Title: In Re: Senate Joint Resolution of Legislative Apportionment 100

State: florida

Issuer: Florida Supreme Court

Document:

Supreme Court of Florida 
 
____________ 
 
No. SC22-131 
____________ 
 
IN RE: SENATE JOINT RESOLUTION OF LEGISLATIVE 
APPORTIONMENT 100. 
 
March 3, 2022 
 
MUÑIZ, J. 
 
The Florida Constitution requires the Legislature to 
reapportion our state into House and Senate districts after each 
decennial census.  The Legislature did so this year by adopting 
Senate Joint Resolution 100 on February 3, 2022.  Then, as the 
constitution commands, the Attorney General initiated this original 
proceeding for a declaratory judgment to determine the validity of 
the apportionment.1  In what follows, we will explain our conclusion 
that the House and Senate apportionment in Senate Joint 
Resolution 100 is valid. 
 
 
1.  We have jurisdiction.  Art III, § 16(c), Fla. Const.  The 
constitution gives us 30 days from the Attorney General’s February 
9, 2022, filing to enter our judgment.  Id.   
 
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I. 
 
 
This case comes to us in an unusual posture.  The 
constitution requires our Court to hear from “adversary interests” 
on the validity of the Legislature’s apportionment.  Art. III, § 16(c).  
And ordinarily our role in this proceeding would be to adjudicate 
specific challenges to the joint resolution.  See In re Senate Joint 
Resolution of Legislative Apportionment 1176 (Apportionment I), 
83 So. 3d 597, 601 (Fla. 2012) (“Before 1968, there was no process 
by which challengers to the Legislature’s apportionment plans could 
seek direct and immediate review of the apportionment plans by the 
Supreme Court of Florida.”).  But, for the first time since the voters 
adopted the existing procedural framework for judicial review of 
apportionment in 1968, no one appeared to oppose the Legislature’s 
plans. 
Even without a challenging party, however, the constitution 
requires us to enter a judgment determining the validity of the 
apportionment.  Art. III, § 16(c).  We undertake that task mindful of 
a few foundational principles.  First, the joint resolution of 
apportionment enjoys a “presumption of validity.”  Apportionment I, 
83 So. 3d at 606.  Second, and relatedly, it is not the Legislature’s 
 
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burden to prove the validity of the apportionment.  In a typical 
review proceeding under article III, section 16(c), “[o]pponents of 
[an] apportionment plan bear the burden of establishing a 
constitutional violation.”  In re Senate Joint Resolution of Legislative 
Apportionment 2-B (Apportionment II), 89 So. 3d 872, 881 (Fla. 
2012).  Third, although the Legislature must exercise its discretion 
within the bounds set by the constitution, “legislative 
reapportionment is primarily a matter for legislative consideration 
and determination.”  In re Apportionment Law Senate Joint 
Resolution No. 1305, 1972 Regular Session, 263 So. 2d 797, 799 
(Fla. 1972). 
Our Court’s duty under article III, section 16(c) is thus to 
enforce any discretion-limiting standards embodied in the 
constitutional text without curtailing the substantial discretion that 
those same standards, and our constitution’s overarching 
separation of powers, still reserve to the Legislature.  In this regard, 
the House and Senate maintain that we erred in 2012 by not 
requiring challengers to prove an apportionment’s invalidity 
“beyond a reasonable doubt,” and they ask us to reconsider that 
issue.  We do not think that this uncontested proceeding is the 
 
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place to delve into the standard of review for future, hypothetical 
challenges.  Instead, given the presumption of validity and in the 
absence of a challenge to Senate Joint Resolution 100, we will 
review the materials before us to ensure that there is evidence in 
the record to support the validity of the 2022 apportionment. 
II. 
 
Our primary focus here is on article III, section 21 of the 
Florida Constitution, which prescribes what the text calls 
“standards for establishing legislative district boundaries.”  The 
voters of our state adopted these standards through the Fair 
Districts Amendment in 2010.  That amendment substantially 
augmented the constitutional requirements that had governed 
reapportionment up to that time.  See In re Constitutionality of 
House Joint Resolution 1987, 817 So. 2d 819, 832 (Fla. 2002) 
(listing then-governing constitutional requirements). 
We have described article III, section 21 as consisting of two 
tiers, each with its own distinct standards.  Apportionment I, 
83 So. 3d at 614-15.  The tier-one standards take precedence over 
those in tier two; but the order of the standards within each tier 
 
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“shall not be read to establish any priority of one standard over the 
other.”  Art. III, § 21(c). 
 
