The State of Florida, led by the Florida House and Secretary of State Cord Byrd, has taken a firm stance against a federal lawsuit alleging that several state House and congressional districts are unconstitutionally gerrymandered.
This legal battle is the latest chapter in the ongoing debate surrounding the state’s redistricting efforts following the 2020 census.
Initially filed in May, the lawsuit targets seven state House districts (112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 118, and 119) and three congressional districts (26, 27, and 28) in South Florida.
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The plaintiffs in the case include the groups Cubanos Pa’lante, Engage Miami, and the FIU ACLU Club, as well as three individual plaintiffs.
Attorneys from the ACLU Foundation of Florida and the law firms Vasquez Segarra LLP and O’Melveny & Myers LLP represent them.
In response to the lawsuit, the Florida House and Secretary of State Cord Byrd have filed a motion to dismiss the case. Their attorneys, including Andy Bardos, dispute the plaintiffs’ allegations that the Legislature violated equal-protection rights in drawing the districts.
The state’s defense argues that the plaintiffs do not allege that the Legislature placed Hispanic voters in some districts and non-Hispanic voters in others, but rather they “take issue with how the Legislature configured districts within a predominantly Hispanic area of the state.”
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The state maintains that the districts are majority Hispanic because Miami-Dade County’s total population is 69% Hispanic.
The plaintiffs, however, have revised their lawsuit, alleging that the disputed districts “form noncompact shapes, connect disparate neighborhoods and divide established communities.” They argue that the Legislature’s “race-based decisions resulted in maps that needlessly split neighborhoods and political subdivisions and ignore traditional redistricting criteria.”
As an example, the lawsuit cites Congressional District 26, which stretches from Miami-Dade County to Collier County, including the largely uninhabited Everglades. The plaintiffs allege that the “Legislature explicitly drew CD 26 as a coast-to-coast district for racial reasons, resulting in one more district than necessary crossing the Miami-Dade County line.”
The state’s attorneys, representing Secretary of State Cord Byrd, have disputed the claims of racial gerrymandering. They argue that “some districts will inevitably have better or worse compactness scores than others” and that “some cities must be split; that’s necessarily true of large, populated cities like Miami.”
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The attorneys also contend that features like islands and the Everglades “must be placed somewhere” in redistricting plans, and that the plaintiffs’ allegations do not amount to the “race-based segregation of voters into separate districts — or political apartheid — that characterizes racial-gerrymandering claims.”
The redistricting process in Florida is governed by several factors, including the 2010 state constitutional amendments known as the Fair Districts amendments. One of these requirements, which has drawn significant attention, states that new maps cannot “diminish” the ability of racial minorities “to elect representatives of their choice.”
The Republican-controlled Florida Legislature was responsible for redrawing the state’s legislative districts, while Governor Ron DeSantis played a key role in the development of the new congressional map.
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