By: Liv Caputo, The Florida Phoenix<\/p>\n
Pushing the Florida Legislature to approve his redrawn congressional maps, Gov. Ron DeSantis\u2019 office is using the U.S. Supreme Court\u2019s decision to trash a Louisiana congressional map as evidence that Florida\u2019s anti-gerrymandering amendment is invalid.<\/p>\n
\u201cFlorida\u2019s intentional compliance with the [Fair Districts Amendment] \u2026 would require Florida to \u2018satisfy the extraordinarily onerous standard of proving that its use of race was narrowly tailored to further a compelling governmental interest,\u2019\u201d announced DeSantis\u2019 general counsel, David Axelman, in a letter to lawmakers as they debated whether to approve the governor\u2019s map.<\/p>\n
He quoted from the high-court\u2019s 6-3\u00a0decision\u00a0to strike down a Louisiana map that created a second majority-Black district, delivered just minutes earlier. In a highly-anticipated move, the Supreme Court also\u00a0ruled that the federal Voting Rights Act alone does not justify race-based redistricting.<\/p>\n
While the court\u2019s overhaul doesn\u2019t strike down the Civil Rights era law, it creates a much higher bar to draw lines to benefit minority populations.<\/p>\n
DeSantis says this decision invalidates Florida\u2019s\u00a0Fair Districts Amendments. Approved by\u00a063% of voters in 2010, the amendments (one covering legislative seats, the other congressional ones) prohibit drawing districts that diminish minorities\u2019 ability to elect candidates of their choice or that favor one political party over another.<\/p>\n
Because the national opinion invalidates Fair Districts\u2019 racial provision, \u201cthe rest cannot be saved\u201d either, DeSantis\u2019 top elections attorney told lawmakers earlier this week.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The debate comes amid an unusual nationwide push for mid-decade redistricting, escalating state-by-state in a tightening competition. States rushed to redistrict after President Trump \u2014 hoping to pad the GOP\u2019s slim congressional majority \u2014\u00a0told\u00a0Texas Republicans to redraw their map.<\/p>\n
A political domino effect ensued.<\/p>\n
In Florida, that means a map that could produce four extra GOP seats, shifting the state delegation\u2019s balance to 24-4, GOP to Democratic. The Republican-dominated Florida House\u00a0voted its approval\u00a0Wednesday,\u00a0even though the public isn\u2019t on board, as the Phoenix\u00a0previously reported.<\/p>\n
California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom threatened to retaliate by creating more Democratic seats in his state. Democrats in Illinois, Virginia, and Maryland have discussed redrawing their congressional maps, as have GOP lawmakers in Nebraska and Kansas. Many of the cases have been tied up in court, awaiting guidance from the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, it came.<\/p>\n
What is Louisiana v. Callais?<\/p>\n
The Supreme Court\u2019s ruling in the Louisiana case provides new legal guidance that could shape those disputes.<\/p>\n
Writing for the majority, Justice Samuel Alito said allowing race to influence government decision-making represents a \u201cdeparture\u201d from constitutional principles. The three justices appointed by Democratic presidents dissented.<\/p>\n
\u201cSection 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was designed to enforce the Constitution \u2014 not collide with it,\u201d Alito continued. \u201cUnfortunately, lower courts have sometimes applied this Court\u2019s \u2026 precedents in a way that forces States to engage in the very race-based discrimination that the Constitution forbids.\u201d<\/p>\n
Specifically, the court decided that states can\u2019t dress up their \u201cpolitical gerrymandering claims in racial garb.\u201d The justices have taken a hands-off approach to partisan gerrymandering.<\/p>\n
Still, advocates for Florida\u2019s amendment say the ruling does not affect the state\u2019s ability to ban partisan gerrymandering. Florida is one of eight states that explicitly ban using redistricting to politically favor one party over another.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe ruling that came down today does not change the fact that states have a right to make partisan gerrymandering illegal,\u201d said Amy Keith, executive director of Common Cause Florida. \u201cThat is what the people of Florida did in 2010, and that is what makes the map under consideration unconstitutional.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By: Liv Caputo, The Florida Phoenix Pushing the Florida Legislature to approve his redrawn congressional maps, Gov. Ron…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":251461,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[232,234,233],"class_list":["post-251460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tallahassee","tag-tallahassee","tag-tallahassee-headlines","tag-tallahassee-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=251460"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251460\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/251461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}