A Florida appeals court has reversed a lower court finding that the state’s congressional map signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis flies in the face of the state constitution because it diminishes the voting power of Black Floridians.
The state’s First District Court of Appeal handed down the decision on Dec. 1, concluding that the dismantling of a Black-majority congressional district in northern Florida does not conflict with the Fair Districts constitutional amendment passed in 2010. That constitutional provision protects opportunities for racial or language minorities to elect representatives of their choice.
The appeals court said the issue could be resolved through a single question: Can a redistricting plan diminish the ability of members of a racial minority to elect lawmakers without plaintiffs first showing that they are part of a “geographically discrete and compact minority community of historically natural existence?”
The trial court did not answer the question, but the appeals court reversed the lower court’s opinion by saying, “No.”
A key contention by the plaintiffs who are challenging the new congressional map – including the League of Women Voters of Florida and Equal Ground Education Fund Inc. – is that the dissolution of the former Congressional District 5 diminished Black voters’ ability to elect candidates of their choice to office. But the appeals court characterized that district as one which connects Tallahassee and Jacksonville – two very different regions based on history and community makeup.
The opinion notes that “non-diminishment” provisions of the state’s constitution and the federal Voting Rights Act (VRA) refer to the voting power of geographically cohesive minority groups.
“Appellees ask us to open the secret trap door and unleash the highly controversial and hotly disputed federal VRA jurisprudence into the Florida Constitution,” the court said. “We should decline that invitation.”
The previous Congressional District 5 boundaries were aligned based on a court-ordered redrawing of districts to fix what was then called an illegal partisan gerrymander under the same Fair Districts amendment, the court said. In addition, the court raised the need to treat all voters equally and not to demand that certain voters should be treated differently based on race.
The League of Women Voters of Florida expressed both disappointment and frustration with the appeals court ruling.
“This decision attempts to undo both the letter and the spirit of the Fair Districts amendments and mocks the very amendments voted on and approved by Floridians,” Cecile M. Scoon, the league’s co-president, said in a statement emailed to the Florida Record. “This decision either deliberately perverts or mistakenly confuses bedrock legal frameworks concerning vote dilution and minorities’ right to vote.”
All parties agreed to ask the appeals court to send the case directly to the state Supreme Court, but the appeals court chose to review the case anyway, according to Scoon, who also said a notice of appeal to the state’s high court has been filed.
“All the parties agreed that this map diminishes Black voting power, an indisputable fact that has been twice upheld by the Florida trial court,” she said. “Now, according to First DCA, the word “diminishment” means something other than what Florida courts, lawmakers and voters have relied on for over a decade.”
The league is still hopeful that there is adequate time to draw up a new congressional map for the 2024 elections if the appellees prevail, according to Scoon.