JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — In another triumph for the civil rights groups suing the city, a federal appeals court rejected Jacksonville’s motion to utilize the district map City Council approved in November for the upcoming March election.
The city, which requested a stay on a previous district court decision and lost, asked the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals to rule against the lower court’s choice to implement a map presented by the plaintiffs and to instead grant a stay of the order to put in place the city’s chosen map.
Friday’s strikedown is the most recent action in a legal battle that began last year when a group of individuals and voting rights organizations successfully sued the city for packing Black voters into Districts 7, 8, 9 and 10 and limiting their influence in the neighboring districts.
"We are pleased the Court of Appeals stood by Judge Howard's well-reasoned ruling and that Jacksonville residents will vote under fairer maps this March," the ACLU of Florida, one of the plaintiffs in the case, said in a tweet on Friday.
Two of the three judges sided with the plaintiffs, with the third judge dissenting.
As Friday’s decision stands and local elections loom, the city is currently ordered to use the plaintiffs’ map – changing the structure of western districts and pitting two incumbents against each other.
The decision comes two days after U.S. District Judge Marcia Morales Howard approved a request to waive city charter requirements requiring local candidates to live in the district they run in for at least six months prior to the day they qualify. For the March election, the candidate is eligible to move into a different district to run there, as long as they have established residency by the time they qualify – qualifying starts Monday and ends Jan. 13.
What was the court’s justification for the denial?
When making the appeal, the city requested a return to the “status quo,” which it argued was the map passed by City Council in November.
Because the ordinance passing that map outlined it would not go into effect before being deemed constitutional by the court, the plaintiffs argued the map was never actually put in place, therefore a return would be to the unconstitutional March map or outdated 2015 map.
The majority opinion sided with the plaintiffs.
“In order for the proposed interim remedial plan set out in Ordinance 2022-800-E to go into effect, we would have to do more—much more—than simply stay the district court’s order,” the order said. “We would have to hold on the merits that the City Council’s proposed interim remedial plan is constitutional. Such a determination would be a ruling on the merits of the City’s appeal, and an order on a motion for stay pending appeal is not a resolution of the appeal itself.”
In considering the stay, the court also said it needed to consider whether the city was likely to succeed on the merits of its appeal – ultimately deciding the city did not make a strong enough showing it would do so, but also not choosing to make any "pronouncements" on the merits.
Instead, the court ruled the lower court had correctly applied legal precedent, saying the city did not prove Howard’s “factual findings about racial gerrymandering" in the November remedial map to be "clearly erroneous.”
The quick turnaround time for the court to make its decision and file its response led to a brief narrative, the opinion read. The city requested the decision by Friday in order to prepare for the March election.
What did the dissenting judge say?
Circuit Court Judge Kevin Newsom disagreed with the majority opinion, saying that the district court “violated” foundational principles in the case.
Newsom said he could not find evidence that race predominated the map making process in the original March or remedial maps passed by the city. He also did not think Howard’s order showed “good faith” in the remedial process.
“Every indication, in fact, is to the contrary—that the court presumed (without justification) that in adopting the remedial plan, the officials acted with the discriminatory intent that the court found had infected earlier redistricting efforts,” Newsom said.
Disagreeing also with the argument of what constituted “status quo,” Newsom said the idea City Council could not put in place its November map because it was not deemed constitutional by the district judge was “overblown.”
City Council voluntarily added the stipulation requiring the district court’s approval and could also take it away, Newsom said.
“And, having sought a stay from this Court, there’s no reason to think that the City Council wouldn’t remove the condition now if given the opportunity,” Newsom said. “I would thus grant the stay with the stipulation that it would automatically dissolve if the City Council didn’t remove the condition on the remedial map’s effective date within three business days.”
How does the decision affect candidates and voters in the upcoming election?
The map allows candidates looking to qualify next week for upcoming City Council elections the chance to settle on which district they will run in – therefore also giving voters more certainty on what district they reside in and the candidates they can choose.
The Supervisor of Elections office has been working since Howard's ruling to populate the data from the new map, starting with deciding on new voting precincts, which leads to ensuring voters are placed into their new districts with the correct ballots.
In a press release sent Dec. 21, Hogan said new voter information cards will be mailed out in the coming months with the newest changes to hundreds of thousands of voters. Voters should be able to check their new district, if applicable, on the Duval elections website as the election gets closer.
As for future elections, the districts will depend on whether the plaintiffs pursue further legal action, possibly at trial. The plaintiffs have repeated in filings that the court-ordered map is not their preferred option either – they submitted three to the court for review – and would “welcome” post-trial changes in their favor.
After the appeals decision released Friday, President of the Northside Coalition said the civil rights groups in the case "look forward to proving our full case at trial and securing a full remedy to put these unconstitutional maps behind us once and for all" referring to the city-drawn maps.
District maps are updated every ten years according to census data, meaning that depending on the results of future litigation, a different map could be used in future School Board elections or the 2027 City Council election.