The first of the tier-one standards prohibits intentional 
political favoritism: “No apportionment plan or district shall be 
drawn with the intent to favor or disfavor a political party or an 
incumbent.”  The next set of tier-one standards protects racial and 
language minority voters: “districts shall not be drawn with the 
intent or result of denying or abridging the equal opportunity of 
racial or language minorities to participate in the political process 
or to diminish their ability to elect representatives of their choice.”  
The final tier-one standard requires districts to “consist of 
contiguous territory.”  Art. III, § 21(a). 
 
The tier-two standards address legislative districts’ population, 
shape, and boundaries.  Districts “shall be as nearly equal in 
population as is practicable”; they “shall be compact”; and they 
“shall, where feasible, utilize existing political and geographical 
boundaries.”  The constitution is explicit that, in the event of a 
conflict, the tier-two standards yield to the tier-one standards and 
to federal law.  Art. III, § 21(b).  Because the constitutional text does 
not set a hierarchy among the tier-two standards themselves, the 
 
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Legislature retains the discretion to balance those standards in the 
apportionment. 
 
Of course, reapportionment is also governed by the Fourteenth 
Amendment’s equal protection requirement of “one person, one 
vote.”  We have held that this requirement is subsumed within the 
population standard in tier two.  Apportionment I, 83 So. 3d at 630.  
Finally, article III, section 16(a) of the Florida Constitution requires 
that House and Senate districts be “consecutively numbered” and 
that they consist of “either contiguous, overlapping or identical 
territory.” 
A.  
 
We begin with the record facts that pertain to the tier-two 
standards in article III, section 16, because those standards are the 
ones that address the basic building blocks of reapportionment.  
The most fundamental consideration, of course, is population 
equality.  The 2020 census recorded Florida’s statewide population 
at 21,538,187 people, an increase of over 2.7 million people since 
2010.  The last decade’s population growth was unevenly 
distributed, so both the House and the Senate district lines 
required substantial revision. 
 
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Neither the federal nor the Florida Constitution requires that 
districts contain perfectly equal populations.  Apportionment I, 
83 So. 3d at 630.  In language that echoes the federal equal 
protection standard for state legislative districts, article III, section 
21(b) requires districts “as nearly equal in population as is 
practicable.”  The text thus signals that the Legislature retains 
discretion to balance population equality with other legitimate 
redistricting considerations.  In 2012, this Court approved House 
and Senate plans with overall population deviations2 of 3.97% and 
1.99%, respectively.  Apportionment I, 83 So. 3d at 646, 655.  
 
Here, the House plan has an overall population deviation of 
4.75%.  The Senate plan has an overall population deviation of 
1.92%.  Applying the federal standard, the Supreme Court recently 
observed that “[g]iven the inherent difficulty of measuring and 
comparing factors that may legitimately account for small 
deviations from strict mathematical equality, we believe that attacks 
on deviations under 10% will succeed only rarely, in unusual 
 
2.  A redistricting plan’s overall population deviation is the 
sum of the percentages by which the plan’s least and most 
populated districts deviate from a district’s theoretical ideal 
population.   
 
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cases.”  Harris v. Ariz. Indep. Redistricting Comm’n, 578 U.S. 253, 
259 (2016).  Both the House and Senate explain that the population 
deviations in their 2022 plans were driven by respect for political 
and geographical boundaries, particularly county boundaries—an 
unquestionably legitimate consideration. 
 
Next in tier two is the standard that “districts shall be 
compact.”  Art. III, § 16(b).  In 2012, we held that compactness 
“refers to the shape of [a] district,” and we explained that this 
standard seeks to “ensure that districts are logically drawn and that 
bizarrely shaped districts are avoided.”  Apportionment I, 83 So. 3d 
at 636.  Of course, limiting the definition of compactness to an 
assessment of a district’s shape does not eliminate the inherent 
vagueness of the term; however measured, compactness is a matter 
of degree.  And a district’s compactness can be affected by factors 
over which the line-drawer has no control, like our state’s unique 
geographical contours and the distribution of population within the 
state.  See id. at 635.   
 
