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IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF FLORIDA

Case No. 1:22-cv-24066-KMM

GRACE, INC., et al.,

Plaintiffs,

v.

CITY OF MIAMI,

Defendant.

/

PLAINTIFFS’ RESPONSE TO CITY’S MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT

To obtain summary judgment dismissing Plaintiffs’ claims, the City bears the burden of 

showing that there is not a single “genuine dispute as to any material fact.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(c). 

Unable to attack the merits of Plaintiffs’ claims, the City (again) challenges Plaintiffs’ standing. 

Ye City’s arguments (again) fail. Ye Court should deny the Motion for Summary Judgment (ECF 

No. 131) (the “Motion” or “Mot.”).

ARGUMENT

I. Plaintiffs have indisputably suffered an injury-in-fact; at worst, there is a genuine 

dispute as to that issue.

Ye Motion is premised on the City’s continued mischaracterization or misunderstanding 

of Plaintiffs’ sole racial gerrymandering claim. Plaintiffs’ claim is that the five City Commission 

districts are racial gerrymanders that violate the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause: 

that the City drew these districts with race as the predominant factor, and that the City’s use of race 

was not narrowly tailored to a compelling interest.

Ye constitutionally cognizable harm—the injury-in-fact—in a racial gerrymandering case 

is the use of race to draw the districts: the fact that Plaintiffs are classified based on their race. Ala. 

Legis. Black Caucus v. Alabama (ALBC), 575 U.S. 254, 263 (2015) (“Yose harms are personal. 

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Yey include being personally . . . subjected to a racial classification, as well as being represented 

by a legislator who believes his primary obligation is to represent only the members of a particular 

racial group.”) (cleaned up). “Where a plaintiff resides in a racially gerrymandered district, [] the 

plaintiff has been denied equal treatment because of the legislature’s reliance on racial criteria, and 

therefore has standing to challenge the legislature’s action.” United States v. Hays, 515 U.S. 737, 

744–45 (1995) (cleaned up).1 Ye City subjected the Individual Plaintiffs and the Organizational 

Plaintiffs’ members to a racial classification. Yat is how they are injured. Yat is why they are 

suing. And that harm satisfies Article III’s cognizable harm requirement.

A. Organizational Plaintiffs

An organization has associational standing to assert racial gerrymandering claims where, 

as here, the organization’s members “would have standing to sue in their own right, the interests 

at stake are germane to the organization’s purpose, and neither the claims asserted nor the relief 

requested requires individual[] members’ participation in the lawsuit.” ALBC, 575 U.S. at 269 

(cleaned up). Yere is no serious dispute that the Organizational Plaintiffs meet each of these 

elements; there is certainly sufficient factual evidence of each element to enable Plaintiffs to 

proceed to trial. Indeed, the City does not dispute the latter two prongs, instead focusing on whether 

the Organizational Plaintiffs have members with standing to sue in their own right. “[A] member 

1 The City relies extensively on Hays to argue against Plaintiffs’ standing. Mot. at 2, 6, 12–

14, 16. But the Hays plaintiffs did not live in the district they challenged as racially gerrymandered. 

515 U.S. at 739. The Supreme Court thus held that their complaint was “only a generalized 

grievance against governmental conduct of which [they] do[] not approve.” Id. at 745. Here, by 

contrast, Plaintiffs have shown “they, personally, have been subjected to a racial classification.” 

Id. at 739. No more is required.

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of an association would have standing to sue in his or her own right when that member resides in 

the district that he alleges was a product of racial gerrymander.” Id. (quotations omitted). The 

evidence confirms that each Organizational Plaintiff has members who do.

