ways variety:

[P]rivacy and public safety are not mutually exclusive. We should demand both.

That is why I am not comfortable with either extreme: unrestricted government surveillance or automatically eliminating a public-safety tool that has demonstrated legitimate investigative value.

Instead, I support a comprehensive review of Coral Gables’ ALPR and CCTV program with a very high burden on government to justify its use. If the City is going to collect information involving law-abiding residents, it should collect only what is necessary, retain it for the shortest period justified by a legitimate law-enforcement purpose, strictly control who can access it, maintain an auditable record of searches, establish appropriate limits on sharing, and impose meaningful consequences for misuse.

I also want us to determine whether less intrusive technologies or policies can give our Police Department the same investigative capabilities. If we can accomplish the same public-safety objective while collecting less information about innocent residents, that is the direction I would favor.

And if a particular camera or system cannot demonstrate a legitimate public-safety benefit sufficient to justify its impact on residents’ privacy, I see no justification for taxpayers continuing to fund it.

So, to answer your question directly, I cannot commit to eliminating every ALPR and CCTV camera regardless of its purpose or demonstrated effectiveness. Doing so would require me to disregard documented instances in which these tools have assisted our Police Department in protecting this community.

What I can commit to is this: government should have to justify surveillance, not residents justify their privacy.

I will fight to protect the privacy and constitutional rights of our residents. And I will fight just as hard to make sure our Police Department has the appropriate and lawful tools to protect those residents from people who intend to harm them.

Nestor on the other hand didn’t dignify my emailed questions with a reply. He also refused the Miami Herald’s request to come in for an interview!!! So we can expect he’ll be real responsive as a Commissioner to people who don’t make contributions.

Thus, although I don’t think Castro’s done a good job—although not nearly as bad a job as Ariel Fernandez who isn’t running for re-election in Group V—I think she’s the lesser of two evils. Vote for Melissa Castro in Group IV.

Group V

Dominique “Nikki” Whiting vs Gonzalo Sanabria for an open seat. Whiting has an extensive political resume that suggests she will see the Commission as a stepping stone, having worked for Gov. DeSantis in various capacities. But her c.v. also sports the red flag of having worked as director of communications for evil Miami-Dade County Commissioner Esteban “Steve” Bovo.

I can get over working for DeSantis, especially for someone seeking a somewhat nonpartisan job as Commissioner. After all, DeSantis ’s the only game in that town, but any Bovo connection is enough to put me off a candidate.

Whiting did not respond to my emails about Flock and cameras. We can expect, given the establishment GOP connection, that Whiting will be firmly in the Lago camp.

On the other hand, Sanabria has a peculiar charm. He speaks his mind. He doesn’t hide from voters. He served his time as an appointee on various local government bodies. His politics are classic pre-Trump Republican: cut stuff, anti-tax. So not exactly mine. He did however respond quickly and in some detail to my questions about Flock and CCTV: he’s against Flock, and not up to speed on the cameras. He’d want to keep the ones that are justified, but would ask for evidence that they do some good. I’ll take it.

Sanabria will not be in anyone’s camp, not the pro-Lago or the anti-Lago. He’ll be in his own quadrant. It’s a much more almost libertarian quadrant than where I hang out, but he’ll be an interesting, smart, voice on the Commission. To my surprise, I’m more enthusiastic about recommending Vote for Gonzalo Sanabria in Group V than any of my other Coral Gables Commission recommendations.

Coral Gables Referendums

Referendum 1: “Shall Section 24 of the City Charter be amended to increase the threshold for public work projects requiring formal solicitation from $25,000 to $300,000, with that amount adjusted as specified in Section 255.20, Florida Statutes?”

I can’t see any reason to approve this in light of recent controversies relating to park and other projects. (Also, as I read it, the low-bidder requirement would no longer apply to projects between $25K and $300K. Why is that good?)

Referendum 2: “Shall Section 3 of the City Charter be amended to require continuous residency in the City of Coral Gables for a minimum of one year immediately preceding the end of the qualifying period for candidates running for City Commissioner or City Mayor?”

I can’t see any harm in approving this. Apparently, the City Attorney recommended this in light of issues in nearby municipalities. OK with me.

