MIAMI (AP) — Progressive civic groups have challenged how four congressional districts and seven state House districts in South Florida were drawn by Florida’s Republican-controlled Legislature. minority.
The groups filed a lawsuit Thursday, claiming the districts are unconstitutional and asking a federal court in South Florida to block them from being used for elections. The Florida House of Representatives and Florida Secretary of State Cord Byrd were named as defendants.
A message seeking comment was left at the Secretary of State’s office on Saturday.
Under federal and state law, race can be taken into account in redistricting to protect minority voters if the minority group is cohesive and if white voters are able to prevent the minority group from electing their preferred candidates.
However, the Florida Legislature wrongly assumed that South Florida’s Hispanic voters are coherent, when that is no longer the case as Florida’s white majority regularly votes in coalition with Hispanic voters in South Florida, the lawsuit said.
“Rather, it is nuanced, multifaceted, and diverse when it comes to political behavior and preferences,” the lawsuit said about South Florida’s Latinx community. “The Legislature had no right to draw race-based districts based on uninformed assumptions about racial equity.”
Instead, real minority communities in the city of Miami and Collier County, where Naples is located, were split up when the districts were drawn, the lawsuit said.
More than two-thirds of the residents of Miami-Dade County — where the counties targeted in the lawsuit are concentrated — are Hispanic.
“In drawing these districts, the Florida Legislature subordinated the state’s traditional redistricting criteria and constitutional requirements to race, without narrowly adjusting district lines to further a compelling government interest,” the lawsuit said.
The congressional districts being challenged — 19, 26, 27 and 28 — stretch from the Fort Myers area on the Gulf Coast across the state to the Miami area and into the Florida Keys. The House districts examined – 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 118 and 119 – are concentrated in the Miami area.
All districts are currently represented by Republicans.
As indicated, the districts violate the basic principles of good neighborhood mapping, such as ensuring that communities remain intact, are compact and prevent districts from stretching far and wide into disparate neighborhoods, the lawsuit says.
