Jacksonville’s general counsel filed a bill that would mean the City Council would give up its fight against civil-rights plaintiffs in its federal racial gerrymandering case.
The bill, which will be introduced at next Tuesday’s council meeting, would mean the city has accepted the court-ordered map and will pay $100,000 in attorneys fees to the civil-rights plaintiffs.
The settlement agreement asks the federal court to issue a judgment requiring the city to use the plaintiff-drawn map, which voters used in last month’s and next month’s City Council elections. The plaintiffs also may request a special election next year for two redrawn School Board seats that would not normally be up.
General Counsel Jason Teal and City Council President Terrance Freeman have not yet responded to requests for comment. Neither have the lawyers for the plaintiffs.
“This new map provides certain positive and productive opportunities for the Black community,” said Ben Frazier, president of the Northside Coalition of Jacksonville, one of the plaintiffs in the case. “We are still able to affect the political landscape, even if in a small way.
“It’s unfortunate the City Council sent us through this ordeal and ended up costing us so much money when it didn’t have to be. We could have all sat down at the table and worked this all out. It’s unfortunate this bullying caustic attitude existed to begin with. It’s time to move forward.”
The Florida Times-Union reported last month that the city had incurred at least $160,000 in fees from its own outside attorneys and experts, in addition to the costs from its in-house lawyers who initially litigated the case.
After The Tributary extensively reported on the racial gerrymandering by the Jacksonville City Council, including its decades-long history, four civil rights organizations and 10 Jacksonville voters filed suit in early May 2022, asking the court to strike down seven of the city’s 14 council districts and three of Duval County’s seven School Board seats. Last October, a court did just that, ruling the city had segregated voters by race.
Those plaintiffs included the Jacksonville Branch of the NAACP, the Northside Coalition, the ACLU of Florida Northeast Chapter and Florida Rising.
The court gave the city a second chance at redistricting, but after the city failed to fix the gerrymandering, a court rejected the city’s second map. Instead, the court ordered the city to use one of three maps submitted by the plaintiffs.
So far, the city has lost in court five times. A federal court ruled the city’s original redistricting map had segregated voters on the basis of race. The court refused to halt that order. A federal appeals court also refused to stay the order. The city then got a second chance at redistricting, but the federal court found the city didn’t correct the racial gerrymandering and instead ordered the city to use a map drawn by the plaintiffs. A federal appeals court also declined to halt that order.
Before approving the first map, a city attorney told the council, “we feel strongly … if we’re sued, then we will defend it and likely prevail.”
Although plaintiffs drew the map ordered by the court, they had told the court it was not their preferred map, but it followed criteria that the City Council claimed it wanted to prioritize.
Frazier, the plaintiff, said the map has spurred Black residents to political action.
“It has awakened a sleeping political giant,” he said. “The black body politic, we must stand up.”
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This story was originally published by The Tributary