Referendum 3: “The City Charter currently provides for a two-year term for the City’s Mayor. Shall the City Charter be amended to increase the term of office for the Mayor to four years, consistent with the term of office for City Commissioners, beginning with the 2028 Coral Gables General Election with no change to the associated term limit?”

This is the important one. I admit I thought it was a silly idea to make the Mayor’s term shorter than that of the other Commissioners’ four-year term. I was wrong. It’s actually worked quite well. In the abstract you would think that as we don’t have a strong Mayor form of government (the City Manager does a lot), there’s no need for the extra accountability. But the past few years’ experience suggests it pays to keep the Mayor on a shorter leash. Vote NO on Ref. 3.

Referendum 4: “Shall the City Charter be amended to require that the sale, exchange, conveyance, or lease of ten (10) years or longer of any city-owned property used as a park, recreational facility, golf course, or open park space as of November 3, 2026, or later acquired for such use, be approved by sixty percent (60%) of the city’s voters in a citywide special election?”

I am not sure we need this, but other than adding to ballot fatigue, I cannot see the harm in it, so I’ll vote for it..

The post 2026 Midterm Elections Voter Guide (Part 3: Coral Gables and County and School Board Referendums) appeared first on Discourse.net.

Part 1: Federal and State non-judicial offices and state referendums

Part 2: Judicial elections and judicial retention elections.

Part 3: Coral Gables Commission & Miami-Dade County referendums (coming soon)

People are usually most interested in what a local law prof thinks of the judicial elections. In part this is because info about them is hard to find – as I’ve discovered personally since spending more time at home due to partial immunocompromise.

Unlike most law professors I know, I support the idea of judicial elections at the state level as a reasonable democratic check on what I believe should be the expansive power of judges to interpret the state and federal constitutions.

As I’ve often said before, if it were up to me, I’d have the executive branch pick judges with legislative confirmation, followed by a California-style retention election every few years in which there would be an up or down vote on the incumbent. If the vote was down, the executive would pick a new judge. It seems to me that the right question is “has this judge done a good (enough) job” — something voters might be able to figure out — rather than asking voters to try to guess from electoral statements which of two or more candidates might be the best judge.

Florida’s system uses appointment plus retention elections for Supreme Court Justices and District Court of Appeal Judges, but not for trial courts. The Governor can appoint judges to fill vacancies between elections, but otherwise those jobs are straight up elected, so a judicial election pits one or more challengers against the incumbent unless, lacking opposition, the incumbent wins reelection automatically; many trial judges were indeed unopposed this year. There are also open seats when the incumbent retires.

My recommendations below are based on:

• My personal view that I will vote for an incumbent judge unless there’s reason to believe he/she is doing a bad job.
• After supporting incumbents, my other rule of thumb in sizing up candidates before even getting to the details of biography and practice experience is that in all but the rarest cases of other important life experience we ought to require at least ten years of legal experience from our lawyers before even considering them as judges. Fifteen years is better. I will very rarely support a judicial candidate fewer than ten years out of law school. It just isn’t long enough to get the experience and practical wisdom it takes to be a judge.
• I am less and less reliant on endorsements and editorials, as the quality doesn’t seem reliable.
• And oh yes, I read local blogs and listen to gossip too. Except this year, gossip is scarce, since I’m not leaving the house much due to immunocompromise.

All registered voters in Miami-Dade County get to vote on these judges, regardless of party affiliation.

After all that, this post is actually fairly short!

Justice of the Supreme Court

I’m not one who jumps at the gun to vote against retaining judges and justices, even very conservative ones. There are three things that might get to vote not to retain: ethics issues, an utter lack of humanity, or failure to adhere to precedent or otherwise undermine the rule of law. The last is trickiest for Supreme Court justices, since there can be legitimate occasions to overturn precedent, for very just cause.

Alas, Justice Carolos G. Muñiz fails the third prong in spades. It’s not even close. Sad to say, this is a partisan, not a fair judge. All the evidence you need (but not all there is) can be found in two votes in favor of gerrymandered districts in the face of a recent state constitutional Fair Districts amendment designed to prevent it. But DeSantis and Trump wanted an unfair advantage so Justice Muñiz and his other DeSantis-appointed colleagues delivered. The maps were designed, inter alia, to force Broward Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Jared Moskowitz to run in highly changed districts.

