A panel of federal judges upheld Florida’s congressional map, rejecting a challenge that claimed it would discriminate against black voters after the district of former Rep. Al Lawson, a black Democrat, was dismantled.
The decision is a substantial victory for Republicans and Governor Ron DeSantis, who pushed the map through Florida’s Republican Party-controlled Legislature. The congressional map his administration drew ultimately resulted in Republicans gaining four seats, helping the GOP flip the U.S. House of Representatives in the 2022 midterm elections.
The three-judge panel ruled unanimously that those who challenged the map did not prove that Republican lawmakers discriminated against black voters by adopting the map created by the DeSantis administration. Instead, the justices pointed out that lawmakers initially opposed the governor’s plan but then “ran out” and bowed to the governor’s wishes.
“Whatever might be said, therefore, about the Legislature’s decision to abandon the fight to preserve a black achieving district in North Florida, it did not amount to a ratification of racial animus in violation of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendment,” the opinion said.
The ruling added that “a public and collective decision-making body, such as the Florida Legislature, is solely responsible for its own unconstitutional actions and motivations. The illegitimate motivations of others – whether voters, the governor, or even a single member of the body itself – do not become those of the decision-making body as a whole.”
The ruling can be appealed directly to the U.S. Supreme Court. But even if it does, an appeal is unlikely to be resolved before this year’s election. A separate legal challenge to the map is also pending in the Florida Supreme Court.
Jennifer Garcia, a spokesperson for Common Cause, one of the groups that filed a lawsuit, said in a brief response that the organization carefully analyzed the ruling “to determine what it means for the people of Florida” and added that “ we are disappointed in the court’s decision to deny the ruling. Black voters have the right to full representation.”
Two of the three judges — U.S. District Judges Allen Winsor and M. Casey Rodgers — on the panel were appointed by Republican presidents. U.S. Circuit Judge Adalberto Jordan was appointed by President Barack Obama.
DeSantis upended Florida’s once-in-a-decade redistricting process when he insisted on coming up with his own congressional map. The governor repeatedly argued that Lawson’s North Florida district — which stretched from Jacksonville to Tallahassee — was unconstitutional and an illegal, race-based gerrymander, though there have been no court decisions bolstering DeSantis’ claims.
The governor vetoed a map drawn by the Legislature in 2022, even though lawmakers’ plan would have created a much smaller district around Jacksonville, allowing Black voters to choose a candidate of their choice. After DeSantis’ veto, Republican Party legislative leaders relented and agreed to approve a map drawn up by the DeSantis administration.
Lawson, who is from Tallahassee, tried to run for another term under the revamped map that placed him in the same district as Republican Rep. Neal Dunn of Panama City, but he lost by nearly 20 percentage points.
Voting rights and civil rights organizations — including the Florida branch of the NAACP and Common Cause — as well as individual voters who sued alleged that DeSantis intentionally discriminated against black voters. They argued that his decision to veto the Legislature’s original map also strengthened their case.
Jordan wrote in a concurring opinion that while he supported the final decision, he added that the evidence presented at trial “convinces me that the governor did in fact act with race as a motivating factor.”
“I do not believe Governor DeSantis harbors personal racial animosity toward Black voters,” Jordan wrote. “But I do believe he impermissibly used race as a means to achieve goals (including partisan advantage) that he cannot concede.”
Jordan added that he found the reasons DeSantis’ general counsel gave for vetoing the Legislature’s original plan “disingenuous.” He also singled out Alex Kelly, a top aide to DeSantis who drew up the map, in his opinion, saying he found no “credible witness.”
Winsor, in his own opinion, said he disagreed with Jordan’s claims and said the governor’s opposition to Lawson’s seat configuration “cannot be evidence of discrimination or racial animosity.”
“Plaintiffs call the Governor’s insistence here ‘intimidation of the Legislature,’” wrote Winsor, who was appointed by former President Donald Trump. Others might call it the exercise of political will. But you shouldn’t call it racist.”
The battle over Florida’s congressional map is now expected to move to the state courts. The case now before the Florida Supreme Court, while focusing on several legal arguments, also focuses on Lawson’s dismantled seat. In the state case, a Florida circuit judge ruled that the redrawn district violated voter-approved redistricting standards enshrined in the Florida Constitution and ordered the Legislature to halt the redrawing.
But the 1st District Court of Appeal — in an unusual move where the entire court decided the case — asserted that the justices were not bound by the state Supreme Court’s earlier ruling, which created Lawson’s original district. That court also alleged that not enough evidence was presented to show that black voters were harmed by the new maps.