UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF FLORIDA 

CASE NO. 1:22-cv-24066-KMM 

GRACE, INC.; ENGAGE MIAMI, INC.; 

SOUTH DADE BRANCH OF THE NAACP; 

MIAMI-DADE BRACH OF THE NAACP; 

CLARICE COOPER; YANELIS VALDES; 

JARED JOHNSON; and ALEXANDER 

CONTRERAS, and STEVEN MIRO, 

Plaintiffs, 

v. 

CITY OF MIAMI, 

Defendant. 

/ 

DEFENDANT’S REPLY MEMORANDUM OF LAW 

IN SUPPORT OF ITS MOTION FOR FINAL SUMMARY JUDGMENT 

Pursuant to Rule 56 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and this Court’s Local Rules 

56.1 and 7.1, Defendant, City of Miami (the “City”) respectfully submits this reply memorandum 

in support of its motion for final summary final judgment against Plaintiffs, Grace, Inc. (“Grace”), 

Engage Miami, Inc. (“Engage Miami”), South Dade Branch Of The NAACP (“South Dade 

NAACP”), Miami-Dade Branch Of The NAACP (“Miami-Dade NAACP”), Clarice Cooper, 

Yanelis Valdes, Jared Johnson, Alexandra Contreras and Steven Miro (collectively, the 

“Plaintiffs”) (ECF 131) and in reply to Plaintiffs’ response memorandum of law (ECF 135). 

I. Standing 

As a preliminary matter, throughout their Statement of Facts, Plaintiffs cite prior affidavits, 

the supplemental complaint, or other documents to counter the testimony of their Rule 30(b)(6) 

designated corporate representatives. See ECF 134, ¶ 11, 13, 17-18, 44, 53-54, 59, 62, 67, 70-71, 

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and 81-83. The Supplemental Complaint is not evidence, and the prior declarations address a 

redistricting plan that is no longer in effect. This Court should also decline to consider such 

proffered materials because the purpose of the Rule 30(b)(6) representative is to solicit binding 

testimony from the corporation about matters which the corporation has reasonable access. See

Fed. R. Civ. P. R. 30(b)(6); see also Rainey v. American Forest and Paper Ass’n, Inc., 26 F. Supp. 

2d 82 (D.D.C. 1998); In re Seven Stars on Hudson Corp., 637 B.R. 180 (Bankr. S.D. Fla. Jan. 28, 

2022) affirmed, 2022 WL 1006439 (S.D. Fla. Oct. 17, 2022); Guangzhou v. Yuchen Tradic Co. v. 

DBest Prods. Inc., 2023 WL 2626373 (C.D. Ca. Feb. 24, 2023); but see A.I. Credit Corp. v. Legion 

Ins. Co., 265 F.3d 630 (7th Cir. 2001); and In re 3M Combat Arms Earplug Products Liability 

Litigation, 2021 WL 918214 (N.D. Fla. March 10, 2021). 

A. Associational Plaintiffs 

None of the Associational Plaintiffs have standing. Plaintiffs assert there is “no dispute” 

that Engage Miami has members in every district, but that is inaccurate. As set forth in the 

statement of facts, there is no support for the assertion that Engage Miami has members in any 

district. Compare ECF 130 to ECF 134 ¶¶ 72-7. Under Celotex, it is Plaintiffs’ obligation to come 

forward with evidence. RCF 131 p.3. In response, Engage Miami offers merely an 

unauthenticated list, without an affidavit. Compare ECF 134 with Reply SOF ¶ 81.1 Similarly, 

Grace, which is composed of organizations,2 in discovery could not establish that it had any 

individual members in any district. Compare ECF 130 to ECF 134 to Reply SOF ¶¶ 63-71. 

1

 The Reply Statement of Facts (Reply SOF) is filed contemporaneously herewith. 