I’ve been suspicious of Muñiz since early in his term as he formed part of a majority bent on overturning decades of decisions by his more liberal predecessors. It’s a political court. Maybe you like that. But you should draw the line at courts drawing electoral lines to undermine democracy.  Vote NO on retaining Justice Carlos G. Muñiz.

I’ll say that again: Vote NO on retaining Justice Carlos G. Muñiz.

DCA Retention Elections

The liberal line on the five DCA retention elections is that all should go, if for no better reason than Ron DeSantis or Rick Scott appointed them. I don’t agree: as I said above, I’m for keeping judges, even conservative ones, if they are coloring between the lines.

In any case the ‘throw them all out’ argument only works if you think you’ll get better ones. I suppose if you think if David Jolly wins he’d appoint better judges than Byron Donalds there’s some sense in this; if not, though, there really isn’t. And if judges are going to be subject to dismissal even on good behavior, it makes it harder to recruit the best nominees.

FWIW I’ve endorsed Gordo three times in the past. I endorsed Lobree, Logue, and Miller previously also.  I don’t know as much as Gooden, but in none of these cases do I know of any reason why the judge should not be retained.  If this costs me my status as a progressive, so be it. I’m voting to retain all five.

Circuit Judge 11^th Judicial Circuit

 Group 5

As I have explained previously should NOT vote for Segura. Vote for “Marty” McNeil whose record suggests he’ll do fine.

Group 69

As between Jones-Peabody and Baez, I prefer Jones-Peabody. Baez is credible but has purely civil experience. I didn’t endorse in the first round because I was torn between Jones-Peabody and the candidate who came in third. As between these two, it’s a much easier choice.

The post 2026 Midterm Elections Voter Guide (Part 2: Judicial Elections) appeared first on Discourse.net.

Part 1: Federal and State non-judicial offices and state referendums
Part 2: Judicial elections and judicial retention elections (coming soon)
Part 3: Coral Gables Commission & Miami-Dade County referendums (coming soon)

A key feature of so much of the federal and state executive elections is the long shadow of the two men who are not on the ballot: Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis. It would not be wrong to see some of these elections as really being about them, and you probably have opinions on them, so in most cases below – other than the State AG election which is something special – I will be quite brief on the theory that I’m not likely to sway many people reading this.

Federal Offices

US Senator

Republican Ashley Moody was appointed to the seat by Ron DeSantis. Once in office she’s been a virtual non-entity, and has reliably voted the Trump line. Her campaign so far consists mostly of hiding from the public to avoid having to defend her record, part of which is being one of the people who signed off on the $10 million “misappropriation” of public money for DeSantis’s political purposes, now known as the Hope Florida scandal, while she was Florida’s Attorney General. I’m sure that endeared her to DeSantis, and didn’t hurt her chances of being appointed to replace Marco Rubio in the Senate.

Democrat Angie Nixon is a real populist. Unlike Moody, she’s a what-you-see-is-what-you get candidate. She’s not shy about what she stands for, and that’s for health care, child care, and union rights. I like it, but even if I didn’t I think Trump needs to be stopped. If you agree with that, Nixon will be a vote against the Trump agenda.

US Congress FL-27

First term Republican Congressperson Maria Salazar is also running away from her record. Having supported funds for ICE and most everything else Trump, she’s now trying to pivot. Her campaign mailers disguise that the she is the incumbent! It would be a pity to reward that. Democrat Elliott Rodriguez, like Salazar a former TV anchor, is a pretty conservative Democrat as things go these days, but he may be right for the district. Safe pair of hands if you worry about liberal Democrats: He won’t be one.

State Offices

Florida Governor

Republican Byron Donalds, currently the rep for the 19th Congressional district, is a surprisingly undistinguished candidate. His claims to fame include being an official Trump surrogate in the 2024 campaign, voting the Trump line in Congress, and enjoying the Trump endorsement in this campaign. The Miami Herald recently reported that Donalds and his wife Erika Donalds have made their large fortune by scoring tens of millions in state education funds for charter schools and online education. Ick.,

David Jolly is a former Republican who switched parties to run as a Democrat. I will vote for him a bit reluctantly, but Donalds is pretty awful.

