Orlando Sentinel: Judges urged to reconsider Florida federal redistricting case

Voting rights groups want a federal court to reconsider a ruling that upheld the constitutionality of a Florida congressional redistricting plan, pointing to the “outsized” role that Gov. Ron DeSantis played in pushing the plan through the Legislature.

Attorneys for groups such as Common Cause Florida and the Florida NAACP and other plaintiffs filed a motion Wednesday urging a three-judge panel to look again at whether the redistricting plan was passed in 2022 with a racially discriminatory motive.

Wednesday’s motion for reconsideration said the judges incorrectly found that DeSantis’ intent “was all but irrelevant.” The lawsuit alleged that the map involved intentional discrimination and violated the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment and 15th Amendment. The 14th Amendment ensures equal protection, while the 15th Amendment prohibits denying or abridging the right to vote based on race.

“First, the court erred by treating the governor as an outsider to the legislative process,” Wednesday’s motion said. “Unlike private citizens advocating for legislative action, the governor is himself a state actor directly subject to the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. He may not discriminate on the basis of race when using state authority, any more than the Legislature can. No case law supports the notion that, where multiple state actors act jointly to bring about the challenged conduct, all of them must be driven by illegal consideration of race.”

But in Wednesday’s motion, attorneys for the plaintiffs argued that DeSantis “exercised legislative authority” in the redistricting process. They wrote that “for purposes of Florida law, the power to veto or approve legislative enactments are legislative powers, not executive ones, and when the governor vetoes or approves a bill, he is acting legislatively — just as the Senate and House of Representatives are when they vote on legislation.”

“The governor’s actions here were not an outside influence that must be ratified, like the lobbying of a bigoted faction of private citizens, but an important exercise of unambiguously legislative power itself,” the motion said.

 

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