A panel of federal judges upheld Florida’s Senate map, ruling against a challenge alleging lawmakers diminished minority voting power.
A three-judge panel unanimously ruled that the Senate carefully deliberated and considered the restrictions of Florida’s Fair Districts map, including in the construction of Tampa Bay districts at the center of the ACLU-led lawsuit.
A 78-page ruling ultimately accepts arguments by attorneys from Senate leadership and the Secretary of State that race wasn’t a motivating factor in drawing lines, nor did new boundaries diminish the democratic power of minority voters.
“The defendants say that we could conclude on this record that Senate District 16 is narrowly tailored to comply with Florida’s non-diminishment amendment. Specifically, the defendants suggest that even if race predominated, District 16 withstands strict scrutiny because they have a compelling interest in complying with Florida’s Constitution,” reads a ruling signed by U.S. District Judges Thomas Barber, Andrew Brasher and Charlene Edwards Honeywell.
Both Barber and Brasher were appointed to their seats by Republican President Donald Trump, while Honeywell was appointed by Democratic President Barack Obama.
The lengthy opinion documents a four-day trial in which plaintiffs argued that the Legislature’s new cartography for Senate District 16 was racially gerrymandered in violation of the U.S. Constitution’s “equal protection clause.”
SD 16, as drawn in a plan approved by the Senate in January 2022, covers much of St. Petersburg in southern Pinellas County, but spans Tampa Bay to also include parts of Hillsborough County spanning from its southern border north to Temple Terrace.
The ACLU and some witnesses called to testify argued the Senate had drawn the district to pack many of the region’s Black, and Democrat-leaning, communities into a single district. That in turn made neighboring districts more Republican.
After the map was enacted in 2022, every other Hillsborough or Pinellas Senate seat elected Republican senators. In contrast, another Tampa area district previously elected Democratic Sen. Janet Cruz, who was unseated under the new map by Republican Jay Collins, now Florida’s Lieutenant Governor.
Democratic political consultant Matt Isbell, founder of MCI Maps, testified in federal court that the new map “was a deliberate move on the Legislature to essentially pack Black voters into one seat and make the other districts around it in Pinellas County specifically more white and Republican leaning and that they really didn’t need to cross the Bay.”
But testimony by Jay Ferrin, the Senate’s chief cartographer, detailed the process employed by staff in crafting the Senate map, including a focus on compactness and existing political boundaries like city limits and major roads.
“Ferrin later testified that he never attempted to draw a district wholly within Hillsborough County and made these statements based on his ‘familiarity with the area and where the population is’ and his experience using the redistricting software to consider the potential problems of a ‘hypothetical district,’” the ruling states.
Ultimately, judges said it appeared clear the maps drawn didn’t consider race until latter stages when, in accordance with the Fair Districts Amendment in the Florida Constitution, officials looked to ensure lines did not diminish the voting power of minority communities.
“The boundaries of District 16 follow major highways, such as Interstate 75, U.S. Highways 19 and 301, the border between Manatee and Hillsborough Counties, and the municipal boundary of Gulfport,” the ruling notes. “The boundary at the top of the Pinellas County portion of District 16 is 22nd Avenue North.”
That ultimately showed the maps offered as alternatives, which did not have SD 16 crossing Tampa Bay, actually produced a district less contiguous than the one Democratic Sen. Darryl Rouson represents now.
The opinion notes the Florida Supreme Court recently upheld Florida’s congressional map and in the process questioned prior maps considered by the Legislature that tried to preserve districts drawn with race as a motivating factor.
But that’s moot in any arguments about the Senate map, judges determined, as the districts were not drawn with race as a motivating factor in the first place.
“We do not address whether Senate District 16 would survive strict scrutiny if race had predominated. Anything we said on this issue would be little more than an advisory opinion considering our finding on racial predominance. Because the plaintiffs have not ‘demonstrate[d] that race drove the mapping of district lines,’ our analysis ends with the racial predominance inquiry,” the ruling states.
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