Decision May Affect November Elections

WASHINGTON, D.C. (July 11, 2014) – In a case with national political implications, Perkins Coie won a significant victory on behalf of Florida voters who challenged the lawfulness of Florida’s congressional voting map. Filed in February 2012, the lawsuit alleged that the voting map enacted by the Florida Legislature violated a provision of the Florida Constitution that prohibits the Legislature from drawing voting maps that favor one political party over another or that protect incumbent members of the United States Congress. After more than two years of intensive discovery battles that included a landmark interlocutory ruling from the Supreme Court of Florida allowing the deposing of sitting members of the Florida Legislature, the case went to trial in May 2014before a state court judge, the Honorable Terry Lewis, in Tallahassee, FL. The three-week trial included approximately 20 witnesses, including the Speaker of the Florida House, the President of the Florida Senate, other members of the Florida Legislature, and multiple political science and redistricting experts.

In his 41-page decision issued yesterday, Judge Lewis ruled that the congressional voting map is infected with partisan political intent and violates the Florida Constitution. Consistent with the evidence the Perkins Coie team and co-counsel presented, Judge Lewis found that paid political operatives in Florida conducted a secretive redistricting process, out of public view, and conspired to circumvent the constitutional prohibition against drawing districts that favor a political party. The opinion finds that members of the Legislature either knew of the conspiracy or willfully ignored it. Judge Lewis found specifically that the Legislature politically gerrymandered Congressional Districts 5 and 10 in Central Florida, and he ordered that those districts, plus several districts adjacent to them, must be redrawn. The remedy phase of the proceeding is expected to occur within the next month, and it could result in fundamental changes to the congressional voting map that will be used in the upcoming November elections..

Working alongside co-counsel King, Blackwell & Zehnder, the Perkins Coie team included Washington, D.C. partners John Devaney and Marc Elias; Seattle partner Kevin Hamilton; Seattle counsel Abha Khanna; Washington, D.C. counsel Ryan Spear; and Washington, D.C. associate Lis Frost. 

Click here to read the decision.

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