Florida officials plan to appeal a federal district court opinion that found Senate Bill 90, an overhaul of voting rules passed last year, was unconstitutional and that most of its provisions cannot be enforced.
Judge Mark Walker of the Northern District of Florida issued the 288-page opinion March 31, siding in most respects with the League of Women Voters of Florida, which brought the legal challenge against the new law. SB 90 impedes the right of Floridians to vote and represents an affront to the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Walker said.
“Defendants argue that SB 90 makes minor prophylactic changes to the election code,” he said in the opinion. “Plaintiffs, on the other hand, allege that SB 90 runs roughshod over the right to vote, unnecessarily making voting harder for all eligible Floridians, unduly burdening disabled voters and intentionally targeting minority voters – all to improve the electoral prospects of the party in power.”
The ruling blocks the bill’s limitations on third-party voter-registration drives, restrictions on ballot drop boxes and its provisions for criminal prosecutions against people providing assistance to voters waiting in line at precincts.
“Having reviewed all the evidence, this court finds that, for the most part, plaintiffs are right,” Walker said. “Thus … this court enjoins defendants from enforcing most of SB 90’s challenged provisions.”
Florida Secretary of State Laurel Lee, one of the defendants in the litigation, has indicated the state would continue to defend SB 90 in federal court.
“The Florida Department of State intends to appeal the judge’s decision,” Mallory Morgan, the department’s spokeswoman, told the Florida Record in an email.
Florida House Speaker Chris Sprowls (R-Palm Harbor) said the opinion was biased toward the arguments of Democratic lawmakers and amounted to an abuse of judicial power.
“Judge Walker’s premise – that the Legislature and governor may only amend election laws if they are requested by supervisors of election or supported by the Democratic Party – demonstrates that this opinion was a predetermined outcome in search of an overlong and poorly reasoned rationale,” Sprowls said in a prepared statement.
In his opinion, Walker compared voting rights to the right to prayer among Christians.
“Federal courts would not countenance a law denying Christians their sacred right to prayer,” he said, “and they should not countenance a law denying Floridians their sacred right to vote.”