Florida Supreme Court upholds Gov. DeSantis’ controversial congressional map

The Florida Supreme Court has upheld a controversial congressional map drawn by Gov. Ron DeSantis and approved by the Legislature.

A majority of Justices ultimately said the Black Voters Matter Capacity Building Institute and other plaintiffs failed to prove racial discrimination or a need to preserve a North Florida district previously represented by a Black Democrat.

In a majority opinion, the group said the map will stand, ending any question about whether congressional district lines will change in the 2026 Midterms or the rest of the decade.

A majority opinion written by Chief Justice Carlos Muñiz accepted DeSantis’ past arguments that the Equal Protection Clause in the U.S. Constitution overrides a demand in Florida’s Fair Districts language that the power of minority voters cannot be diminished in the redistricting process.

“The Legislature’s obligation to comply with the Equal Protection Clause is superior to its obligation to comply with the Non-Diminishment Clause as interpreted by our Court,” he wrote. “The plaintiffs did not prove the possibility of complying with both the Non-Diminishment Clause and the Equal Protection Clause in North Florida. Therefore, they did not meet their burden to prove the invalidity of the Enacted Plan.”

At the circuit court level, plaintiffs agreed to forgo a trial and adopt an agreement with attorneys for the state to ask courts to just rule on issues surrounding the dismantling of a prior configuration of Florida’s 5th Congressional District. That was a seat previously represented by U.S. Rep. Al Lawson, a Black Democrat.

“It is not enough in the redistricting context for challengers to identify a flaw in an enacted districting plan and demand that the court send the Legislature back to the drawing board. The plaintiffs were required to produce an alternative plan proving that any asserted defect in the Legislature’s plan is remediable,” the opinion reads.

DeSantis criticized the Lawson district, which spanned from Tallahassee to Jacksonville in order to make a district where Black voters controlled the outcome of the election. DeSantis ultimately vetoed a map created by the Legislature that included a Jacksonville area district with a substantial number of Black voters instead. Lawmakers had also offered another map largely preserving Lawson’s district if courts found the map diminished minority voting power.

DeSantis later submitted his own map, which the Legislature passed. It led to Florida Republicans netting four U.S. House seats in the 2022 election. Lawson, forced to run in a majority Republican seat, lost to fellow U.S. Rep. Neal Dunn, a White Republican.

But Justices ultimately ruled that there was never a need for Lawson’s district to be drawn in the first place. The district notably was created by the Supreme Court in 2016 when different Justices ruled that the map created by a Republican Legislature in 2012 wrongly favored Republicans despite passage of the Fair Districts amendment.

“In fairness, we acknowledge our Court’s role in leading the trial court astray. Benchmark CD 5 originated in an order from our Court, and the things that make the Plan 8015 remedial district race-predominant are equally true of Benchmark CD 5,” the opinion reads.

Justice Jorge Labarga did write a dissenting opinion from the majority, saying that the high court should remand the map to lower courts to find a remedy.

“The majority generally does not dispute this conclusion,” Labarga wrote.

“And yet, despite the majority’s agreement that the Enacted Plan diminishes the ability of black voters in Benchmark CD 5 to elect representatives of their choice — thus, the Enacted Plan violates the Fair Districts Amendment (FDA) approved by Florida voters in 2010 — the majority ultimately concludes that no relief is warranted in this case because the Plan 8015 remedial district violates the Equal Protection Clause.”

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