Florida Supreme Court Sides With DeSantis in Landmark Redistricting Decision

TALLAHASSEE—The Florida Supreme Court sided with Gov. Ron DeSantis Thursday in a landmark congressional redistricting case, ruling that the U.S. Constitution outweighs a citizen-led state amendment adopted in 2010.

The 5 to 1 decision marks the latest chapter in a years-long debate over racial discrimination and racial gerrymandering stemming from a DeSantis-created congressional map in 2022.

The ruling will prevent North Florida’s Congressional District 5 from returning to its nearly 200-mile-long, Jacksonville to Tallahassee stretch along the Georgia border, instead keeping it almost fully within the Jacksonville area, as DeSantis had pushed for.

“There is no plausible, non-racial explanation for using a nearly two-hundred-mile-long land bridge to connect the black populations of Jacksonville and Tallahassee,” Chief Justice Carlos Muñiz wrote. 

In 2022, DeSantis claimed that CD-5, with its “barbell-like” shape stretching across the state, was racial gerrymandering violating the Equal Protection Clause. So, his office redrew the district to exist between Saint Augustine and Jacksonville, decreasing the black voting population from around 45% to 32%.

The Black Voters Matter Capacity Building Institute filed suit, claiming this violated the Florida Constitution’s Non-Diminishing Clause under the Fair Districts Amendment, a citizen-led ballot initiative adopted in 2010.

That clause bans districting changes that diminish minority voters’ ability to elect representatives of their choice.

So for the first time since the amendment’s adoption, the Florida Supreme Court on Thursday considered the relationship between the Non-Diminishing Clause and the Equal Protection Clause. 

“The remaining question is whether the Legislature could have drawn new North Florida districts that complied with both the Non-Diminishment Clause and the Equal Protection Clause,” Muñiz said. 

The answer?

“It is likely impossible to draw a non-diminishing district…in North Florida without subordinating the FDA’s mandatory race-neutral districting standards,” he added later. 

The sole dissenting opinion by Justice Jorge LaBarga referenced this, worrying that the majority’s decision could render the Non-Diminishing Clause obsolete.

“Although the majority conducts an as-applied equal protection analysis, make no mistake—this decision lays the groundwork for future decisions that may render the Non-Diminishment Clause practically ineffective or, worse, unenforceable as a matter of law,” LaBarga wrote.

A Black Democrat had represented CD-5 since the early 1990s, after the courts redrew the district lines from Orlando to Jacksonville to encompass more Black voters.

That district continued to be at odds, with opponents decrying the long and abnormal shape, until 2016, when the Florida Supreme Court redrew the lines from Jacksonville to Tallahassee—creating an even longer shape. This helped with the election of Democratic Rep. Al Lawson, who is Black, who represented the area until DeSantis redrew the lines in 2022.

This new map compacted the district and shrunk it to parts of Duval and St. Johns Counties, decreasing the black voter population.

That year, Republican Rep. John Rutherford, who is white, won the seat.  

A trial court sided with the Black Voters Matter Capacity Building Institute soon after their lawsuit was filed, but an appeals court reversed course. On Thursday, the Supreme Court sided with DeSantis. Justice Charles Canady recused himself from the ruling.