Federal lawsuit: Two state Senate districts in Tampa Bay are ‘racially gerrymandered’

As lawmakers redistricted in 2022, the Florida Legislature packed Black voters into a Senate district spanning Tampa Bay to favor white control of a neighboring Senate district, according to a lawsuit filed in federal court in Tampa.

The ACLU of Florida, Civil Rights & Racial Justice Clinic at New York University School of Law, and the Tampa lawfirm of Butler Weihmuller Katz Craig filed the lawsuit Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida, Tampa Division. The defendants are listed as Senate Kathleen Passidomo and Cord Byrd, Florida’s Secretary of State.

The five plaintiffs are St. Petersburg and Tampa residents who complain the alleged gerrymander diminishes their voting power.

The case targets Senate District 16 and Senate District 18. The former is the bay-straddling district allegedly designed to include more than half of the area’s Black residents while diminishing Black voting power in neighboring District 18.

District 16 includes parts of St. Petersburg in Pinellas County and the east shore of Tampa Bay, reaching between Temple Terrace and Ruskin in Hillsborough. District 18 includes the Pinellas beach towns, Pinellas Park, and Largo.

“The State drew these districts purportedly to avoid diminishing Black voters’ ability to elect representatives of their choice in District 16, but the State unnecessarily used race to disregard traditional, race-neutral redistricting considerations,” the complaint alleges.

“And far from advancing representation, the enacted districts dilute Black voters’ power. The State could have drawn these districts to both avoid the diminishment of Black voting power and respect traditional redistricting criteria. Instead, the State engaged in racial gerrymandering that unconstitutionally abridges Plaintiffs’ rights to the equal protection of the laws,” it adds.

Senate District 16 is held by Democrat Darryl Rouson and District 18 is held by Republican Nick DiCeglie.

Equal representation

“These districts deny communities of color equal representation and dilute the votes of Black residents in the Tampa Bay region,” Deborah N. Archer, NYU Law’s associate dean for experiential education and clinical programs and director of the Civil Rights & Racial Justice Clinic, said in a written statement. “We look forward to overturning this unconstitutional map in court.”

“Diluting the voice of Black voters while amplifying the political power of others is unfair, undemocratic, and unconstitutional,” said Daniel Tilley, legal director of the ACLU of Florida. “Black voters in St. Pete and Tampa deserve full and fair opportunities for representation, so we sued.”

The ACLU issued written statements from two of the plaintiffs.

“Black residents deserve equitable representation in the Florida Senate,” said Jarvis El-Amin, described as a Tampa civil rights leader. “We demand to have our voices heard and our votes fairly represented — not diminished, diluted, cracked, or packed.”

“Today, we’re standing up for what’s right,” said Meiko Seymour, a pastor in St. Petersburg. “Crossing Tampa Bay to pack Black people into a single district all the way from the University of South Florida to the Skyway Bridge diminishes our voice, suppresses our votes, and just plain doesn’t make sense.”

Separate litigation over a congressional redistricting map is pending before the Florida Supreme Court, involving elimination at Gov. Ron DeSantis’ insistence of a district held for years by Black Democrat Al Lawson; the governor claimed the district represented a racial gerrymander.

A panel of three trial judges rejected a similar challenge filed in federal court in late March, ruling that the organizations and individual voters challenging the governor’s congressional redistricting plan two years ago had failed to demonstrate that the Legislature acted out of racial discrimination.

The next step would be an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, but spokeswoman Katie Scally of Common Cause, one of the litigants, said by email that there’s been “no decision yet. We are still discussing next steps, but every option remains on the table.”