GRACE, Inc. v. City of Miami

682 F.Supp.3d 1264

GRACE, INC., et al., Plaintiffs, v. CITY OF MIAMI, Defendant.

Case No. 1:22-cv-24066-KMM

United States District Court, S.D. Florida

Signed July 18, 2023

Caroline Andrews McNamara, American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, Miami, FL, Daniel Boaz Tilley, ACLU Foundation of Florida, Inc., Miami, FL, Christopher J. Merken, Pro Hac Vice, Jocelyn Kirsch, Pro Hac Vice, Dechert LLP, Philadelphia, PA, Neil A. Steiner, Pro Hac Vice, Dechert LLP, New York, NY, Nicholas Lyndol Villacor Warren, ACLU Foundation of Florida, Inc., Tallahassee, FL, for Plaintiffs GRACE, Inc., Engage Miami, Inc., South Dade Branch of The NAACP, Miami-Dade Branch of the NAACP, Clarice Cooper, Yanelis Valdes, Jared Johnson, Alexandra Contreras.

Caroline Andrews McNamara, American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, Miami, FL, Nicholas Lyndol Villacor Warren, ACLU Foundation of Florida, Inc., Tallahassee, FL, for Plaintiff Steven Miro.

Andre Velosy Bardos, George Ty Levesque, Jason Lawrence Unger, Gray Robinson, P.A., Tallahassee, FL, Christopher N. Johnson, Marlene Quintana, GrayRobinson, P.A., Miami, FL, Kevin Renard Jones, City of Miami Office of the City Attorney, Miami, FL, for Defendant.

ORDER

K. MICHAEL MOORE, UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

THIS CAUSE came before the Court upon Defendant City of Miami's ("Defendant") Motion to Dismiss Plaintiffs' First Amended Complaint as Moot. ("Mot.") (ECF No. 80). Plaintiffs filed a response ("Resp.") (ECF No. 84), and Defendant filed a reply.¹ ("Reply") (ECF No. 85). The Motion is now ripe for review.

I. BACKGROUND AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

The Court presumes the Parties' familiarity with the circumstances giving rise to the instant Action, and thus, only recites the relevant factual background.

On March 24, 2022, Defendant adopted Resolution 22-131 (the "Enacted Plan") which separated Miami into five separate commission districts. Plaintiffs subsequently filed the instant Action alleging that the Enacted Plan improperly considered race in the design of each of the five commission districts in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution. Then, Plaintiffs filed an Expedited Motion for Preliminary Injunction to enjoin Defendant from using the Enacted Plan in the upcoming election cycle. See (ECF No. 26). United States Magistrate Judge Lauren F. Louis issued a Report and Recommendations ("R&R") recommending that the Court grant the preliminary injunction. See (ECF No. 52). In turn, the Court adopted the R&R in full, thereby enjoining Defendant's use of the Enacted Plan. See (ECF No. 60).

Following the issuance of the preliminary injunction, the Court issued a Scheduling Order directing the Parties to attend mediation and establishing a procedure for how the Parties were to proceed if mediation proved unsuccessful. See (ECF No. 69). According to the Scheduling Order, should the Parties fail to reach an agreement during mediation, Defendant was required to enact and file its own proposed interim remedial map by June 30, 2023, and Plaintiffs would be entitled to file objections. See id.

Though mediation was unsuccessful, Defendant timely notified the Court that it had passed a new redistricting plan, Resolution 23-271 (the "Remedial Plan"), to replace the Enacted Plan. See (ECF No. 77). Plaintiffs filed Objections to the Remedial Plan shortly thereafter, see (ECF No. 83), and the Court has yet to rule on whether the new map redresses the unconstitutional racial gerrymandering that Plaintiffs proved was substantially likely to exist in the Enacted Plan. Nevertheless, Defendant subsequently filed the instant Motion arguing that the passage of the Remedial Plan renders the instant Action moot, and consequently, that the Court has no power to evaluate the Remedial Plan. See generally Mot. The Court addresses the mootness argument below.

II. LEGAL STANDARD

"The Constitution limits federal courts to deciding 'cases' and 'controversies.' " Fed. Election Comm'n v. Cruz, 596 U.S. 289, 142 S. Ct. 1638, 1646, 212 L.Ed.2d 654 (2022) (citation omitted). "Among other things, that limitation requires a plaintiff to have standing." Id. To establish Article III standing, a plaintiff must show (1) an injury in fact; (2) the injury must be fairly traceable to the challenged conduct of the defendant; and (3) the injury is likely to be redressed by the requested relief. See Lujan v. Defs. of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560-61, 112 S.Ct. 2130, 119 L.Ed.2d 351 (1992).