Florida Attorney General

This is the race I’m most passionate about, both because I’m a law professor and because it features the biggest sleaze in the election, which this year is no mean feat. What’s more, the other candidate is a terrific, smart, guy who would do a great job.

The champion sleaze is James Uthmeier, the DeSantis-appointed incumbent. Like Moody, Uthmeier was involved in approving taking public money for partisan ends in the Hope Florida scandal. He supported a suit to overturn Biden’s election. Uthmeier’s other claim to fame is trampling the rule of law while Florida AG. In June 2025, U.S. District Judge Kathleen M. Williams held Uthmeier in contempt of court for continuing to enforce a Florida immigration law that the judge had blocked in a previous ruling. Uthmeier had directed state law enforcement to ignore the court and then bragged about it in media interviews.

Uthmeier was also involved in the illegal and massively expensive boondoggle that was Alligator Alcatraz, the Florida concentration camp featuring tiny cages to hold detainees—so small they couldn’t stand.

And he’s signed several briefs organized by republican attorney generals seeking changes in the law that had no defensible basis. An example is the attempt to end birthright citizenship, but there are many others. He’s been involved in manipulative and unsuccessful attempts to change the summaries of ballot initiatives, thus trying to undermine the democratic process.

We are very fortunate that the Democratic candidate, Jose Javier Rodriguez, is as good as Uthmeier is bad. JJR was a leading state rep and state senator. He was a leader in opposing excessive rate increase requests by FPL. He was defeated for his 2020 reelection by a dirty trick: the GOP ran a fake candidate also named Rodriguez who siphoned off votes. The fake candidate was organized and paid by a Republican operative who went to jail for it.

Rodriquez is a fine lawyer and a fine person with an admiral record scrutinizing public spending and jail conditions while in the legislature. Everyone who I know who knows him says he’s a great guy. This is one of the most important races on the ballot.

Chief Financial Officer

Much as I like Annette Taddeo as a person, I do get a bit tired of voting for her in campaigns that fizzle. Good person, can do the job. Hope the Nth time is the charm.

Commissioner of Agriculture

Haven’t focused much, but I guess I’ll vote for Joey Atkins.

State Senator District 38

A very uphill fight, but Richard Lamondin, Jr. is I am told a stand up candidate. Alexis Calatayud, the incumbent, has vastly outraised him, The only good thing I know about her is that she was the only Republican to vote against Florida’s six-week abortion ban. It would be good to deny Republicans a super-majority in our deeply gerrymandered state legislature.

Florida State Constitutional Amendments (vote NO on all especially Amendment 3)

The main even is Amendment 3, which will drastically cut homestead property taxes.
The consequences will be that police, fire, ambulance, and just about all other locally financed social services other than schools (which are spared) will face drastic cuts – or the money will have to come from somewhere else, be it higher millage rates, renter taxes, taxes on local businesses, fees for everything, and/or sales tax increases where allowed.

It’s hard to turn down a tax cut. But this one is a bludgeon to local revenues – and was originally designed to be DeSantis’s farewell calling card to help launch his Presidential campaign. Then he discovered it wasn’t as popular as he thought and partly backed away from it. It’s really important to vote No on this ill-conceived, poorly costed out idea – that would take effect January 1, long before localities would have a chance to figure out new revenue sources. Best case if it passes is way more power for the state government at the expense of local government; worst and most likely case: chaos.

Compared to Amendment 3, the other two amendments are much less major but still worth voting against. Amendment 1 increases the size of the state slush fund aka “budget stabilization” by 150% — up to 25% of annual revenues. The Governor would get to decide how to spend it without real accountability other than his declaration of “critical need”. Remember, these are the people who brought you Hope Florida. Vote NO.

Amendment 2 would create special property tax exemptions for agribusiness. Because Big Sugar needs more money. Like Amendment 3, but on a smaller scale, the outcome would be harming local government tax receipts, which are what fund government services. Vote NO.

