An anticipated ruling about a state Senate district in Tampa Bay could have implications for how boundaries are drawn in the future.
This comes after a trial in federal court seeking to undo the redistricting of a sprawling state Senate district connecting St. Petersburg to East Tampa finished late last week.
The lawsuit has to do with the boundaries of Senate District 16, which is represented by Democratic Senator Darryl Rouson. It leaps across Tampa Bay from St. Petersburg to Ruskin and north to heavily minority areas of east Tampa.
The plaintiffs, which include three community organizers, claim it violates the Fair Districts Amendment, which was approved by state voters in 2010 to draw districts to compact areas that use boundaries such a county lines.
Daniel Tilly is the legal director of the ACLU of Florida, which is representing the plaintiffs.
“This was not necessary to protect black representation, and in fact, it undermines the opportunities of black voters to elect their candidates of choice,” he said. “It was easily within the power of the state to ensure that black voters would have senators that represent their communities, and the state chose not to do that.”
Tilly acknowledged that the Fair Districts Amendment requires consideration of race at some points to ensure that black voters are able to elect candidates of their choice.
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“But what the equal protection clause of the United States Constitution requires is that you can't overly focus on race when it's not necessary, and that's exactly what the state did here,” he said. “They crossed the bay for no reason. It was not necessary, but instead, they chose to pack black voters into the same district, which had the effect of diluting their power.”
Tilly said even though the ruling would apply only to Senate District 16, it could potentially shape district boundaries drawn in the future throughout the rest of the state.
The case, Nord Hodges v. Albritton, was brought by the ACLU of Florida and the Civil Rights & Racial Justice Clinic at NYU School of Law on behalf of several Black voters from Tampa and St. Petersburg.
One of those voters, Kéto Nord Hodges of Tampa, said after the trial ended: “We came to court because we believe in democracy, and we believe that all communities — including Black communities — deserve districts that reflect who we are, not who politicians want us to be.”
In 2012, the state Supreme Court said that the legislature cannot eliminate a district where a minority group has historically had the opportunity to elect their candidate of choice without replacing it with another district that performs for minority voters.
In 2015, the high court approved the former 5th Congressional District in North Florida, finding that it complied with the state constitution.
Below is the wording of Section 21 of the Florida Constitution:
SECTION 21: Standards for establishing legislative district boundaries —In establishing legislative district boundaries.
(a): No apportionment plan or district shall be drawn with the intent to favor or disfavor a political party or an incumbent; and districts shall not be drawn with the intent or result of denying or abridging the equal opportunity of racial or language minorities to participate in the political process or to diminish their ability to elect representatives of their choice; and districts shall consist of contiguous territory.
(b) Unless compliance with the standards in this subsection conflicts with the standards in subsection 1(a) or with federal law, districts shall be as nearly equal in population as is practicable; districts shall be compact; and districts shall, where feasible, utilize existing political and geographical boundaries.
(c) The order in which the standards within subsections 1(a) and (b) of this section are set forth shall not be read to establish any priority of one standard over the other within that subsection.
As of Monday evening on June 16, a decision in the trial has yet to be announced.
