By Jim Saunders ©2024 The News Service of Florida
TALLAHASSEE — The Florida House and Secretary of State Cord Byrd last week urged a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit alleging that seven South Florida state House districts and three congressional districts are unconstitutionally gerrymandered.
Attorneys for the House and Byrd disputed allegations that the Legislature violated equal-protection rights in the way it drew districts that would elect Hispanic candidates.
“Plaintiffs do not allege that, in drawing the state House districts, the Legislature placed Hispanic voters in some districts and non-Hispanic voters in other districts,” Andy Bardos, an attorney for the House, wrote in a 15-page motion to dismiss the case. “At most, plaintiffs take issue with how the Legislature configured districts within a predominantly Hispanic area of the state. Plaintiffs object that the challenged districts are majority Hispanic, but 69 percent of Miami-Dade County’s total population is Hispanic. Plaintiffs do not plausibly allege the race-based segregation of voters into separate districts — or political apartheid — that characterizes racial-gerrymandering claims.”
But in a revised version of the lawsuit filed June 25, attorneys for the plaintiffs wrote that the districts “form noncompact shapes, connect disparate neighborhoods and divide established communities.”
“The Legislature’s race-based decisions resulted in maps that needlessly split neighborhoods and political subdivisions and ignore traditional redistricting criteria,” the lawsuit said. “Where, as here, race is the central consideration in mapmaking, and traditional, race-neutral criteria are subordinated to racial considerations, race predominates.”
The lawsuit involves state House districts 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 118 and 119, which are held, respectively, by Miami-Dade County Republicans Alex Rizo, Vicki Lopez, Demi Busatta Cabrera, Alina Garcia, Daniel Perez, Mike Redondo and Juan Carlos Porras. All, except Garcia, are running for re-election to the House this year.
The lawsuit also involves Congressional districts 26, 27 and 28, which are held, respectively, by Miami-Dade Republicans Mario Diaz-Balart, Maria Elvira Salazar and Carlos Gimenez. All are seeking re-election this year.
The plaintiffs in the case, initially filed in May, are the groups Cubanos Pa’lante, Engage Miami and the FIU ACLU Club and three individual plaintiffs. They are represented by attorneys from the ACLU Foundation of Florida and the law firms Vasquez Segarra LLP and O’Melveny & Myers LLP.
As an example of the issues in the lawsuit, the plaintiffs allege that the seven state House districts are “all non-compact districts drawn to form long, skinny shapes running north-south.” As another example, Congressional District 26 stretches from Miami-Dade County to Collier County and includes the largely uninhabited Everglades — with the lawsuit alleging 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.”
But attorneys for Byrd disputed that “race predominated” in drawing districts such as Congressional District 26. It said, for instance, that islands and the Everglades “must be placed somewhere” in redistricting plans.
“Some districts will inevitably have better or worse compactness scores than others,” said Byrd’s motion to dismiss, filed by private attorneys Mohammad Jazil and Michael Beato and lawyers for the Department of State. “And some cities must be split; that’s necessarily true of large, populated cities like Miami.”
The Republican-controlled Legislature redrew districts in 2022 after the once-a-decade U.S. census. The Legislature controlled the shape of state House and Senate districts, while Gov. Ron DeSantis played a key role in the development of the new congressional map.
In addition to federal constitutional issues, lawmakers also faced requirements under 2010 state constitutional amendments, known as the Fair Districts amendments. One of those requirements, which has drawn heavy attention, says new maps cannot “diminish” the ability of racial minorities “to elect representatives of their choice.”
Another federal lawsuit is pending that alleges racial gerrymandering in the drawing of two state Senate districts in the Tampa Bay region. In addition, a two-year battle continues to play out about a North Florida congressional district at the Florida Supreme Court. A federal court also rejected a separate challenge to the North Florida district.
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