Florida Supreme Court Justices heard arguments Thursday morning from voting rights groups, “Black Votes Matter” and “Equal Ground,” who are both suing the State for a redistricting plan made two years ago.
They claim when the Florida legislature passed the revised map in March 2022. It removed the 5th Congressional District, a 200-mile zone in North Florida which was created to allow black voters to elect a candidate of their choice.
“The legislature passed a redistricting plan that it knew did not comply with the state constitution under this court’s precedence on the non-diminishment provision," said Christina Ford, an attorney for the groups challenging the map.
Florida’s 5th District stretched from Tallahassee to Jacksonville. Former Democratic Congressman Al Lawson used to represent the area.
The state divvied up the territory into four other districts. When Lawson ran for re-election in a majority-white district, he lost, and that district as well as others, elected white republicans.
Reverend. R.L. Gundy of Jacksonville says he no longer feels represented in Congress.
“We’re supposed to be a government of the people, for the people, and by the people," said Gundy at a press conference in Tallahassee.
Cecile Scoon, co-president of the Women League of Voters of Florida, is siding with the coalition.
She and other voting advocates claim Governor Ron DeSantis broke state law when he approved the redistricting plan.
“This is the law," she said. "The governor understanding the status of the law, still came forth with a map that diminished the minority voice of Black Americans in Florida by 50%.”
Scoon points to Florida’s Fair District Amendment which voters approved in 2010, to protect minority voting rights in Florida.
“The citizens did that. The league was there, many groups was there working to make sure that that wonderful achievement was accomplished.”
Daniel Nordby, counsel for the Legislature, told the court during Thursday's oral arguments that the new map does in fact diminish Black voting power—something that is prohibited in the state constitution. But he argues that wasn’t the intended goal.
Nordby believes legislators did what they could to co-join districts without committing racial gerrymandering.
“It’s simply not possible to show that an alternative remedial district could be drawn that both doesn’t diminish and in which race doesn’t predominate," he said. "The plaintiffs had every incentive for the last two and half years, to try and show how it could be done.”
Furthermore, the state argues the district does comply with the state’s amendment given it is now much more compact.
No ruling has been made.
Yet, Justice John Couriel expressed skepticism about whether the case impacts an individual person’s right to vote, as opposed to an ethnic or racial group.
“I don’t think our cases, certainly not the U.S. Supreme Court cases, stands for the proposition that any group has a right to vote," said Couriel. "When I go into a polling place, I go in by myself.”
Couriel also questioned the state’s role in deciding a case that, at its core, is about having voter protections based on race. He suggests that’s a federal role.
If the Supreme Court rules in favor of the voting rights groups, a new map wouldn’t take effect until at least 2026.
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