Judge throws out Miami’s ‘unconstitutional’ voting map over racial gerrymandering
A federal judge has thrown out the city of Miami’s voting map after ruling that commissioners in 2022 approved unconstitutional, racially gerrymandered district boundaries that sorted city residents by race and ethnicity.
On Wednesday, U.S. District Court Judge K. Michael Moore issued a sharp ruling that invalidated the boundaries of each of the city’s five districts — rejecting a mindset that has defined how the city chose elected representatives for more than two decades.
The judge barred the city from holding any elections under the unconstitutional districts. The next city elections are in November 2025. The judge said he would set a court date to bring both sides together to discuss the next steps, which could include holding special elections and drawing a new map.
On Wednesday evening, the city released a statement saying its legal department “has received and is currently reviewing the order issued by United States District Judge K. Michael Moore.”
The decision tees up a discussion over how to redraw the voting map, which would decide who can vote for candidates to represent them in neighborhoods across Florida’s second most populous city.
Set against a backdrop of scandal at City Hall, the ruling could also fuel debate over whether the five-person City Commission should be expanded and if commissioners should represent districts or if elected officials should be chosen by voters citywide.
READ MORE: Miami commissioners’ words from 2022 could steer fate of racial gerrymandering case
Moore sided with a coalition of city residents and community groups, including two branches of the NAACP, Grove Rights and Community Equity (GRACE), and multiple individuals who sued the city in late 2022. The community groups are being represented by attorneys with the American Civil Liberties Union and the Dechert law firm.
“I am so proud of our legal team who worked with a group of courageous local activists to bring an end to the manipulation of Miami government through unconstitutional racial and ethnic gerrymandering of Commission districts — a scheme that has gone on for too many years,” Howard Simon, interim director of the ACLU of Florida, said in a statement Wednesday.
The plaintiffs argued that the city violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment when commissioners fixated on preserving the ethnic makeup of the commission by using racial quotas to draw the voting map, packing Hispanic and Black voters into districts.
“By sorting its citizens based on race, the City reduced Miamians to no more than their racial backgrounds, thereby denying them the equal protection of the laws that the Fourteenth Amendment promises,” Moore wrote.
During public hearings in early 2022, commissioners said they intended to make sure the commission would be made up of three Hispanic members, one Black member and one non-Hispanic white member.
Moore sharply criticized that mindset in his ruling.
“These are serious harms that the City perpetuated, and Miamians suffered,” Moore wrote. “Today, the Court permanently prevents the City from racially gerrymandering any longer.”
