Broward News & Opinion

Two years after Michael Ahearn's death, Broward's courthouse feels rudderless.

The deals. The whispers. The phone calls that once shaped who stayed on the bench and who got bounced now just float in the ether. The air is gone from courthouse politics.

The Vizier of Broward's Courthouse

Ahearn was more than a lawyer. He was the throne behind the throne of Broward Courthouse Politics.

He could be abrasive. Judges and courthouse insiders either loved him or hated him. Some fought with him for the crown, their visceral beef spilling childishly over the internet.

But Ahearn understood the hustle like no other. The shakedowns and the way judges get worked over for campaign cash. He knew who could deliver "the card" when it counted, and who was just bunk. He knew how to build coalitions and deliver blocks of voters. Mike could walk between the seedy underbelly of politics that drives much of the judicial elections, and the ivory tower above it.

For most of Broward's history, judicial races were predictable. Incumbents coasted to reelection with token challengers. The system rolled along undisturbed.

Mike was one of the few who could take a challenger and actually win. He could turn courthouse whispers into ballot box reality. That made the bench nervous. Judges feared his phone calls.

That's why he was respected. That's why he was feared. That's why his absence is glaring.

With him gone, no one has stepped up to take that role.

One Democratic committeeman who organizes grassroots support in central Broward told me, "the black consultants are feeling it."

Ahearn's courthouse machine employed dozens in cities that rarely see campaign money flow their way. When he passed, so did much of that work.

Real campaigning has vanished.

Without Mike to guide them, Broward's judiciary is adrift.

Now a little over six months from qualifying, not a single Broward Judge has filed for reelection. Not a single challenger has stepped up.

Broward's bench was never the most sophisticated. Judges tend to be politically "careful." Predictable. Even cowardly.

In Florida's bluest county, local leaders can't even organize an electoral challenge to the Governor's judicial appointments. It was Mike who made the judicial system in Broward politically competent, credible, and actually accountable to the voters.

Without him, there's a disconnect. Only lawyers and mediators still care enough to listen.

The voters just shrug. And the courthouse hums along, autopilot on, waiting for someone to take the controls again.