After suit, Miami poised to adopt new voting map

After the city commission passed a resolution in January to exhaust all options to settle a racial gerrymandering lawsuit, a proposed agreement between the plaintiffs in the case and the City of Miami is now on the table.

Under the anticipated agreement between local civil rights groups and Miami announced by the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida on May 1, the city will adopt a map drawn by the plaintiffs that unifies neighborhoods including Coconut Grove, Overtown, Allapattah and Edgewater.

Today (5/9), the Miami City Commission is scheduled to vote on the settlement agreement, which includes covering the plaintiffs’ legal fees totaling over $1.5 million.

If approved by a majority of the five-member commission, the resolution will conclude a racial gerrymandering lawsuit that began in December 2022 when residents and local advocacy groups including Engage Miami, Grove Rights and Community Equity and the South Dade and Miami-Dade NAACP branches, represented by the ACLU of Florida, filed a lawsuit against the City of Miami claiming its voting map violated the US Constitution as it sought to maintain one Black district, one white and three Hispanic districts.

After a year of litigation, federal Judge K. Michael Moore sided with the plaintiffs and said in a ruling ordered on April 10 that all five districts are unconstitutional and racially gerrymandered in violation of the 14th Amendment.

“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,” the ruling read.

“Today, we celebrate an expected end to this racial gerrymandering lawsuit, with a new map that prioritizes the people over politicians,” Daniella Pierre, president of the Miami-Dade NAACP Branch, said in a news release announcing the anticipated agreement.

The new map mostly would keep the shape of existing districts but would change a few significant aspects to achieve the plaintiffs’ goal of reuniting neighborhoods along natural boundaries and main roads.

Coconut Grove under the agreement would be entirely contained within District 2, whereas it was divided into three districts under the previous map.

Additionally, Overtown, which was split between Districts 1 and 5, would be entirely in District 5 and Allapattah would be combined with District 1.

“P5 [the plaintiffs’ map] was drawn to serve communities, rather than dividing the city along racial lines or improperly favoring incumbents or candidates, as in the struck-down maps. Unlike the maps passed by the city commission, these new districts follow major roads and easily recognizable boundaries, rather than dividing communities and forming irregular appendages,” reads the ACLU news release.

The new map would come into effect for the November 2025 municipal elections and any special elections occurring before then.

The agreement also requires that the city include a charter amendment on the 2025 ballot for voter approval. The proposed amendment would ban gerrymandering that favors particular candidates and incumbents and would also create a Citizens’ Redistricting Committee to draft maps and suggest them to the city commission in future redistricting processes.