The post 2026 Midterm Elections Voter Guide (Part 1: Federal & State-Wide) appeared first on Discourse.net.

The ethernet port is attached to a Marvel AQtion 10bit network adapter, which sounds vastly surplus to requirements given I have a 1 MB wired home network, and only 1.2 Mb internet to the 2MB capable router. I do have a somewhat Rube Goldberg system for playing music to my Swann powered desktop speakers which are connected to a Fiio K11. The music source is controlled via a Roon Nucleus One, accessed via my PC (Windows 11) with the actual music coming off my personal music library stored on my Synology NAS, or downloaded from Qoboz, a Spotify-like service that is known for the breadth of its classical music offerings.

I relate all this not to confess my evident sins in over-doing the music thing, although I swear I can hear the difference, but to explain why when I started getting drop-outs in music playback I put up with it for a very long while: while the speakers are rocks, and the Fiio DSP seemed unlikely to be a problem, that left an awful lot of things to troubleshoot: The internet (Comcast, ick!), the router, the PC, the NAS (also an unlikely culprit), the Nucleus One (Roon keep sending me ads to upgrade, but why would I want to?), the PC.

To simplify troubleshooting, I played only stored music from the NAS; problem continued, so unlikely to be Qoboz or the Internet. My next suspect was the Roon server, the Nucleus One. Google offered me a bunch of tips, notably reboot it daily, but none helped. Looking at the graphs on my task manger showed that the dropouts commonly were connected with a short period of packet inactivity, followed by a massive one.

So, I turned to the PC as my next suspect. Thinking it might be some CPU usage thing, or memory congestion, I killed lots of background processes. But looking at the the device manager did not show any greater CPU usage around the music drops.

The Marvel AQtion 10bit network adapter became my next suspect. When I tried to update the driver, Device Manager told me I had the most recent version of it, so I wrote off the most obvious solution. Guided by random posts online I started fiddling with the advanced settings on the network adapter. Several posts said to turn off the ‘Energy Efficient Ethernet” so I tried that but it didn’t help. I was reluctant to turn off the flow control. Instead I went to see if there was maybe a better driver on the Marvel site. And oh boy was there: the one on the Marvel site is several versions and a few years newer than the one Microsoft claimed was the latest.

So I downloaded an installed the Marvel AQtion 10bit network adapter version 3.1.11.0, instead of the version 3.1.7 or such that I had before. And voila.

Just two questions: What took me so long? And, do I turn the ‘Energy Efficient Ethernet” switch back on?

The post In Which I Geek Out About Why You Should Update Your Marvel AQtion 10bit Network Adapter appeared first on Discourse.net.

Key points:

• 7am-3pm M-F this week;
• 8-4 this weekend.
• Then, next week, 11-7 M-F
• 8-4 again on the weekend.
• There is NO early voting on the 17th
• Election day is Tuesday the 18th.

See my 2026 Miami-Dade Voter Guide to the Judicial Elections for recommendations on the judicial elections.

As for the Democratic primary, I’m voting for Alex Vindman for Senate, and Robin Peguero for US Congress in FL-27, who I think will be a much stronger representative than the TV-famous candidate, not to mention the Trumpist incumbent.

The post Early Voting Now Open for Miami-Dade August 2026 Election appeared first on Discourse.net.

Personally, I’d advise you not to trust to the mails with your ballot this year, but instead put it in a dropbox during early voting, but you do you.

General Intro

Unlike most law professors I know, I support the idea of judicial elections at the state level as a reasonable democratic check on what I believe should be the expansive power of judges to interpret the state and federal constitutions.

As I’ve often said before, if it were up to me, I’d have the executive branch pick judges with legislative confirmation, followed by a California-style retention election every few years in which there would be an up or down vote on the incumbent. If the vote was down, the executive would pick a new judge. It seems to me that the right question is “has this judge done a good (enough) job” — something voters might be able to figure out — rather than asking voters to try to guess from electoral statements which of two or more candidates might be the best judge.

