A.G. Gancarski
Fulfilling her promise on Tuesday, U.S. rep. Corrine Brown filed a federal lawsuit (Brown v. Detzner, et al) on Wednesday to preempt Florida’s Supreme Court from mandating what her office called “a drastic altering of Florida’s 5th Congressional District.”
“Today, I filed a lawsuit in federal court seeking relief against the continued use of any congressional redistricting plan that dilutes the voting strength of African-Americans,” Brown said.
“District 5 in Florida and minority access districts across the nation cannot, and will not be eliminated, particularly after the hard-fought civil rights gains we have made during the last 50 years. As a people, African-Americans have fought too hard to get to where we are now, and we certainly are not taking any steps backwards,” Brown said.
Brown’s current district, referred to in the filing as a “minority access district,” was intended to enfranchise African-Americans along the St. Johns River; its “contours trace the historic settlement” of African-Americans along the waterway. Its “distinct population with a shared history” settled where they did, the filing continues, because of red-lining and restrictive covenants that restricted their settlement elsewhere.
Brown’s filing contends that for decades. black voters were restricted by literacy tests, “white primaries,” poll taxes, and other racially driven methods of voter suppression, including appointed county commissions, unequal educational facilities, and the prevalence of America’s leading domestic terrorist organization, the Ku Klux Klan.
The Jacksonville-to-Orlando configuration, which the Florida Supreme Court directly objects to, was almost unanimously agreed to by the executive and legislative branches of Florida’s government in 1996, and, Brown contends, “has received bipartisan support ever since.”
The filing contends that the east-west configuration dilutes the minority vote, and contravenes the Voting Rights Act of 1965 by denying/abridging African-American suffrage in what is called “intentional discrimination.”