Engage Miami: Ye City does not dispute that Engage Miami has members in every 

district, nor could they. ECF No. 134 (Pls.’ SOMF) ¶ 81. Rather, the City argues that Engage had 

a duty to “verif[y] whether [sic] the race or ethnicities of its members to know whether they are or 

are not the predominant race in any district.” Mot. at 11. Ye City provides no legal support for 

that claim, because there is none—all Engage must show to demonstrate standing is that a “member 

resides in the district that [it] alleges was a product of a racial gerrymander.”2 ALBC, 575 U.S. at 

269. Engage has done precisely that for all five Commission districts.

NAACP Branches: Under the one-plaintiff standing rule, the Court need not look beyond 

Engage’s standing. ACLU of Fla., Inc. v. Miami-Dade Cnty. Sch. Bd., 557 F.3d 1177, 1195 (11th 

Cir. 2009). But the City’s attacks on the standing of other Plaintiffs are likewise meritless. Contrary 

to the City’s assertions, the deposition testimony of the NAACP Branches’ corporate 

2 This binding precedent is also logical. For example, a Hispanic District 3 resident (like 

Plaintiff Miro) has been placed in District 3 because of his race. A Black District 3 resident (like 

Plaintiff Johnson) has also been subject to a racial classification. Both have standing to challenge 

the racial gerrymandering to which they are subjected. See, e.g., Cooper v. Harris, 581 U.S. 285, 

296 (2017) (Black residents challenged predominantly Black districts); Miller v. Johnson, 515 U.S. 

900, 909 (1995) (white residents challenged majority-Black district); Jacksonville Branch of 

NAACP v. City of Jacksonville, 635 F. Supp. 3d 1229, 1271 (M.D. Fla. 2022) (Black residents 

challenged both majority-Black and majority-white districts). Engage need not know the races of 

each of its members to establish its standing.

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representatives demonstrate that both have members in the relevant districts (Districts 1, 2, 3, and 

5 for the Miami-Dade NAACP; Districts 2 and 4 for the South Dade NAACP). Pls.’ SOMF ¶¶ 51, 

55. Both NAACP Branches have “put forth specific facts supported by evidence” that they have 

members residing in the relevant challenged districts. Ga. Republican Party v. SEC, 888 F.3d 1198, 

1202 (11th Cir. 2018).

To avoid this inescapable conclusion, the City argues that associational standing requires 

the identification of particular members’ names. Mot. at 9–10. But courts have held to the contrary. 

See, e.g., Fla. State Conf. of NAACP Branches v. Browning, 522 F.3d 1153, 1161 (11th Cir. 2008) 

(recognizing that the Circuit does not “require[] that the organizational plaintiffs name names” 

where members face prospective harm); see also Doe v. Stincer, 175 F.3d 879, 882, 884 (11th Cir. 

1999) (ruling that the Circuit “ha[s] never held that a party suing as a representative must 

specifically name the individual on whose behalf the suit is brought”); Ohio A. Philip Randolph 

Inst. v. Householder, 367 F. Supp. 3d 697, 731 (S.D. Ohio 2019). And here, the NAACP Branches 

properly objected to the City’s intrusive requests for specific information about their members on 

grounds of associational privilege, and the City never sought to compel further discovery as to the 

Branch members’ specific identities. Pls.’ SOMF ¶ 82. The NAACP Branches also explained that 

they would provide testimony at trial describing the manner in which they verified that specific 

individual members reside in the relevant challenged districts. Id. ¶ 83. Accordingly, both NAACP 

Branches have “put forth specific facts supported by evidence” that they have members with 

standing. Ga. Republican Party v. SEC, 888 F.3d 1198, 1202 (11th Cir. 2018). No more is required 

of them.

GRACE: Ye same is true of GRACE. GRACE is an organization made up of both 

organizations and individuals. Pls.’ SOMF ¶ 64. Members of GRACE’s constituent organizations 

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are also members of GRACE. Id. GRACE’s corporate representative testified that GRACE has 

members (and its constituent organizations have members) who reside in the relevant challenged 

districts (Districts 2 and 4 under the 2022 Plan, and District 2 under the 2023 Plan). Id. ¶ 66. 