2

 Grace does not register individuals and asserted that they consider anyone who shows up at a 

meeting to be “a member.” Reply SOF ¶ 64. Cooper claimed to be a member, but as set forth 

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Neither the South Dade NAACP nor the Miami-Dade NAACP could identify a single 

member in any district. Compare ECF 130 to ECF 134 with Reply SOF ¶¶ 51, 55-56. Their 

representatives claimed to know of members in various districts, but they admitted that they did 

not verify that information. Compare ECF 130 to ECF 134 with Reply SOF ¶¶ 50-51, 55-56. In 

response, they assert that they have objected to revealing this information. Compare ECF 134 to 

Reply SOF ¶¶ 82-83. NAACP Plaintiffs admit that they have never identified a single member in 

the City, refused discovery into their membership, and have never produced any information 

establishing their standing. The Eleventh Circuit held that where every one of the 20,000 members 

in the state faced a potential future harm, the organization need not name their names, but where 

plaintiff organizations allege their members suffered a harm, they are still required to identify at 

least one member who allegedly suffered it. Fla State Conf. of NAACP Branches v. Browning, 

522 F.3d 1153, 1160 (11th Cir. 2008). Plaintiffs claim to have been racially gerrymandered and 

therefore must identify someone who was allegedly gerrymandered. Id. They have failed to do 

so. 

B. Individual Plaintiffs 

As set forth in the Motion for Summary Judgment and Statement of Facts (ECF 131 pp.11-

14 and ECF 130 ¶¶ 8-48), none of the Individual Plaintiffs’ depositions could support an injury in 

fact. Rather than specifically respond and refute the foregoing, Plaintiff instead asserts that each 

of the Individual Plaintiffs resides in a district in the City and that is sufficient for standing.3 For 

standing they must have an injury. Plaintiffs plead that they were injured because they perceive 

that they were racially sorted and placed into a particular district based upon their race sending the 

above that simply means that Cooper went to a meeting. 

3

 Contreras moved out of the City. ECF 130 ¶ 130-33. Her alleged harm is no longer redressable. 

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message that, if they are in the majority, they were placed based on their race, or, if they are in the 

minority, that their commissioner’s job is not to represent them. ECF 23 ¶¶ 30-31. But the 

individual plaintiffs refuted these allegations. As set forth in the statement of facts, when asked 

specific questions about why they contend that they are in a certain district or what they objected 

to in the redistricting, they refuted the pleadings. For example, when asked specific questions, 

they refuted racial gerrymandering of their district. Compare ECF 130 to ECF 134 to Reply SOF 

¶ 11 (Cooper believes District 2 was gerrymandered to reduce Coconut Grove’s influence); ¶ 18 

(Miro believes that his district was gerrymandered to concentrate over 65 voters who live in 

affordable housing, not Hispanics); ¶ 23-25 (Johnson would simply rather live in District 2); ¶ 36-

41 (Contreras could not identify any racial gerrymander in District 4 which is majority Hispanic 

under all Plaintiff and City plans); ¶ 44-47 (Valdes had no race based objections to her District). 

They do not feel inadequately represented by their respective Commissioner for race-based 

reasons. Id. The Individual Plaintiffs have not established that any of them have been harmed. 

II. Redressability 

Plaintiffs assert that the City has an “obsession” with the racial demographics of the City. 

It is not an obsession; racial demographics are at the core of this case and are central to Plaintiffs’ 

pleadings. The Amended Complaint goes through the racial demographics of every potential 

iteration of the redistricting plans from 2013 through adoption of the plan enjoined by this Court 

(ECF 23 ¶¶ 76-78, 103, 121-29, 167-68, 218-19, 226, 231, 240-43, 246, 262, 285-89, 325-26, 330, 

334-337, 340, 349). In that plan, Plaintiffs accused the City of “packing certain districts with as 

many Hispanic and Black residents as possible” predominantly in order to maintain “racial purity.” 

ECF 23 ¶ 2. They accused the City of “racial sorting” with the goal of “isolating Black from 

Hispanic from Anglo residents as much as possible into separate districts.” ECF 23 ¶ 9, 12, 18. 

