Genesis Robinson, executive director of Equal Ground, said the court’s decision would have ripple effects for generations.
Florida’s Supreme Court has ended a challenge to the state’s 2022 congressional districting map, effectively dashing the petitioners’ hopes that a congressional district in North Florida that pooled Black communities’ voting power could be re-established.
In a July 17 ruling, the high court found that the petitioners’ proposal to bring back a version of Congressional District 5, which allowed Black communities in North Florida to elect their candidate of choice, amounted to a racial gerrymander – a consequence prohibited by the U.S. Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause.Â
The court voted 5-1 along those lines even though a 2010 initiative altered the state constitution by stating that, “Districts shall not be drawn … to diminish (racial and language minorities’) ability to elect representatives of their choice.” The 2022 map provides no such district in North Florida where Black voters have the numbers to elect a representative of their choice.
The 2010 Fair Districts Amendment (FDA) also contained other provisions that said congressional districts could not be drawn to favor a particular political party or incumbent politician and that “districts shall consist of contiguous territory.”
A remedial district proposed by the petitioners, including the groups Black Voters Matter Capacity Building Institute and Equal Ground, does not adhere to the FDA’s compactness mandates, and this cannot be explained other than by race-based reasoning, the court concluded.
“The Legislature’s obligation to comply with the Equal Protection Clause is superior to its obligation to comply with the (FDA’s) Non-Diminishment Clause as interpreted by our court,” the opinion states. “The plaintiffs did not prove the possibility of complying with both the Non-Diminishment Clause and the Equal Protection Clause in North Florida. Therefore, they did not meet their burden to prove the invalidity of the (2022 congressional map).”
Equal Ground condemned the court’s ruling, saying that the justices endorsed a map that diminished Black voting power and sent a “chilling message” to all Florida residents.
“... The Florida Supreme Court has turned its back on Black voters, the state constitution and the fundamental principles of representative democracy,” Genesis Robinson, Equal Ground’s executive director, said in a prepared statement. “... At the heart of this case was a basic question: Do Black Floridians have the right to fair representation in Congress? … The court answered with a resounding no.”
The FDA was passed with overwhelming voter approval in a bid to keep the voting power of minority residents from being diminished and to prevent partisan gerrymandering, according to Equal Ground.
The court decision shows that those in power continue to bend the rules to serve themselves even when measures aimed to ensure fairness in voting are passed by voters, Equal Ground said in a statement.
But Gov. Ron DeSantis said the high court’s decision was consistent with other legal opinions.
“This was always the constitutionally correct map – and now both the federal courts and the Florida Supreme Court have upheld it,” DeSantis said in a statement provided to the Florida Record.
The respondents in the case were the state Legislature and the secretary of state, who defended the current map and argued the Equal Protection Clause bars race-based redistricting without a sufficient justification.
