The Electoral Law Clinic at Harvard Law School represents a coalition of individuals and civil rights groups in a lawsuit against the city of Jacksonville, alleging racial gerrymandering in an election map approved by the city council in March 2022.
The lawsuit alleges that seven of Jacksonville’s 14 city council districts and three of seven school board districts were unconstitutionally elected by the city council for racial gerrymandering.
Last May, the Election Law Clinic worked with the American Civil Liberties Union and the Southern Poverty Law Center in Florida to represent 10 plaintiffs, the Jacksonville Chapter of the NAACP, the Northside Coalition in Jacksonville, and the ACLU in Northeast Florida. filed a lawsuit. Chapter, Florida Rising.
Ruth Greenwood, director of the Electoral Law Clinic, said, “This violates the 14th Amendment (Protection Clause) and redraws precincts to give communities of color better voting rights. I’m claiming that we can save it,” he said.
Nicholas Warren, an attorney with the ACLU in Florida, said the original map undermined the voting power of racial minorities by concentrating black voters in four city council districts.
“Just by looking at it, you can tell it divides the city along racial lines. We’ll place them in two densely packed neighborhoods,” Warren said. “The result is the artificial disenfranchisement of black voters from surrounding neighborhoods.”
Warren said that representatives in districts “deprived” of black voters would have an incentive to “servicing, campaigning for, or caring about the interests of minority black voters in their districts.” He added that he was concerned that no
The city of Jacksonville did not respond to a request for comment.
The next Jacksonville City Council election will be held on March 21 and will determine all seats on the Council. Last month, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court order to use maps submitted by plaintiffs for the March election.
Greenwood said the Election Law Clinic chose to support legal efforts in Jacksonville in part because of the efforts of activists “on the ground.”
“Without organizers on the ground, I think it would be difficult to translate legal findings into actual political power. We actually have a great organizing community here,” she said. “Lawsuits are one of her tools in all the work they do to improve outcomes for people of color in this city.”
Former Florida Senator Dwight Bullard, a senior policy adviser to plaintiff Florida Rising, said the disputed city council map was part of a “tradition of racial gerrymandering” across the country. Stated.
“I want to see Jacksonville reflect the demographics,” he said. “This isn’t just about identity politics. This is what we’re already seeing as trendlines in Jacksonville.”
Greenwood hopes the lawsuit will set a “good precedent” for future racial gerrymandering lawsuits.
“I think that stepping up the way we make allegations of racial gerrymandering is good not just for Jacksonville, but for people of color across the country,” Greenwood said.
—Staff Writer Neil H. Shah can be reached at [email protected]. follow him on twitter @neilhshah15.