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They claimed the City was “packing” Black residents into District 5 and Hispanic residents into 

Districts 1, 3 and 4. ECF 23 ¶¶ 2, 15, 202, 277, 290, 308, 327, 331, 341, & § IV(C) at p.39. The 

Supplemental Complaint similarly focuses on racial demographics. ECF 109 ¶¶ 67-69, 73, 84-85, 

102, 111, 117, 126, 133, 146, 149, 153, 171). It accuses the City’s current plan of maintaining the 

racial sorting of the enjoined plan. ECF 109 ¶¶ 1, 10, 65, 160. In the response memorandum, 

Plaintiffs reiterate that the harm is being racially sorted into a racially gerrymandered district. ECF 

135 pp.1-2. If the City was not racially sorting, then there is no case. And if the so-called racial 

sorting simply reflects the demographics of the City under any potential plan, then Plaintiffs’ 

alleged harm is not redressable. 

In the Motion for Summary Judgment, the City pointed to Plaintiffs’ own maps to show 

that all preserve a Black Voting Rights Act (“VRA”) District 5, and because the City of Miami is 

70% Hispanic, after drawing District 5, it is mathematically impossible to draw the rest of the map 

without at least three majority Hispanic Districts. Because the largest White population lives near 

the coast, the coastal district will always have the largest concentration of White (or “Anglo”) 

voters.4 Plaintiffs do not dispute the foregoing. Instead, they refer to the Order on the Motion to 

Dismiss to argue that the City’s actual demographics and Plaintiffs own plans are irrelevant. This 

Court stated that they were irrelevant at the motion to dismiss stage and declined to look at 

materials outside the pleadings. ECF 132 pp.14-16. At the summary judgment stage, however, 

4

 Plaintiffs state that in one of their four maps, Plan 1, District 2 is actually a majority Hispanic 

District not a “plurality” district. ECF 135 p.8 n5. That is accurate. The City was referring to the 

so-called Anglo district. District 2 in their Plan 1 still has the largest concentration of White 

population. ECF 130 ¶ 7. 

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Plaintiffs can no longer ignore their own maps. They are evidence that the alleged harm is not 

redressable. Under Celotex, Plaintiffs had to show evidence of redressability. The failed to do so. 

In the pleadings, Plaintiffs claimed that their harm was being racially gerrymandered which 

signals to the elected officials that they represent a particular racial group. If the City’s 

Redistricting was so nefarious as Plaintiffs’ assert, one would expect any remedial plan would 

have significantly different demographics with very different racial performance—but none of the 

plans do. Swapping Hispanic voters between the three super majority Hispanic districts does not 

redress that alleged harm. Their maps establish that the City was not actually racially sorted. The 

City’s map simply reflects the demographic reality. Plaintiffs cannot procced with a case of racial 

gerrymandering where there is no actual gerrymander, and where they are essentially seeking to 

simply shuffle the Hispanic population between the three supermajority Hispanic districts. What 

they are seeking makes this case unique. 

Plaintiffs cite to the record in Jacksonville Branch of NAACP v. City of Jacksonville, 635 

F. Supp. 3d 1229, 1247 (M.D. Fla. 2022) (And ECF 34-18 and 92-1 thereof) (“Jacksonville”), as 

support for the argument that their harms are still redressable even if they are simply swapping 

around the Hispanic population. They ignore what Jacksonville was about: racial packing of Black 

voters to diminish their influence in other districts. 

Plaintiffs contend that it was and that the result of focusing on race 

is that Black voters are packed into Districts 7-10, pulled from 

Districts 2, 12, and 14, diluting the Black vote in these latter 

Districts, and diminishing the efficacy of the elected officials’ 

ability to provide meaningful representation to the geographically 

disparate population in all of the Challenged Districts. 

