By Jim Saunders ©2024 The News Service of Florida
TALLAHASSEE — In a potentially far-reaching case, an appeals court Tuesday said it will hear arguments next month in a dispute about whether Florida lawmakers should be shielded from testifying in lawsuits.
The 1st District Court of Appeal scheduled a hearing Sept. 17 in a dispute stemming from an attempt by voting rights groups to take depositions of lawmakers and legislative staff members as part of a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of a redistricting plan.
The voting-rights groups have argued the issue is moot because they decided against continuing to seek the depositions. But in a June brief, attorneys for the House and Senate described the appeal as presenting a “question of great public importance.”
The House and Senate contend that a concept known as “legislative privilege” shields lawmakers from having to testify in civil lawsuits. Ultimately, the House and Senate want to take the issue to the Florida Supreme Court and undo a 2013 Supreme Court ruling that allowed legislative testimony in certain circumstances.
“What encourages legislators to act, speak, and vote in accordance with their consciences — and their appraisal of the wishes and interests of their constituents — is the confident foreknowledge that their legislative conduct will not embroil them in litigation,” the House and Senate lawyers wrote. “As long as the law withholds that security, legislators will continue to face a deterrent to the uninhibited discharge of their legislative duties.”
A coalition of groups, such as the League of Women Voters of Florida and Equal Ground Education Fund, and individual plaintiffs filed a lawsuit in 2022 challenging the constitutionality of a congressional redistricting plan that Gov. Ron DeSantis pushed through the Legislature that spring. They contend the plan violated a 2010 constitutional amendment that set redistricting standards, including a standard that said plans could not “diminish” the ability of minorities to “elect representatives of their choice.”
The 1st District Court of Appeal in December 2023 upheld the constitutionality of the redistricting plan. The groups appealed to the Supreme Court, which is scheduled to hear arguments Sept. 12.
As part of the lawsuit, the voting-rights groups in 2022 sought depositions from six current and former lawmakers and five current and former staff members. The Legislature fought the depositions, but Circuit Judge J. Lee Marsh in October 2022 said he would allow the lawmakers and staff members to be questioned, with some limits.
Marsh cited the 2013 Supreme Court precedent.
“The appropriate line in this case is where the doors to the House and Senate meet the outside world,” Marsh wrote. “Accordingly, each legislator and legislative staff member may be questioned regarding any matter already part of the public record and information received from anyone not elected to the Legislature, their direct staff members or the staff of the legislative bodies themselves. They may not be questioned as to information internal to each legislative body that is not already public record (e.g., their thoughts or opinions or those of other legislators).”
The House and Senate appealed that decision, and the issue has remained pending at the Tallahassee-based appeals court while the underlying redistricting case has moved on to the Supreme Court.
In a May brief, attorneys for the voting rights groups said the deposition issue is moot because they long ago decided against continuing to seek the testimony.
“This appeal is unquestionably moot,” the May brief said. “It challenges the circuit court’s October 27, 2022, order allowing appellees (the voting-rights groups) to depose a limited subset of legislators and staff involved in the 2022 congressional redistricting process on a limited number of topics. But those depositions never happened.”
But attorneys for the House and Senate wrote in their June brief that they want the appeals court to rule on the legislative-privilege issue and take a step known as certifying a question of great public importance to the Supreme Court.
The brief urged the appeals court to “certify the question whether the Florida Supreme Court should recede from (the 2013 decision) and recognize an absolute legislative privilege in civil cases.”
The current and former lawmakers involved in the dispute are former House Speaker Chris Sprowls, R-Palm Harbor; former Sen. Ray Rodrigues, R-Estero; former Sen. Aaron Bean, R-Fernandina Beach; Sen. Jennifer Bradley, R-Fleming Island; Rep. Tom Leek, R-Ormond Beach; and Rep. Tyler Sirois, R-Merritt Island. Each had a leadership role in the 2022 redistricting process.
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