A Florida Senate redistricting case gets the green light

Florida Senate District 16 // Credit flsenate.gov 4/10/24

TALLAHASSEE — A panel of federal judges Monday cleared the way for a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of a 2022 Florida Senate redistricting plan because of allegations that a Tampa Bay-area district was racially gerrymandered.

The panel, however, rejected a gerrymandering allegation about another district in the area.

Attorneys for Senate President Ben Albritton, R-Wauchula, and Secretary of State Cord Byrd sought summary judgment to effectively end the lawsuit, which was filed last year to challenge Senate District 16 and Senate District 18.

Sen. Darryl Rouson, a Black Democrat from St. Petersburg, represents District 16, which crosses Tampa Bay to include parts of Pinellas and Hillsborough counties. White Republican Nick DiCeglie of Indian Rocks Beach represents District 18, which is made up of part of Pinellas County.

The lawsuit, filed on behalf of five residents of Tampa and St. Petersburg, alleged that the Legislature’s plan to connect Black populations in the two counties in District 16 “sacrificed genuine communities of interest” and that “racial gerrymandering unjustifiably packed Black voters into District 16, stripping them from adjacent District 18 and reducing their influence there.” It contended the plan violated equal-protection rights.

The three-judge panel Monday refused the state’s request for summary judgment on District 16, pointing to legislators’ statements and other evidence about race being taken into consideration in drawing the district. As an example of what it described as circumstantial evidence, the panel said a bridge does not connect the areas of District 16 in the two counties.

“Together, the direct and circumstantial evidence that race predominated in drawing District 16 requires this court to weigh evidence and make credibility determinations: a task properly left for trial,” said the ruling by 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Andrew Brasher and U.S. District Judges Thomas Barber and Charlene Edwards Honeywell.

Unlike typical federal lawsuits, three-judge panels handle redistricting cases.

The panel, however, said the plaintiffs had not provided adequate evidence to continue pursuing the gerrymandering allegation in District 18, which neighbors District 16 in Pinellas County.

“Plaintiffs say that the border between District 18 and District 16 was affected by the Legislature’s race-based goal for District 16, and there is evidence of that fact,” the ruling said. “But the Supreme Court has rejected claims based on the idea that a racial gerrymander of one district affected the lines of a neighboring district.”

The panel added, “In short, plaintiffs provide neither direct nor circumstantial evidence of race-based intentions to support their racial-gerrymandering claim as to District 18. As such, no genuine dispute of material fact exists to support their claim that the Legislature racially gerrymandered that district, so we grant summary judgment in defendants’ favor for this claim.”

Lawmakers gave final approval to the redistricting plan in February 2022, and the districts were used in the 2022 elections. Rouson received 63.9 percent of the vote in District 16, while DiCeglie received 56.9 percent in District 18. Neither seat was on the 2024 ballot.

At least part of the way the districts were drawn is tied to a 2010 “Fair Districts” state constitutional amendment that set standards for redistricting. Part of the amendment said new maps cannot “diminish” the ability of racial minorities “to elect representatives of their choice.”

But the lawsuit alleged that lawmakers did not “narrowly tailor” its use of race to comply with the state constitutional requirement. As a result, it alleged that the plan violated equal-protection rights.

Meanwhile, a separate lawsuit is pending in federal court in Miami challenging some state House districts and a congressional district. Also, the Florida Supreme Court is considering a challenge to a congressional redistricting plan, with that case focused on a North Florida district that was overhauled.