North Fla., District In Play In Federal Lawsuit

Miami FL

16 March, 2022

4:40 PM

Description

A Miami Times Staff Report, the Miami Times Mar 15, 2022 With Gov. Ron DeSantis vowing to veto a congressional redistricting plan, a lawsuit filed late Friday asks a federal court to set new U.S. House districts that would be used in this fall's elections. The lawsuit, filed in the federal Northern District of Florida by two groups and five voters, is similar to a case filed Friday in Leon County circuit court. The crux is that DeSantis' threat to veto a redistricting plan drawn up by state lawmakers jeopardizes the chances of reaching agreement on a map – and that judges should step in. "Unlike the Legislature, Governor DeSantis has demonstrated that he is not willing to abide by the law, or sign a congressional plan that does, making an impasse highly likely," said the federal lawsuit, filed on behalf of the groups Common Cause Florida and FairDistricts Now and voters in Leon, Gadsden, Orange, Lee and Miami-Dade counties. "To date, the Legislature and Governor DeSantis have not reached agreement on a congressional district plan." The Florida Legislature approved a controversial two-map congressional redistricting plan earlier this month. That includes a primary map crafted in the Florida House (H 8019) that significantly reconfigures Florida's 5th Congressional District from a Tallahassee-to-Jacksonville spanning jurisdiction to a Duval County-only seat, but keeping it as a minority seat. That attempts to address complaints raised by DeSantis, whose office submitted two maps eliminating any Black seats in North Florida. The office has also argued the current CD 5, represented by Democratic U.S. Rep. Al Lawson, is an unconstitutional gerrymander. Lawson has previously referred to the governor's attempts to eliminate his district as race baiting. As House members debated the final map, DeSantis announced he would veto it. But, according to a report in FloridaPolitics.com, the Legislature has tipped its hat at concerns courts will find even its own map in violation of the state constitution, if it finds that any change to Lawson's district diminishes minority voting power. In that case, the Legislature offered a second map (H 8015) if courts threw out the first map. Lawyers for the plaintiffs wrote that a three-judge panel of the federal district court should implement "a new congressional district plan that complies" with the U.S. Constitution. The lawsuit contends that without a new map, the state could be left with lines based on the 2010 U.S. census rather than the 2020 census, which would be unconstitutional because of population changes. The Miami Times is the largest Black-owned newspaper in the south serving Miami's Black community since 1923. The award-winning weekly is frequently recognized as the best Black newspaper in the country by the National Newspaper Publishers Association.