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U.S. court asked to reconsider ruling upholding DeSantis' quashing of Black congressional seat
Previous post: Federal Court Upholds Florida's Congressional Map That Eliminated Historically-Black District
Florida Phoenix
One month after a federal court upheld Gov. Ron DeSantis’ erasure of a Black-held congressional district in North Florida, voting-rights groups have asked the court to reconsider in light of the discriminatory intent the judges suggested the governor might hold.
A three-judge panel sitting in the federal Northern District of Florida ruled on March 28 that evidence suggested DeSantis might have set out to quash Black voting power in the area to boost Republican strength, but that that didn’t matter because it found no evidence of bias within the Legislature, which actually passed the map.
Common Cause Florida, FairDistricts Now, the Florida State Conference of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Branches, and 10 individual voters argued in a brief filed this week that the distinction is meaningless under U.S. Supreme Court precedent.
“The court’s opinion seems to suggest that, when multiple state actors jointly bring about the challenged state action, all of them must share an illicit racial motive for the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to be triggered. That is not correct,” the brief reads.
“[A] plaintiff need only show ‘that a discriminatory purpose has been a motivating factor’ behind the challenged state action — not ‘that the challenged action rested solely on racially discriminatory purposes,’” it adds.
A three-judge panel sitting in the federal Northern District of Florida ruled on March 28 that evidence suggested DeSantis might have set out to quash Black voting power in the area to boost Republican strength, but that that didn’t matter because it found no evidence of bias within the Legislature, which actually passed the map.
Common Cause Florida, FairDistricts Now, the Florida State Conference of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Branches, and 10 individual voters argued in a brief filed this week that the distinction is meaningless under U.S. Supreme Court precedent.
“The court’s opinion seems to suggest that, when multiple state actors jointly bring about the challenged state action, all of them must share an illicit racial motive for the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to be triggered. That is not correct,” the brief reads.
“[A] plaintiff need only show ‘that a discriminatory purpose has been a motivating factor’ behind the challenged state action — not ‘that the challenged action rested solely on racially discriminatory purposes,’” it adds.