Florida’s system uses appointment plus retention elections for Supreme Court Justices and District Court of Appeal Judges, but not for trial courts. The Governor can appoint judges to fill vacancies between elections, but otherwise those jobs are straight up elected, so a judicial election pits one or more challengers against the incumbent unless, lacking opposition, the incumbent wins reelection automatically; many trial judges were indeed unopposed this year. There are also open seats when the incumbent retires.

My recommendations are based on:

• My personal view that I will vote for an incumbent judge unless there’s reason to believe he/she is doing a bad job.
• After supporting incumbents, my other rule of thumb in sizing up candidates before even getting to the details of biography and practice experience is that in all but the rarest cases of other important life experience we ought to require at least ten years of legal experience from our lawyers before even considering them as judges. Fifteen years is better. I will very rarely support a judicial candidate fewer than ten years out of law school. It just isn’t long enough to get the experience and practical wisdom it takes to be a judge.
• I look for endorsements, including the Miami Herald. The Miami Herald is not 100% reliable, but this year I found I agreed with them in most cases.
• And oh yes, I read local blogs and listen to gossip too. Except this year, gossip is scarce, since I’m not leaving the house much due to immunocompromise.

All registered voters in Miami-Dade County get to vote on these judges, regardless of party affiliation.

This post is mercifully short compared to some past years because an astounding number of elections for Judge (27, I think) are unopposed this year. Maybe we don’t pay them enough? In fact, there are only six contested races: five for Circuit Judge and one for County Judge. Two of the Circuit Judge races have qualified incumbents and underqualified challengers, so these are easy cases. Ditto for the County Court race.

Here are my thoughts about how to vote in the August 18, 2020 judicial elections:

Circuit Judges

Group 5

Open seat. There are three candidates. Alex Annunziato, Arthur LeMar “Marty” McNeil and Monica Segura. Alexander Annunziato is an in-house counsel at Ascendant Commercial Insurance. He has 21 years’ experience. Arthur McNeil is an Assistant Public Defender with 19 years’ experience. Monica Segura is Senior Managing Associate General Counsel for Universal Property & Casualty and has 20 years’ experience.

This isn’t a terribly hard call. McNeil has the most relevant experience, including 56 criminal jury trials and an unblemished record. Annunziato is a bit of an intriguing case as he was arrested for buying $20 worth of heroin from an undercover cop eight years ago. He didn’t contest the charge, and says he’s turned his life around. I don’t know him, and am prepared to believe it, but even so McNeil has the best bio.

(Segura, by the way, has almost no jury trial experience. Her biggest claim to fame is being married to Coral Gables Commissioner Ariel Fernandez. It would probably be wrong to hold that against her. Just don’t vote for her.)

Group 35

Open seat, easy case. Two candidates: Renee Gordon is an Assistant Public Defender with 30 years’ experience. Cristobal Padron is a family lawyer in private practice with 14 years’ experience. Both have run before and both lost by six and four percent margins respectively. I have endorsed Renee Gordon in both of her close losses, and I do it again. As I keep saying, she “has a long resume of working with troubled children in various managerial and legal capacities. This is a great background for a Judge – in the trenches and there for a long time.”

Christobal Padron has much less experience; Renee Gordon’s background is really top-notch. Maybe third time is the charm?

Group 67
Not a slam dunk, but even so…

The incumbent is Judge Mavel Ruiz. Conservatives hate her because she initially blocked the transfer of valuable downtown Miami land from Miami-Dade College to the planned Trump library. Ruiz later dismissed the case when the College complied with its legal obligation to hold a public hearing on the giveaway. Having the spine to hold authorities to their duties in a high-profile case is a plus in my book. That said, Judge Ruiz does not have an unblemished record. As clumsy attack texts hitting my phone (headed, if you can believe it, “this is not an attack ad”!) like to remind me, Judge Ruiz ran into trouble for hugging a litigant in a high-profile case, And, Judge Ruiz received a written reprimand from the Florida Supreme Court because of a letter she and four other judges signed a letter to the Florida Department of Children and Families endorsing Our Kids of Miami-Dade & Monroe. As the court noted, none of the five judges who signed that letter did it for any personal gain. So while not nothing, it’s also not that much.

