Supreme Court decision impact on Miami’s Black voters as 

redistricting debate heats up

https://www.miamitimesonline.com/news/local/supreme-court-decision-impact-on-miami-s-black-votersas-redistricting-debate-heats-up/article_9ca8357e-0a85-11ee-92da-271537e0c6f5.html

Samantha Morell | Miami Times Staff Writer

June 13, 2023

Racial gerrymandering is alive but not well, after the United States Supreme Court voted it down 

in an Alabama congressional redistricting case last week. How that decision will affect Miami’s 

ongoing battle with its own redistricting lawsuit is anybody’s guess.

In a 5-4 decision June 8, Alabama was found to have likely violated the Voting Rights Act of 

1965 by drawing a congressional map with only one Black-majority district out of seven, despite 

the fact that Black people comprise more than 25% of the state. The state will now have to 

redraw its map ahead of next year’s federal elections, just as the city of Miami was ordered to 

redraw its local map ahead of this year’s municipal election.

The two individual cases aren’t entirely alike. Although both maps have just one Black-majority 

district, they represent two classic forms of racial gerrymandering: packing and cracking. In the 

city of Miami, Black voters have been consistently “packed” into one district known by 

commissioners as “the Black district,” limiting their power to just that one area. In the state of 

Alabama, on the other hand, Black voters were spread so thin, or “cracked,” across districts that 

their influence was diluted and overshadowed throughout the state.

“The outcome is essentially the same, which is less representation,” said Christopher Lomax, 

managing attorney with the Lomax Legal law firm and president of the Wilkie D. Ferguson, Jr. 

Bar Association.

“It’s another example of the machinations that people in power utilize to dilute or to take away 

the power of Black people,” said attorney H.T. Smith, a local legend and Miami trailblazer who 

has long gained national distinction. “In Alabama, they robbed us with a knife, and in the city of 

Miami, they robbed us with a gun. It’s the same thing. It’s just a different instrument of 

discrimination.”

Both Lomax and Smith hope that the Supreme Court’s decision will discourage future maps like 

the one being contested in Miami. But it could just as well have the opposite effect.

Miami map scramble

City of Miami Commission Chair Christine King told The Miami Times that the Alabama case 

actually justifies what the city has been defending all along. The plaintiffs’ position has been that 

Case 1:22-cv-24066-KMM Document 82-16 Entered on FLSD Docket 07/06/2023 Page 1 of 3
the use of racially designated districts has got to go, but, in King’s eyes, the Supreme Court 

decision says they’re actually needed.

“The Supreme Court ruling ordering Alabama officials to redraw the state’s congressional map 

to allow an additional Black-majority district proves that our original redistricting was 

constitutional and in the best interest of our community,” said King, Miami’s sole Black 

commissioner.

King and her peers have claimed that the city’s split into one Black district, one white nonHispanic district and three Hispanic districts ensures diversity on the commission, especially 

when prior elections left the city without any Black representatives at all. The strategically 

divided map is meant to represent the city’s racial demographic, which is roughly 72% Hispanic, 

14% Black and 11% white.

That tactic nevertheless raises the question: What of the Black residents who don’t make it into 

the Black district? Likewise, will just one Black commissioner be sufficient for a city originally 

built and incorporated by Black men and women?

“It always surprises me that the power structure ... always knows what’s best for us,” said Smith. 

“They say, ‘We want to protect your rights.’ Well, why don’t you ask us? We don’t need you to 

do it for us. We want you to do it with us.”

The city will have to do just that after being ordered by U.S. District Judge Kevin Michael 

Moore to draw a new map by Aug. 1 that conforms to the lawsuit’s ideologies, just in time for 

the November election. A special commission meeting is scheduled for June 14 to begin those 

discussions.

Where to put Overtown

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on behalf of the lawsuit’s plaintiffs 

has submitted two maps to be considered in place of the one approved by the city in March 2022. 

One of those has already drawn criticism from King, however, due to the fact that it moves 

Overtown from her District 5 into Commissioner Alex Diaz de la Portilla’s District 1.

“My top priority is keeping District 5 neighborhoods intact,” she told the Times. “The 

constitution allows for and case law encourages communities of interest to stay together. 

Overtown, Liberty City, Little Haiti, Wynwood and the Upper East Side share the same needs. It 

would be unconstitutional to redraw those lines.”

Lomax sympathizes with the notion that those who share similar interests should form a cohesive 

voting bloc. At the same time, he says, “the plaintiffs are considering what would be most 

effective in terms of being able to mobilize and have a voice in the city,” and not in just one 

district.

“Those are two separate things, and I think that the latter is probably more in the public’s interest 

than the former,” he said.

“Part of your power comes with the amount of influence you can have in deciding elections in as 

many districts as possible,” Smith concurred, “so they packed all of the Black people in one 

Case 1:22-cv-24066-KMM Document 82-16 Entered on FLSD Docket 07/06/2023 Page 2 of 3
district – not all, but a significant number – and said, ‘Well, we don’t have to worry about them. 

They’ve got the one vote they have, and none of the rest of us have to worry about them.’”

Indeed, Overtown’s united presence in a district other than District 5 may one day result in the 

election of a second Black commissioner – and that could be a good thing. After all, Smith notes, 

having just one Black official on the dais didn’t prevent the commission from seriously 

considering a plan that would have dumped homeless people on Virginia Key Beach, a historic 

landmark for Miami’s Black community.

Smith and Lomax believe that the city’s so-called efforts to ensure diversity on the commission 

are simply disingenuous. The truth could well be that the map was crafted to ensure that Black 

representation remains the minority on the commission.

“I hope and pray that Commissioner King is more concerned about the people in her district than 

she is about holding onto political power,” Smith added. “Her area has voted solidly for Black 

commissioners since we came up with these five single-member districts.”

A trickle-down effect

Smith’s distrust in elected officials is cautious at best and justified at worst. While last week’s 

Supreme Court decision came as a win to Black voters in Alabama and across the country, it was 

actually a bare minimum achievement – one that came shockingly and a tad too late.

“They didn’t do anything to bolster [the Voting Rights Act], in my view, but they maintained it, 

as opposed to moving in the direction of eviscerating it, which has happened in the past more 

recently,” said Lomax.

Chief Justices John Roberts and Brett Kavanaugh joined liberals last week in ordering Alabama 

to redraw its map, but not until after it was used in the 2022 election. Both Alabama and 

Louisiana maps had been challenged and ruled against by lower courts, resulting in Republicans 

taking the House majority from Democrats by a margin of nine seats.

“It’s the best of times and it’s the worst of times,” said Smith. “It’s the worst of times because of 

the fact that the Supreme Court allowed what was obviously unfair, discriminatory voting 

districts to go forward so that people who should not have won, won. But then it’s the best of 

times because they left us with our neck bones, so that we can still go to court and in some cases 

we can still win every now and then.”

Multiple states are now gearing up to redraw their maps and Miami’s fate is up for grabs as the 

city awaits a response to its appeal with the Eleventh Circuit Court. In an opinion piece 

published in this edition of the Times, attorney Reginald J. Clyne cautions against the potentially 

harmful effects that the Republican-dominated court could have on the lawsuit.

But Lomax has hope.

“I think that these discussions that are going to be had in Miami are going to be much different 

now that the Supreme Court has spoken,” Lomax continued, “and the people who are in the 

position to articulate what they believe to be the law of the land can do so far more persuasively 

now that this opinion has been rendered.”

Case 1:22-cv-24066-KMM Document 82-16 Entered on FLSD Docket 07/06/2023 Page 3 of 3