To evaluate districts’ compactness in our 2012 review 
proceeding, this Court made a visual assessment of the districts 
and considered “quantitative geometric measures of compactness.”  
 
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Id. at 634-35.  Overall, the House and Senate districts in the 
Legislature’s 2022 plans are visually at least as compact as the 
districts that they replace—in many cases more so.  This conclusion 
is confirmed by the 2022 districts’ generally improved average 
scores on the recognized Convex Hull, Polsby-Popper, and Reock 
compactness tests.3  Without a presentation from adverse parties, 
we hesitate to comment on how meaningful those improvements 
are.  What matters for present purposes is that, by recognized 
mathematical measures, the Legislature’s 2022 districts overall are 
more compact than the districts in the existing, benchmark plan.   
 
Finally, there is the tier-two standard that districts “shall, 
where feasible, utilize existing political and geographical 
boundaries.”  Art. III, § 21(b).  Our Court has held that political 
boundaries are county and city boundaries.  Apportionment I, 
83 So. 3d at 638.  And we held that the term “geographical 
 
 
3.  For an explanation of these tests, see our decision in 
League of Women Voters of Florida v. Detzner, 179 So. 3d 258, 283, 
nn. 6-8 (Fla. 2015).  In each test, the highest score possible is 1.0.  
The House districts’ benchmark and new average scores are 
(benchmark/new): 0.80/0.82 (Convex Hull); 0.43/0.45 (Polsby-
Popper); and 0.43/0.45 (Reock).  The corresponding Senate 
districts’ benchmark and new average scores are: 0.81/0.82; 
0.41/0.46; and 0.50/0.46.  
 
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boundaries” refers to those “that are easily ascertainable and 
commonly understood,” like “rivers, roadways, interstates, and 
state roads.”  Id. 
This redistricting cycle, both the House and Senate calculated 
the extent to which each district’s boundary lines coincide with 
political and geographical boundaries.  The results of this 
“boundary analysis” show that the average district in the new 
House plan follows political and geographical boundaries along 
82.7% of its perimeter; the corresponding figure for the average 
district in the Senate’s new plan is 96%.  These figures show 
improvements over the boundary analysis scores of 78.5% and 89% 
for the average district in the existing House and Senate benchmark 
plans, respectively. 
B.  
 
We now turn to the article III, section 21 tier-one standards 
that protect racial and language minority voting rights and prohibit 
intentional political favoritism.4  The minority voting standards 
 
 
4.  The third and final tier-one standard is that districts must 
“consist of contiguous territory.”  Art. III, § 21(a).  The maps 
submitted with the joint resolution show that the 2022 districts are 
contiguous. 
 
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identify and proscribe two types of discrimination: “impermissible 
vote dilution” and “impermissible diminishment of a minority 
group’s ability to elect a candidate of its choice.”  Apportionment I, 
83 So. 3d at 619.  While they exist independently as Florida law, 
these provisions were modeled on and “embrace[] the principles” of 
key provisions of the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965, section 2 
(vote dilution) and section 5 (diminishment, or retrogression).  Id. at 
619-21. 
 
Vote dilution is “the practice of reducing the potential 
effectiveness of a group’s voting strength by limiting the group’s 
chances to translate the strength into voting power.”  Id. at 622.  
Line drawers can effect vote dilution either by fragmenting a specific 
minority voter population into multiple districts or by “packing” 
those voters into a district or districts.  Id.  We acknowledged in 
2012 that “[a] successful vote dilution claim under Section 2 [of the 
Voting Rights Act] requires a showing that a minority group was 
denied a majority-minority district that, but for the purported 
dilution, could have potentially existed.”  Id.5 
 
5.  In voting rights parlance, a “majority-minority district” is 
one in which voters of a minority group constitute a majority of the 
 