Jacksonville Branch of NAACP v. City of Jacksonville, Case No. 3:22-cv-493-MMH-LLL, 2022 

WL 7089087, *3 (Oct. 12, 2022, U.S. Dist. Ct. M.D. Fla.). “[T]he Court found compelling 

evidence that the district lines were drawn so as to artificially pack Black voters into Districts 7, 

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8, 9, and 10 (the Packed Districts), thereby stripping them from the surrounding Districts 2, 12, 

and 14 (the Stripped Districts). Jacksonville, ECF 101 p.4. The harm to remediate was the packing 

of Black voters in some districts with the consequent dilution of their influence in other districts. 

Id. p.27-28, 36-38. The plaintiffs’ plan in Jacksonville fixed that harm. Id. p.40. While 

Jacksonville, like this case, was not an intentional vote dilution case, that only meant that the 

plaintiffs did not have to prove invidious intent. Id. at n.62. Nevertheless, the Court there was 

addressing the vote dilution harm caused by redistricting. It was not merely moving Black voters 

between the packed districts to achieve the same outcome. 

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

was a Voting Rights Act (“VRA”) case where the Black Voting Age Population in the VRA 

districts was set artificially high (Bethune-Hill v. Virginia State Bd. of Elections, 580 U.S. 178 

(2017)) and the Supreme Court remanded for the trial court to evaluate those districts. As Plaintiffs 

show, the court did reduce the percentages in them; it did not simply swap the Black voters between 

those districts. ECF 135 p.8. Further, as Plaintiff’s citation on page 8 of their memorandum shows, 

even when reset, they were still higher than the bare 50.3% set in District 5 here. The court in 

Bethune-Hill did not set those Black voting age population below 50%. Similarly, the Perez case 

cited by Plaintiffs was a VRA case that involved vote dilution that was cured by the Court. 

Here, there is no racial packing of the districts and there is no dilution of any group’s 

influence in any district. If the alleged gerrymander was racial sorting, then Plaintiffs must show 

it is possible to create a plan that does not result in the same alleged racial sort. As their plans 

show, that is impossible. They do not even contend otherwise. 

III. CONCLUSION 

For each of the foregoing reasons, the City respectfully requests that the Court grant this 

motion on Plaintiffs’ sole claim in their Amended Complaint. 

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Respectfully submitted, 

GRAYROBINSON, P.A.

By: s/ George T. Levesque 

GRAYROBINSON, P.A. 

Jason L. Unger, Esquire 

Florida Bar No. 991562 

George T. Levesque 

Florida Bar No. 55551 

Andy Bardos 

Florida Bar No. 822671 

301 S. Bronough Street 

Suite 600 

Tallahassee, Florida 32301 

Telephone: (850) 577-9090 

Facsimile: (850) 577-3311 

Christopher N. Johnson 

Florida Bar No. 69329 

Email: Christopher.Johnson@gray-robinson.com 

Marlene Quintana, B.C.S. 

Florida Bar No. 88358 

Email: Marlene.Quintana@gray-robinson.com 

333 S.E. 2nd Avenue, Suite 3200 

Miami, Florida 33131 

Telephone: (305) 416-6880 

Facsimile: (305) 416-6887 

CITY OF MIAMI 

VICTORIA MÉNDEZ, City Attorney 

Florida Bar No. 194931 

JOHN A. GRECO, Chief Deputy City Attorney 

Florida Bar No. 991236 

KEVIN R. JONES, Deputy City Attorney 

Florida Bar No. 119067 

KERRI L. MCNULTY, 

Litigation & Appeals Division Chief 

Florida Bar No. 16171 

Office of the City Attorney 

444 S.W. 2nd Avenue 

Miami, FL 33130 

Telephone: (305) 416-1800 

Facsimile: (305) 416-1801 

Attorneys for Defendant 

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CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE 

I hereby certify that on December 4, 2023, I electronically filed the foregoing with the Clerk 

of the Court by using the CM/ECF. I also certify that the foregoing document is being served this day 

on all counsel of record or pro se parties either via transmission of Notice of Electronic Filing 

generated by CM/ECF or in some other authorized manner for those counsel or parties who are not 

authorized to receive electronically Notices of Electronic Filing. 

/s/ George T. Levesque 

Counsel for City of Miami 

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