Unfortunately for sticklers, the challenger, DBA Destiny Goede Alvarez, has only has only five years’ experience as lawyer (way too little, IMHO), and now works as a partner at her father’s law firm after two years at GrayRobinson. She also changed her name to her husband’s shortly before filing, more than two years after being married, no doubt aware that women with Hispanic names tend to overperform in Miami-Dade judicial elections. She has a golden c.v., with Federalist Society chops, and links to the DeSantis administration, (Could that explain the anti-Ruiz text offensive?) She is raising money hand over fist. If she loses, as she deserves to, but which is far from a sure thing, I’m sure she will land on her feet.

Ruiz unseated Judge Fleur Lobree in 2014 when Lobree deserved to be re-elected, which might in some eyes create an opportunity for karmic justice. (Ruiz was re-elected in 2020.) I don’t care how good or smart Alvarez may be, but five years’ experience is nowhere near enough for a judge.

GROUP 69

Open seat, confused by two Baez’s in the race. There are three candidates, and probably all are plausible.

Rita Baez is a personal injury lawyer in private practice with 30 years’ experience, nine as an Assistant States Attorney.

Yaneth Del Carmen Baez is an Assistant State Attorney with just 9 years’ experience in the State Attorney’s office, but the Herald endorsed her anyway based on the “intensity” of her caseload as an assistant state’s attorney, currently in the Human Trafficking Unit.  I suspect that the fact that the Judicial Nominating Commission has nominated her for a judgeship four times (which suggests that top lawyers think very highly of her), but DeSantis never picked her, might have something to do with it.

Bonita Jones-Peabody, now in private practice, was formerly an Assistant Public Defender, and has 35 years’ experience. Jones-Peabody is an experienced criminal defense lawyer with over 200 jury trials in her resume, which includes many years at the Miami-Dade Public Defender’s Office before going into a varied private practice.

Rita Baez also has 80 jury trials, but on the civil side. She currently represents plaintiffs in auto accidents and slip-and-fall cases.  A credible candidate, but I think the other two are stronger.

On experience I tend to favor Jones-Peabody. The fact that the JNC repeatedly thinks so highly of Yaneth Del Carmen Baez is something to weigh against a relatively short career as a lawyer, which makes this a harder case than I would like.

GROUP 76
The incumbent is Judge Spencer Eig, a judge with 20 years on the bench, and I know of no reason to unseat him.

His challenger is Yenly Dominguez, a real estate & estate planning attorney with only 7 (!) years’ experience. Even if it was three times that much I’d vote to retain Eig.

Easy case.

County Judge
Group 25

Just one contest for Circuit Judge, pitting incumbent (since 2018) Luis Perez-Medina, challenged by attorney Maribel Diaz, the director of legal services for the Miami-Dade County Tax Collector’s office. It sounds like Diaz, who has experience with foreclosures, collections, and property tax disputes, might make a good judge. But I can see no reason at all to turf out Perez-Medina who appears to be doing a fine job.

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i hope to have guide up before the end of the week, maybe sooner if the stars align. Sorry for the delay.

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The work primarily involves assisting me with legal research and other academic work relating to privacy and/or artificial intelligence, but also helping out on other random things.

I need someone who can write clearly and is well-organized.

The pay of $15 / hr is set by the university, and is not as high as you deserve, but the work is sometimes interesting.

If this sounds attractive, please e-mail me a note with the subject line RESEARCH ASSISTANT 2026 (in all caps), followed by your name and including the following:

1. Where you saw this announcement
2. How many hours you would ideally like to work per week (10-12 is quite normal)
3. When you are free to start.
4. Your phone number and email address.
5. Several times you would be free to meet for a zoom interview in the next week or so.
6. If you happen to have any experience with programming, Unix, or system administration, please mention that, as I can use that; I may even have a second job available for someone with these skills.  But please don’t be deterred from applying if you don’t happen to know about those.

Please attach:

1. A copy of your resume (c.v.).
2. A transcript of your grades (need not be an official copy).
3. If you have one handy, also attach a short NON-legal writing sample. If you have none, I’ll accept a legal writing sample (whatever you do, though, please don’t send your L-Comm memo as it’s too hard to tell how much they’ve been edited by your instructor).

I look forward to speaking with you.

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