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In our 2012 review proceeding, we evaluated potential vote 
dilution by looking for evidence suggesting impermissible “packing” 
of minority voters into super-majority districts to avoid the creation 
of additional majority-minority districts.  Apportionment I, 83 So. 3d 
at 645.  As for Black voters, no district in either 2022 plan has a 
Black voting age population sufficiently high to raise concerns of 
packing.6  By contrast, it is true that both new plans have districts 
with high Hispanic voting age populations (HVAP): 93.99% in the 
highest HVAP House district, and 90.13% in the highest HVAP 
Senate district.  But in 2012 we approved plans with comparably 
high HVAPs: 93.58% (House) and 86.9% (Senate).  Id.; Att’y Gen.’s 
Petition Appendix at B5, Apportionment II, 89 So. 3d 872 (Fla. 2012) 
 
district’s voting-age population.  The existence of a minority group 
“sufficiently large and geographically compact to constitute a 
majority in [a] reasonably configured legislative district” is one of 
“three threshold conditions for proving vote dilution under” section 
2 of the Voting Rights Act.  Cooper v. Harris, 137 S. Ct. 1455, 1470 
(2017) (explaining the threshold vote dilution criteria established in 
Thornburg v. Gingles, 478 U.S. 30 (1986)).  If the Gingles threshold 
factors are established, the dilution inquiry then proceeds to 
consider the totality of the circumstances. 
 
6.  The districts with the highest Black voting age population 
(BVAP) percentages in each plan have BVAPs of 57.94% (House) and 
50.07% (Senate). 
 
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(No. SC12-460).  We reasoned that these high percentages were 
attributable to the dense concentration of Hispanic voters in Miami-
Dade County, not to impermissible line-drawing by the Legislature.  
Apportionment I, 83 So. 3d at 645. 
Moreover, as to vote dilution, the House and Senate have 
represented that their 2022 plans do not avoid creating additional 
majority-minority districts where doing so was both possible and 
necessary to enable minority voters to elect representatives of their 
choice.  We conclude that there is evidence in the record before us 
to support the conclusion that the Legislature’s 2022 plans do not 
impermissibly dilute minority voting strength. 
 
The non-diminishment protection afforded by article III, 
section 21(a) means that “the Legislature cannot eliminate majority-
minority districts or weaken other historically performing minority 
districts where doing so would actually diminish a minority group’s 
ability to elect its preferred candidates.”  Apportionment I, 83 So. 3d 
at 625; see also Bethune-Hill v. Va. State Bd. of Elections, 137 S. Ct. 
788, 802 (2017).7  Evaluating the extent to which benchmark and 
 
7.  Governor Ron DeSantis recently sought an advisory 
opinion from this Court, in part seeking our views on the meaning 
 
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new districts perform for minority voters—that is, enable those 
voters to elect the candidate of their choice—requires a “functional 
analysis” of voting behavior within the districts at issue.  Such 
analysis considers statistical data pertaining to voting age 
population; voter-registration data; voting registration of actual 
voters; and election results history.  Apportionment I, 83 So. 3d at 
625, 627.  We have said that, “because a minority group’s ability to 
elect a candidate of choice depends upon more than just population 
figures,” a “slight change in percentage of the minority group’s 
population in a given district does not necessarily have a cognizable 
effect on a minority group’s ability to elect its preferred candidate of 
choice.”  Id. at 625.   
 
During this redistricting cycle, the House and Senate each 
conducted a functional analysis of the minority performing districts 
in the benchmark and new plans.  The House represents that its 
 
and application of the non-diminishment standard in article III, 
section 21(a).  For the reasons we explained in Advisory Opinion to 
the Governor re Whether Article III Section 20(a) of the Florida 
Constitution Requires the Retention of a District in Northern Florida, 
47 Fla. L. Weekly S44 (Fla. Feb. 10, 2022), we declined to issue the 
advisory opinion.  Our decision today should not be taken as 
expressing any views on the questions raised in the Governor’s 
request. 
 
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benchmark and new plans contain 18 districts each that perform 
for Black voters and 12 districts each that perform for Hispanic 
voters.  The record shows that, among the identified minority 
performing districts in the 2022 House plan, the number of 
majority-minority districts is unchanged from the benchmark plan.  
The Senate represents that its benchmark and new plans 
contain five districts each that perform for Black voters and five 
districts each that perform for Hispanic voters.  Of the five identified 
performing Black voter districts, one is majority minority in both 
the benchmark and 2022 Senate plans.  The record further shows 
that four of the five identified performing Hispanic voter districts in 
the benchmark plan are majority minority, while all five of the 
identified performing Hispanic voter districts in the 2022 Senate 
plan are majority minority.  The objective statistical data constitute 
support in the record for the Legislature’s representation that the 
2022 plans do not diminish minority voters’ ability to elect 
representatives of their choice.  See id. at 655 (no retrogression 
since “[t]here are as many Senate minority districts as there were 
under the 2002 Senate benchmark plan with what appears to be 
commensurate voting ability”). 
 
