Lawsuit claims new Jacksonville City Council maps put Black voters into 4 ‘packed districts’

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Calling them “racially gerrymandered,” Jacksonville activist groups and citizens on Tuesday filed suit against the City of Jacksonville and Duval County Supervisor of Elections Mike Hogan over recently-approved City Council and School Board district maps.

Ten Jacksonville residents, as well as the Jacksonville NAACP Branch, the Northside Coalition of Jacksonville, the Northeast Chapter of the ACLU of Florida, and Florida Rising, claim in the suit that Black voters are packed into four districts.

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Speaking of the new City Council districts, the lawsuit alleges that “the Enacted Plan packs Black residents into just four of the Challenged Districts—Districts 7, 8, 9, and 10 (together, the “Packed Districts”). As a natural corollary of packing those four districts, the Council also stripped Black voters from three adjacent districts—Districts 2, 12, and 14 (together, the “Stripped Districts”)—ensuring that these districts had artificially high white populations.”

According to a release from the Southern Poverty Law Center, the lawsuit also alleges the gerrymandering of Duval County School Board Districts 4, 5, and 6, which are each made up of two of the “challenged” City Council districts.

The City Council approved the new maps in March.

City Councilman Garrett Dennis (D-District 9), who chaired the redistricting committee, told Action News Jax’s Jake Stofan at that time that the new maps are constitutional.

He said at that time it’s a simple fact that Jacksonville has distinct Black and white majority areas.

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“To cut a large neighborhood, a large area from the Northside and somehow supplant them to the Southside to make that Southside more diverse, it just doesn’t work like that,” Dennis said in March.

Dennis also said at that time that he supported any lawsuits that were filed over the maps.

“You have something you don’t like, let the courts look at it to make sure it meets the letter of the law,” Dennis said.

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READ THE FULL LAWSUIT BELOW:

Some of the plaintiffs involved in the suit issued the following statements:

“In their efforts to dilute Black voting strength, the Jacksonville City Council has taken away our right to an equal say in how our city is run. We won’t stop fighting until we scrap these maps secure fair districts that protect equal representation for all of the people.”

--Ben Frazier, president of the Northside Coalition of Jacksonville

“Through these district maps, the Jacksonville City Council has attempted to strip us of our right to have our votes matter equally. This represents an assault on one of our most fundamental rights since it determines how our communities will be treated by the city. We must prevent these maps from going into effect so that we can continue advocating for our communities.”

--Isaiah Rumlin, president of the Jacksonville NAACP

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“These efforts by the Jacksonville City Council to ‘pack’ Black voters into as few districts as possible, denying their equal representation, must be overturned. Not only do these maps violate the fundamental rights of Black voters in Jacksonville, they could also strip communities of color of fair access to resources and deny communities of color fair treatment by the city.”

--Michelle Hollie, president of the ACLU of Florida Northeast Chapter

“Black residents in Duval County deserve to have their voices heard and their votes fairly represented. The City of Jacksonville has chosen to overthrow the fundamentals of democracy by packing districts and we will not stand for it.”

--Moné Holder, Senior Director of Advocacy & Programs of Florida Rising

Legal action has also been taken against the state of Florida’s recently updated Congressional maps, claiming they are “intentionally racially discriminatory.”

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