Secretary of State Byrd, the Florida House of Representatives, and the Florida Senate v. Black Voters Matter Capacity Building Institute, Inc.
Sitting en banc, the First DCA reversed a Leon County declaratory judgment that had held Chapter 2022-265 (the 2022 congressional redistricting plan) violated the non-diminishment clause of Florida's congressional Fair Districts Amendment, art. III, § 20(a). The court held that a plaintiff asserting a diminishment claim must first prove, with evidence, that he or she is part of a geographically compact, politically cohesive, naturally occurring minority community — importing the first Gingles precondition from Voting Rights Act jurisprudence. Because the plaintiffs relied solely on stipulated statistical data about the court-drawn former CD-5 and offered no evidence of such a community, they failed to carry their burden of demonstrating a conflict between the statute and the constitution.
Key facts
- Black Voters Matter Capacity Building Institute and other plaintiffs challenged Chapter 2022-265, Florida's 2022 congressional redistricting plan, in Leon County circuit court, seeking a declaratory judgment that the plan violated the non-diminishment clause of Florida's congressional Fair Districts Amendment.
- The trial court granted the declaratory judgment in plaintiffs' favor, finding the redistricting plan diminished the voting power of a minority community in the former congressional district 5 based on stipulated statistical data.
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Why it matters
This en banc decision creates a demanding new evidentiary threshold for Fair Districts non-diminishment claims by importing the Gingles geographic-compactness/political-cohesion precondition into Florida constitutional… — full analysis with a trial
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