Further, because Article III of the United States Constitution limits a federal court's jurisdiction to actual cases and controversies, claims must remain "live" throughout their tenure in litigation to avoid being dismissed as moot. See DeFunis v. Odegaard, 416 U.S. 312, 316, 94 S.Ct. 1704, 40 L.Ed.2d 164 (1974); see also U.S. Fire Ins. Co. v. Caulkins Indiantown Citrus Co., 931 F.2d 744, 747 (11th Cir. 1991) ("In addition, the controversy must be 'live' throughout the case; federal jurisdiction is not created by a previously existing dispute."). A claim is mooted "when it no longer presents a live controversy with respect to which the court can give meaningful relief." Yunker v. Allianceone Receivables Mgmt., Inc., 701 F.3d 369, 372 (11th Cir. 2012) (quotations omitted). There is no live controversy "only when it is impossible for a court to grant any effectual relief whatever to the prevailing party." Knox v. SEIU, Loc. 1000, 567 U.S. 298, 307, 132 S.Ct. 2277, 183 L.Ed.2d 281 (2012).

III. DISCUSSION

Defendant argues that because it passed the Remedial Plan as a wholesale replacement of the Enacted Plan, the instant Action is no longer justiciable and there is no longer any dispute. See generally Mot. Plaintiffs respond that in the redistricting context, the Court has a continuing responsibility to ensure that a remedial map does not retain the unconstitutional aspects of the prior enjoined map. See generally Resp. According to Plaintiffs, the Court's obligation to engage in this continuing review stems from the Court's power to fashion an appropriate remedy. See id. at 4-5. For the reasons discussed below, the Court agrees with Plaintiffs.

i. The Action is not Moot

To determine whether the instant Action is moot, the Court need not look much further than well-established Supreme Court precedent. "The Supreme Court long has held that when a federal court concludes that a state districting plan violates the Constitution, the appropriate state redistricting body should have the first opportunity to enact a plan remedying the constitutional violation." Covington v. N.C. (Covington II), 283 F. Supp. 3d 410, 424 (M.D.N.C. 2018) (citing Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533, 84 S.Ct. 1362, 12 L.Ed.2d 506 (1964)) aff'd in relevant part, 585 U.S. 969, 138 S. Ct. 2548, 201 L.Ed.2d 993 (2018). Crucially, however, after a court has found a substantial likelihood of unconstitutional race-based discrimination, the district court must ensure that any remedial plan "so far as possible eliminate[s] the discriminatory effects of the past as well as bar[s] like discrimination in the future." La v. United States, 380 U.S. 145, 154, 85 S.Ct. 817, 13 L.Ed.2d 709 (1965). If the legislature fails to "enact a constitutionally acceptable" remedial plan, then "the responsibility falls on the District Court." Chapman v. Meier, 420 U.S. 1, 27, 95 S.Ct. 751, 42 L.Ed.2d 766 (1975); see also Covington II, 283 F. Supp. 3d at 424.

But, according to Defendant, not only has the Court been stripped of its power to ensure that the Remedial Plan is constitutionally acceptable ahead of the upcoming election cycle, but also, the passage of the Remedial Plan moots the instant Action entirely. See generally Mot. Simply put, Defendant argues that the Court is foreclosed from evaluating the constitutionality of the Remedial Plan because it "wholly replaces the [Enacted] Plan," and Plaintiffs' Amended Complaint focuses solely on alleged unconstitutional defects of the Enacted Plan. Resp. at 6

Defendant's argument is unavailing. In fact, the Supreme Court has addressed and rejected a mootness argument that is almost identical to Defendant's. See N.C. v. Covington (Covington III), 585 U.S. 969, 138 S. Ct. 2548, 201 L.Ed.2d 993 (2018) (per curiam). As is the case here, the defendants in Covington III argued that "plaintiffs' racial gerrymandering claims ceased to exist when the [legislature] enacted remedial plans for the State House and State Senate and repealed the old plans." Id. at 2552. The Court flatly rejected the argument. According to the Court, "the plaintiffs' claims that they were organized into legislative districts on the basis of their race did not become moot simply because the General Assembly drew new district lines around them. To the contrary, [the plaintiffs] argued in the District Court that some of the new districts were mere continuations of the old, gerrymandered districts." Id. at 2553. The Court further elaborated, "[b]ecause the plaintiffs asserted that they remained segregated on the basis of race, their claims remained the subject of a live dispute, and the District Court properly retained jurisdiction."² Id.

Equally as illustrative is the Middle District of Florida's consideration of how to approach the evaluation of a remedial map when a court has found the original map substantially likely to be unconstitutional. Jacksonville Branch of NAACP v. City of Jacksonville (Jacksonville II), 2022 WL 17751416, at *11 (M.D. Fla. Dec. 19, 2022). There, the court explained that when "the legislative body enacts a new redistricting plan in an effort to remedy the constitutional violation, this plan 'will then be the governing law unless it, too, is challenged and found to violate the constitution.' " See id. (quoting Wise v. Lipscomb, 437 U.S. 535, 539, 98 S.Ct. 2493, 57 L.Ed.2d 411 (1978)). However, in concluding that a court has a continuing obligation to ensure the new map passed constitutional muster, the Jacksonville II Court explained that it had the ...