Moreover, Plaintiff Cooper also testified that she is a member of GRACE, a member of one of 

GRACE’s constituent organizations, and a District 2 resident. Id. ¶¶ 78–80. GRACE has made a 

sufficient showing.3

The cases the City cites to the contrary are inapposite. In National Alliance for the Mentally 

Ill, St. Johns Inc. v. St. Johns County, the organization made no showing that its members would 

be injured by the challenged practice (a decision not to fund a mental health treatment facility) at 

all, and thus that it could not show “its members would otherwise have standing to sue in their 

own right.” 376 F.3d 1292, 1296 (11th Cir. 2004) (quoting Friends of the Earth, Inc. v. Laidlaw 

Env’t Servs. (TOC), Inc., 528 U.S. 167, 181 (2000)). Similarly, in Anderson v. City of Alpharetta, 

the NAACP failed to show that any of its members were injured because of the challenged action 

(the city’s refusal to approve public housing on a particular site), among other defects. 770 F.2d 

1575, 1581–82 (11th Cir. 1985) (holding that the NAACP’s proffered list of members “does not 

establish the eligibility of any of the individuals for public housing if it were constructed on that 

3 Even if GRACE did not itself have individual members, GRACE would also have

standing to bring claims on behalf of the individual members of its constituent organizations. N.Y.

State Club Ass’n v. City of New York, 487 U.S. 1, 9–10 (1988) (holding that consortium 

organization has standing to sue on behalf of constituent organizations’ members, as long as those 

constituent organizations would have standing to sue); Perez v. Abbott, 267 F. Supp. 3d 750, 791 

n.51 (W.D. Tex. 2017), aff’d in relevant part, 138 S. Ct. 2305 (2018); Perez v. Abbott, 253 F. Supp. 

3d 864, 931 n.82 (W.D. Tex. 2017) (collecting cases).

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site”).

* * *

Accordingly, the Organizational Plaintiffs have standing to pursue their racial 

gerrymandering claims against the City.

B. Individual Plaintiffs

Ye Individual Plaintiffs, too, have put forward sufficient evidence to establish injury-infact under Hays’ bright-line rule. None of the City’s sideshow questions4 is relevant or negates

Plaintiffs’ legal claims of Fourteenth Amendment racial gerrymandering. With respect to Plaintiffs 

Cooper, Johnson, Valdes, and Miro, the City does not dispute that they live in their respective 

challenged districts. Nor does the City dispute that Plaintiff Contreras lived in her challenged 

district under the 2022 Plan when the action was filed, and lived in the district under the 2023 Plan 

when it was enacted—all she needs to sustain her damages claims. See Uzuegbunam v. Preczewski, 

141 S. Ct. 792, 796 (2021).

Yese facts are the beginning and end of the standing inquiry under Hays: “Where a plaintiff 

resides in a racially gerrymandered district, [] the plaintiff has been denied equal treatment because 

of the legislature’s reliance on racial criteria, and therefore has standing to challenge the 

legislature’s action.” 515 U.S. at 744–45 (citation omitted).

4 E.g., whether a plaintiff moves into an already-drawn district or the district is drawn while 

they live there, whether a plaintiff has an issue with their district’s overall demographic makeup, 

whether a plaintiff has a problem with the particular numbered district they live in, whether a 

plaintiff objects to their commissioner’s race, whether a plaintiff stays in the same district during 

redistricting or is moved between districts.

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II. Plaintiffs’ alleged injuries are redressable.

When Plaintiffs’ sole Fourteenth Amendment racial gerrymandering claim is properly 

considered, see supra 1–2, the redressability of Plaintiffs’ injuries is obvious. Plaintiffs’ injuries 

will be redressed when they are no longer subject to a racial classification—that is, when they live 

in districts that are not drawn predominantly based on race, or where the use of race is narrowly 

tailored to a compelling interest. Ye Court should reject the City’s various attempts to obfuscate 

this basic principle.

First, the City’s obsession with the overall racial demographics of each district misses the 

point. (Indeed, it supports Plaintiffs’ contention that the City has always been, and remains, 

obsessed with the overall racial demographics of each district.) Ye legal test is not whether an 

alternative plan has “significantly different demographics” than the challenged plan. Mot. at 15. A 

properly drawn map could have district-level demographics similar to the unconstitutional

districts. As long as the remedial districts are not race-based or otherwise comport with strict 

scrutiny, and “completely correct[]—rather than perpetuate[]—the defects that rendered the 

original districts unconstitutional,” they could have any range of district-level demographics. ECF 

No. 94 at 16 (quoting Covington I, 283 F. Supp. 3d at 431).

