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Only federal courts can decide if redrawn congressional districts are constitutional, the Broward judge rules.
By LUCY MORGAN, Times Tallahassee Bureau Chief
© St. Petersburg Times, published June 18, 2002
In a victory for Republican lawmakers, a circuit judge in Broward County has dismissed a lawsuit challenging Florida's new congressional districts.
Only a federal court has jurisdiction to decide whether the 25 new districts created by state legislators and approved by Gov. Jeb Bush are constitutional, Judge Robert Lance Andrews ruled in an opinion filed late Monday.
The ruling came on the heels of a report from former independent presidential candidate John B. Anderson, who reviewed the case for Andrews and determined that the issues already are before a three-judge federal panel that will hear closing arguments Thursday.
The Broward lawsuit was filed by Democratic U.S. Reps. Carrie Meek, Alcee Hastings and Corrinne Brown, the state's only black representatives in Congress. Democrats had hoped for a friendlier hearing from a judge in Broward, a Democratic stronghold.
Republicans had sought to block the state suit, but the three federal judges allowed the parallel case to move forward.
"This is a matter for the exercise of federal jurisdiction," wrote Anderson in a special report submitted to the court after Anderson observed proceedings in federal court last week.
The decision followed by only a few days a similar order from a three-judge federal panel in Washington. Florida Attorney General Bob Butterworth had asked the Washington court to decide the issues around redistricting instead of leaving it in the hands of the three federal judges in Florida.
Andrews also removed Secretary of State Katherine Harris from the lawsuit, leaving only Butterworth to represent the state. The decision has little effect, since the judge also dismissed the lawsuit.