Appeals court says trial judge overstepped in ruling on DeSantis' redistricting map
Source: Miami Herald
An appeals court Friday said a circuit judge issued a “patently unlawful” temporary injunction against a congressional redistricting plan pushed through the Legislature by Gov. Ron DeSantis, giving another sign that the controversial plan likely will be used in this year’s elections.
A three-judge panel of the 1st District Court of Appeal issued a 20-page ruling that explained its reasons last week for putting a stay on the temporary injunction. Leon County Circuit Judge Layne Smith issued the temporary injunction May 12, siding with voting-rights groups that challenged the constitutionality of the redistricting plan.
While Friday’s ruling stemmed from the stay, the appellate panel sharply criticized the temporary injunction, which also directed the use of a different congressional map.
“The temporary injunction before us on appeal does not just return the parties to the condition that existed before the subject matter at the center of the present controversy arose, i.e., before SB 2-C [the DeSantis-backed plan] became law,” said the ruling, written by Judge Adam Tanenbaum and joined by Judges Harvey Jay and M. Kemmerly Thomas. “The order does much more. It gives the appellees [the voting-rights groups and other plaintiffs] affirmative relief by requiring the secretary to conduct the 2022 congressional elections under an entirely new, unenacted plan recently proposed by the appellees during the nascent litigation. In the order, the circuit court even acknowledges that it is crafting a remedy for the appellees until there can be a trial. The grant of this provisional remedy, unmoored from an adjudication, was an unauthorized exercise of judicial discretion, making the temporary injunction unlawful on its face.”
Read more: https://www.yahoo.com/news/appeals-court-says-trial-judge-220919905.html
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