http://www.miamigov.com/mayor/
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.
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.
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. However, Suarez has also criticized climate activists for being alarmist about the impacts that they expect climate change will have on 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. He also argued that refugees from Venezuela should be granted temporary protected status in the US.
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.