For example, the court in Jacksonville struck down a district as intentionally packed with 

Black voters at 57.4%, then properly ordered a remedy that increased the district’s Black 

population to 84.2%. Ye court struck down two other districts as having been stripped of Black 

voters, and the constitutionally valid remedial map barely changed their overall racial composition 

(from 62.4 to 62.9% white and from 53.4 to 55.9% white). 635 F. Supp. 3d at 1247, 1270; Austin 

Rep. at 11, Jacksonville, No. 3:22-cv-493 (M.D. Fla. July 22, 2022), ECF No. 34-18; Corrected 

Fairfax Rep. at 135, Jacksonville, No. 3:22-cv-493 (M.D. Fla. Nov. 22, 2022), ECF No. 92-1; see 

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also Bethune-Hill v. Va. State Bd. of Elections, 368 F. Supp. 3d 872, 883, 885 (E.D. Va. 2019)

(ordering racial gerrymandering remedy that “slightly” decreased BVAPs in unconstitutional 

districts from 55.4 to 52.5%, from 55.2 to 52.3%, and from 57.2 to 54.4%); compare Perez v. 

Abbott, 267 F. Supp. 3d at 791–94 (striking down district as racial gerrymander because lawmakers 

changed draft plans to reach an unjustified 50% Hispanic target), with Perez v. Texas, slip op. at 1–

2, No. 5:11-cv-360 (W.D. Tex. May 28, 2019), ECF No. 1631 (ordering remedy that “eliminates 

the changes that led this Court to find racial gerrymandering” despite “maintain[ing] [the district’s] 

majority [Hispanic] status”).

Second, the City still refuses to accept that “[w]hether Plaintiffs’ proposed maps (which do 

not form a basis of their claim) could pass constitutional muster has no bearing on whether the 

Enjoined Plan or Remedial Plan can do the same.” ECF No. 132 at 15. “It is not Plaintiffs’ proposed 

maps from the remedial stage of this case that are on trial.” Id. Whether Plaintiffs’ plans “materially 

change[] the racial makeup of the City’s districts” is irrelevant.5 Mot. at 14.

CONCLUSION

Ye Court should deny the City’s Motion.

5 That said, the City misstates the demographic distinctions between the 2023 Plan and 

Plaintiffs’ proposals. The City asserts that Plaintiffs’ four proposed maps each contain “three 

supermajority Hispanic districts, one VRA-required Black district, and a plurality district.” Mot. 

17. But District 2 in P1 is not a “plurality district” “where no [] racial or ethnic group is a majority,” 

ECF No. 130-10 at 84:16–17, but rather a fourth majority-Hispanic district, at 57.9% HVAP and 

56.3% HCVAP. City’s SOMF ¶ 7.

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Respectfully submitted this 27th day of November, 2023,

/s/ Nicholas L.V. Warren

Nicholas L.V. Warren (FBN 1019018)

ACLU Foundation of Florida

1809 Art Museum Drive, Suite 203

Jacksonville, FL 32207

(786) 363-1769

nwarren@aclufl.org

Daniel B. Tilley (FBN 102882)

Caroline A. McNamara (FBN 1038312)

Janine M. Lopez (FBN 1038560)

ACLU Foundation of Florida

4343 West Flagler Street, Suite 400

Miami, FL 33134

(786) 363-2714

dtilley@aclufl.org

cmcnamara@aclufl.org

Gregory P. Luib*

Dechert LLP

1900 K Street NW

Washington, DC 20006

(202) 261-3413

gregory.luib@dechert.com

Neil A. Steiner*

Julia Markham-Cameron*

Dechert LLP

Yree Bryant Park

1095 Avenue of the Americas

New York, NY 10036

(212) 698-3822

neil.steiner@dechert.com

julia.markham-cameron@dechert.com

Christopher J. Merken*

Dechert LLP

Cira Centre

2929 Arch Street

Philadelphia, PA 19104

(215) 994-2380

christopher.merken@dechert.com

* Admitted pro hac vice

Counsel for Plaintiffs

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