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Finally, there is the tier-one standard that “no apportionment 
plan or district shall be drawn with the intent to favor or disfavor a 
political party or an incumbent.”  Art. III, § 16(a).  It follows from 
the constitutional text that “there is no acceptable level of improper 
intent.”  Apportionment I, 83 So. 3d at 617.  That said, we 
acknowledged in 2012 that “redistricting will inherently have 
political consequences,” and we emphasized that the constitutional 
text “prohibits intent, not effect.”  Id.  Consistent with these 
principles, we rejected a claim that an apportionment plan’s 
partisan imbalance alone demonstrated an overall intent to favor a 
political party.  Id. at 642. 
Here the House and Senate represent that they drew their 
2022 plans without regard to the addresses of incumbents and that 
they considered political data only as necessary to ensure 
compliance with minority voter protections.  The Senate also 
represents that it drew its new apportionment plan without regard 
to preserving existing district boundaries.  In addition, each 
chamber supports its plan by invoking reasoning that our Court 
itself has employed.  They say that their compliance with the tier-
two population, compactness, and boundary standards—
 
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compliance that we have concluded is supported in the record—at 
least suggests that each plan also complies with the tier-one 
prohibition on intentional political favoritism.  See id. at 645 (“[T]he 
House plan has complied with the tier-two standards, making 
improper intent less likely.”).  Reading the record in light of our 
precedents, we conclude that there is evidence in the record here to 
support the conclusion that the Legislature drew its 2022 plans 
without an impermissible intent to favor or disfavor a political party 
or incumbent. 
III. 
 
Given the record before us, and in the absence of any filed 
opposition, we declare valid the House and Senate apportionment 
plans in Senate Joint Resolution 100. 
 
The House and Senate ask us in this proceeding to go further 
and hold that the constitutional text, properly interpreted, 
precludes any future fact-based challenges to the 2022 
apportionment plans that we have now declared valid.  See Art. III, 
§ 16(d), Fla. Const. (“A judgment of the supreme court of the state 
determining the apportionment to be valid shall be binding upon all 
the citizens of the state.”).  They argue that our Court has erred in 
 
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the past by drawing a distinction between “facial” challenges (the 
ones ostensibly at issue in a mandatory original proceeding under 
article III, section 16(c)) and fact-based or “as-applied” challenges 
(brought in subsequent proceedings).  The chambers acknowledge 
that acceptance of their argument would require us to recede from 
our case law on that point, particularly the holding in Florida House 
of Representatives v. League of Women Voters of Florida, 118 So. 3d 
198 (Fla. 2013).  The Legislature has raised an important issue, but 
one that would be more appropriately considered in an original writ 
proceeding, if a fact-based challenge to the 2022 apportionment is 
filed. 
No motion for rehearing will be entertained. 
 
It is so ordered. 
POLSTON, LAWSON, COURIEL, and GROSSHANS, JJ., concur. 
LABARGA, J., concurs in result. 
CANADY, C.J., recused. 
 
Original Proceeding - Legislative Apportionment 
 
Ashley Moody, Attorney General, Henry C. Whitaker, Solicitor 
General, and Daniel W. Bell, Chief Deputy Solicitor General, 
Tallahassee, Florida, 
 
 
for the Office of the Attorney General as proponents 
 
 
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Chris Sprowls, Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives, 
and J. Michael Maida, Acting General Counsel for the Florida House 
of Representatives, Tallahassee, Florida; Peter M. Dunbar and Marc 
W. Dunbar of Dean Mead & Dunbar, Tallahassee, Florida; and Andy 
Bardos of GrayRobinson, P.A., Tallahassee, Florida, 
 
 
for the Florida House of Representatives as proponents 
 
Daniel E. Nordby, George N. Meros, and Tara R. Price of Shutts & 
Bowen LLP, Tallahassee, Florida, and Eric M. Yesner of Shutts & 
Bowen, LLP, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, 
 
 
for the Florida Senate as proponents