Five Tampa Bay residents filed a federal lawsuit today alleging the Florida Legislature racially gerrymandered its Senate districts, reducing Black residents’ voting power.
Their lawsuit claims the Legislature intentionally packed Black voters from Tampa and St. Petersburg into Senate District 16, despite the two cities being separated by Tampa Bay and having distinct communities. This packing, the suit argues, reduced the influence of Black voters in the surrounding districts, particularly District 18, artificially lowering the number of Black voters there.
Despite containing only about one-fifth of the Hillsborough’s and Pinellas’ total population, Senate District 16 holds half of their combined Black population. That means the other half of the Black population is split across five other districts, reducing their influence in any other district.
Sen. Darryl Rouson, D-St. Petersburg, currently represents District 16, while Sen. Nick DiCeglie, R-St. Petersburg, represents District 18.
“These districts deny communities of color equal representation and dilute the votes of Black residents in the Tampa Bay region,” said one of the plaintiffs’ attorneys, Deborah N. Archer, director of the Civil Rights & Racial Justice Clinic at NYU Law and president of the national ACLU board, in a statement.
Florida’s contradictory approach to redistricting
This legal challenge also exposes a seemingly contradictory approach by the state of Florida regarding the use of race in redistricting.
In two different lawsuits challenging Florida’s congressional map, the state argued Florida’s protections for racial minorities — approved as amendments to the state Constitution by 63% of voters in 2010 — violate the U.S. Constitution. Gov. Ron DeSantis’ lawyers have argued in court against race-conscious redistricting.
Yet the same Florida government that contended the use of race was inappropriate for protecting a congressional district in North Florida appeared to have no reservations about using race to consolidate Black voters in Tampa Bay’s Senate District 16, beyond what was strictly necessary for fair representation.
The lawsuit named Senate President Kathleen Passidomo and Secretary of State Cord Byrd as the defendants. Byrd also served as the Florida House’s legislative redistricting committee chairman.
The plaintiffs in the case are five individual residents of Tampa and St. Petersburg: Meiko Seymour, a pastor; Jarvis El-Amin, an entrepreneur who co-founded one of the area’s Black chambers of commerce; Kéto Nord Hodges, a math teacher; Jennifer Garcia, a voting-rights activist and nonprofit communications staffer; and Jacqueline Azis, president of the League of Women Voters of the St. Petersburg Area.
“In developing the Challenged Districts, the Legislature elevated race above all other considerations,” the plaintiffs’ complaint said. “The Challenged Districts feature tell-tale indicia of racial gerrymandering in their deviations from traditional redistricting criteria: traversing large bodies of water like Tampa Bay, splitting political subdivisions like Pinellas County and St. Petersburg, and forming noncompact shapes.”
At the time, legislative staff and Republican leadership freely admitted the districts were drawn for racial reasons, saying District 16 was drawn to comply with Florida’s Fair Districts Amendments, a series of anti-gerrymandering restrictions codified in the state Constitution, including a ban on the Legislature reducing Black voting power.
“That is a laudable and constitutional goal,” the lawsuit said. “Complying with Fair Districts’ non-diminishment (or ‘non-retrogression’) requirement is a compelling governmental interest that could justify race-predominant redistricting.” But, the lawsuit continued, the Legislature went overboard, focusing so much on increasing the Black population that it ignored other redistricting criteria.
Because the case challenges the constitutionality of a state redistricting plan, it should be heard by a three-judge federal panel in Tampa. Eleventh U.S. Circuit Chief Judge William Pryor, a George W. Bush appointee, will choose two of those judges who will hear the case.
Florida Legislature rejected alternative approaches
The lawsuit details how District 16 was drawn to encompass Black communities in both Tampa and St. Petersburg. The lawsuit argues the two communities have distinct needs and interests. This configuration, according to the complaint, ignores traditional redistricting principles like compactness and respect for geographic boundaries, indicating that race was the predominant factor in shaping the district.
In 2021, when the Senate redistricting committee was getting started, its staff director, Jay Ferrin, explained that the need to protect Black voters’ ability to elect their preferred candidates necessitated configurations that crossed Tampa Bay, thereby dividing St. Petersburg.
Then-Democratic Sen. Randolph Bracy raised questions about this approach, pointing to citizen-submitted maps that suggested it was possible to protect Black voters without such geographic contortions. One such map was filed by Nick Warren, one of the lawyers who filed this lawsuit.
Despite these inquiries, legislative staff maintained that avoiding a cross-bay district wasn’t possible. Ferrin claimed alternative configurations would result in Black voters not making up a majority of Democratic primary voters.
But that wasn’t true, the lawsuit points out. One of the alternative maps that didn’t cross Tampa Bay actually would have had a higher proportion of Black voters in Democratic primaries. In another alternative, Black voters still would’ve made up a majority of the Democratic primary on average, albeit a smaller majority.
These alternatives, according to the lawsuit, would have preserved Black voters’ ability to elect their preferred candidates while also adhering to traditional redistricting principles such as compactness and respect for geographic boundaries.
Attacks against those who questioned the approach
The Legislature’s leadership also attacked those who questioned their approach in Tampa Bay.
Senate Redistricting Chairman Ray Rodrigues accused Warren of violating the Legislature’s rules because Warren submitted a map and didn’t disclose his employer was the ACLU of Florida, a field the submission form didn’t offer and something Rodrigues didn’t require of others.
Then-Senate President Wilton Simpson also released a letter attacking a Miami Herald reporter who had encouraged Sen. Bracy to keep asking questions like he did about the Tampa Bay districts. At a press gaggle, she had told Bracy, “As a reporter the more questions you guys ask, the better we can explain it to the public.”
When Democratic Rep. Fentrice Driskell asked similar questions about the map, the House redistricting chairman told her he couldn’t answer those questions.
Yet the Legislature decided to reject the alternative approaches so that it could increase the Black population in one district, even if it meant splitting more cities and counties. That, the lawsuit argued, meant the Legislature didn’t narrowly tailor its use of race.
The district layout splits both Tampa and St. Petersburg into several districts, even though each city’s population is small enough that it could be contained in one district on its own. The Legislature did this despite the Florida Constitution’s requirement the Legislature try to minimize splitting cities.
In an interview, one of the plaintiffs, Tampa resident and civil rights leader Jarvis El-Amin, said St. Petersburg and Tampa’s issues are very different, and it’s not fair to have one senator trying to represent the people in both communities.
Yet the Legislature decided to reject the alternative approaches so that it could increase the Black population in one district, even if it meant splitting more cities and counties. That, the lawsuit argued, meant the Legislature didn’t narrowly tailor its use of race.
The district layout splits both Tampa and St. Petersburg into several districts, even though each city’s population is small enough that it could be contained in one district on its own. The Legislature did this despite the Florida Constitution’s requirement the Legislature try to minimize splitting cities.
In an interview, one of the plaintiffs, Tampa resident and civil rights leader Jarvis El-Amin, said St. Petersburg and Tampa’s issues are very different, and it’s not fair to have one senator trying to represent the people in both communities.
Andrew Pantazi is The Tributary’s editor and can be reached at Andrew.Pantazi@jaxtrib.org.
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