Florida Supreme Court insists on weakening the influence of black voters | Florida

Florida Supreme Court Rejected a challenge On Thursday’s Congress map, the decision weakened the influence of black voters in the state and could make maps drawn in the future easier.

Years of legal disputes center on Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ decision to get rid of a winding district in North Florida, where black voters make up almost half of the eligible voters’ population and Al Lawson has been elected several timesa black Democrat, pays tribute to Congress. When the Florida Legislature re-published the map in 2021, DeSantis went out of his way to cut the area into four different areas, with white people as the majority. DeSantis said at the time that more than 200 miles from Tallahassee to Jacksonville made an inevitable classification of voters.

The decision helps Republicans Florida. Thursday’s ruling was a victory for Republicans, who expected to lose a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in next year’s midterm elections.

Black voters and advocacy groups challenged the map, saying getting rid of the region violated one of several counter-approved regulations, known as the Fair Regional Amendment (FDA), approved in 2010 in 2010. [racial and language minorities’] The plaintiff argued that the ability to elect a representative of his own choice was violated by eliminating the district where black voters elect their preferred candidate.

Circuit Court Judge On the one hand, with the plaintiff And hit the map in May 2022. Court of Appeal reverse That decision.

Chief Justice Carlos Muñiz, a man appointed by Desantis, wrote the majority and agreed that the old district was the person whose black voters could elect their preferred candidate, while the new map reduced their ability to do so. However, he added, the question is whether it is possible to map areas that meet non-cooperation requirements without allowing race to be dominated. He said the plaintiff has not proved that this is possible.

“The record, without a doubt, would be racist in such a region. The record also did not leave us without reasonable grounds for the view that further litigation would reveal potentially feasible remedies,” he wrote. “In North Florida, it may not be possible to map an inappropriate region in North Florida without the FDA mandatory racial neutral regional standards.”

“There is no doubt that this view greatly limits the FDA’s influence,” said Chris Shenton, an attorney for the Southern Social Justice League, who challenged the maps in another case on behalf of the plaintiff.

Jorge Labarga wrote in objection that the case should be sent back to the lower court and that the plaintiff should have the opportunity to prove such a map. “The Supreme Court’s Thursday ruling sets the stage for future decisions that could make the unrestricted clauses practically invalid or worse, under the law, unenforceable,” he wrote.