Another lawsuit is filed by a candidate in District 1
The highest court in the land has ruled that the city of Miami’s carefully crafted redistricting map will stand for the Nov. 7 election, in which three commissioners are on the ballot.
A lawsuit brought by residents, with the NAACP and the ACLU, to nix the map for racial gerrymandering will still be heard next year. But the city’s second map, redrawn after a lower court judge ruled against it, stands for now.
Basically, the justices said the city’s map didn’t disenfranchise black people. It’s constitutionally a-ok.
Sure, the redistricting may have politically benefited the Republican Party and some commissioners — Joe Carollo‘s $2.8 million Morris Lane house is now in his district and Alex Diaz de la Portilla actually had an opponent drawn out of his — but that’s okay. Sure, the map may have been drawn to maintain the ethnic make-up there is now, but isn’t that what redistricting is for?
Read related: Joe Carollo votes to keep his house — and other Miami redistricting madness
There’s still another lawsuit, however.
Miguel Angel Gabela, who is running against Diaz de la Portilla and has been campaigning for the since February, was drawn out of District 1. He has sued so that he can stay in the race. Attorney David Winker said the city did not properly notice the meeting and took public comment after officials said they would not.
“The city did not follow the rules and manipulated the process to dampen public participation and pass a map that was to the advantage to the commissioners,” Winker said. “We can disagree as to what the map should look like, but we can all agree that the city must follow its own code and state law on conducting the meeting and passing the resolution with the new map.”
So he’s basing the challenge on a technicality?
Gabela said he hopes the judge sees the bigger picture.
“It’s ridiculously obvious what he’s doing,” Gabela said.
The auto parts dealer went to the second public meeting on the redistricting and spoke at 10:30 a.m., telling commissioners he was a candidate and had lived in the district for 20 years. “Maybe they didn’t know my house had been cut out of the district, but now they knew,” he told Ladra.
At 3:30 p.m., when the commissioners came back from recess, they started horse trading properties. Commission Chairwoman Christine King really wanted some barbecue place in her district and swapped it with another commissioner. But nobody spoke up to put Gabela’s house back in D1.
“They could have resolved the problem. But they didn’t,” Gabela told Ladra. “Because it was done intentionally.”
Read related: Miami commission doesn’t want public comment or input on new redistricting
ADLP had every opportunity to tell the consultant to put Gabela’s house back in the district where he’s lived for 20 years, where he came in second to the commissioner in 2019. And he would have looked like a hero. Confident.
Instead, you can tell that his polling isn’t great.
Meanwhile, the city is celebrating Thursday’s victory.
“The City of Miami is gratified that our City map is now settled for the 2023 fall election,” reads a statement emailed Thursday afternoon. “The U.S. Supreme Court denied the plaintiff’s application to vacate the Eleventh Circuit’s decision to impose a stay, which now allows the districting map adopted by the City to be used in the November 2023 municipal election.
“The City will continue to work on behalf of all residents to provide district maps that are fair, equitable and representative and in line with all legal requirements.”
Read related: Miami Commissioner ADLP gets yet another delay on foreclosure auction
Diaz de la Portilla must be smug. In a statement to the Miami Herald, The Dean said residents “won big today as our nation’s highest court recognized that political shenanigans by special interest groups will not be tolerated by an impartial Supreme Court.
“They said enough is enough and I agree,” the commissioner wrote. “Our City Commission approved maps meet constitutional standards and protect our City of Miami neighborhoods. End of story.”
He said nothing about carving his opponent’s house out of the district.
US Supreme Court says city of Miami can use its redistricting map for election added by Ladra on
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