Opponents of Florida’s current congressional map suffered another setback in state court earlier this month when a Leon County judge rejected a bid by voting-rights groups to have a jury settle the legal dispute.
The Florida League of Women Voters, Equal Ground Education Fund and other plaintiffs had filed a motion for a jury – or advisory jury – to be empaneled to decide the merits of the case. But Judge Joshua Hawkes of the Second Judicial Circuit Court sided with state officials, concluding that the nature of the case meant the plaintiffs were not entitled to a jury trial.
“Plaintiffs’ operative pleadings seek declaratory and injunctive relief regarding the state’s 2026 congressional redistricting plan and do not plead damages,” Hawkes said in his Sept. 3 order. “Injunctive relief is equitable, and actions seeking a declaratory judgment follow the nature of the underlying remedy. Equitable actions are not triable by jury as of right.”
The lawsuit plaintiffs filed in May over the congressional map argued that the latest map approved by the state Legislature and signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis was a partisan gerrymander in violation of the Fair Districts Amendments to the state constitution, which voters passed in 2010.
In May, Hawkes declined to issue a preliminary injunction blocking the map from being used in this year’s elections. Such an injunction would have resulted in the state having to use the previous congressional map, which the court said may have been drawn with racial intent that was at odds with the Supreme Court’s Louisiana v. Callais decision, according to the judge’s ruling.
The Florida League of Women Voters’ president, Jessica Lowe-Minor, said that plaintiffs would continue their challenge to the current map.
“The people of Florida have been shut out from almost every part of this process,” Lowe-Minor said in a statement emailed to the Florida Record. “While the decision to forego a jury trial is not what we had hoped for, the League of Women Voters of Florida remains committed to challenging the state’s rushed and politically motivated map. We believe it violates the state constitution, and we look forward to the court’s consideration of the full case.”
Attorneys for the governor, attorney general and the secretary of state argued in previous court briefs that no legal precedent for a jury trial in a congressional redistricting case existed.
“Plaintiffs still don’t direct the court and the parties to any congressional redistricting case that was decided by a jury or used an advisory jury,” the attorneys said. “Plaintiffs have found nothing to suggest that a jury must or should be empaneled in a challenge to a redistricting plan.”
The attorneys argued that the plaintiffs’ case involved an equitable claim and that even though they claimed to be asking for “nominal” damages on behalf of individual plaintiffs, the existence of such potential damages can’t be used to convert the legal action into one triable by a jury.
Legal experts have stressed that the future of the congressional map will hinge on whether the Fair Districts Amendments will be deemed constitutional in light of the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent holdings that have limited the reach of the federal Civil Rights Act.
One portion of the amendments bars actions that would reduce the ability of racial or language minorities to elect representatives of their choice. It’s unclear if Florida courts will strike that section of the amendments in light of recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings or throw out the amendments in total.
The amendments also ban the drawing of electoral districts to favor or disfavor a political party or an incumbent and require each district be a “contiguous territory.”