Florida Takes a Stand Against Tribalism in Politics

The Florida Supreme Court’s recent 5–1 decision to uphold Gov. Ron DeSantis’s 2022 congressional map represents a sharp rebuke to the insidious notion that America’s political representation should be carved up like a racial spoils system. By rejecting the gerrymandered monstrosity of the former District 5—a 200-mile-long, serpentine construct stretching from Jacksonville to Tallahassee—the court reaffirmed a fundamental truth: the United States is a nation of equal citizens, not a federation of ethnic enclaves.

The old District 5 was a textbook case of racial gerrymandering, the ultimate contortion of geography to lump black voters into a single, politically engineered enclave. It treated black Floridians not as members of distinct communities with diverse interests, but an electoral monolith in a game of ethnic quotas. 

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The State Had Legal Precedent on Its Side

The U.S. Supreme Court has sided against such schemes before. In Shaw v. Reno (1993), the court ruled the districts so badly contorted that only race could explain it, and it violated the Constitution. Two years later, it reaffirmed this ruling in Miller v. Johnson (1995). 

Yet activists have twisted equal representation to mean that minorities cannot have equal representation unless they form district majorities. This is the model of the United Nations or a multinational empire. The Founders did not design the U.S. government that way, and neither did the Framers of the 15th Amendment, which guaranteed black citizens the right to vote.

The Florida Supreme Court’s ruling affirmed that the Voting Rights Act does not require states to draw majority-minority districts unless minorities form a sufficiently large and geographically compact group. The sprawling, non-compact District 5 failed that test.

Critics claimed Desantis violated Florida’s Fair Districts Amendment (FFDA), which forbids the state from drawing districts that disfavor a political party or “deny racial or language minorities the equal opportunity to participate in the political process and elect representatives of their choice.” The FFDA also stipulated, however, that “unless otherwise required, districts must be compact.”

But even if the only feasible interpretation of the FFDA was that it did forbid the state from breaking up racially gerrymandered districts, the court correctly noted, “When the Legislature undertook the task of congressional redistricting after the 2020 census, its obligation to comply with the [FFDA] was bounded by its superior obligation to comply with the Equal Protection Clause.”

The State Has History and Common Sense on Its Side

DeSantis’s map prioritizes compact, geographically coherent districts that reflect real communities with shared concerns, such as schools, infrastructure, and jobs specific to that area. Those who support racial gerrymandering believe America is not a unitary nation-state but a collection of diverse ethnic tribes who must each send tribal representatives to Congress or members of those tribes are denied “the equal opportunity to participate in the political process and elect representatives of their choice.” 

In the Tallahassee Democrat, Moné Holder, the Chief Advocacy and Political Officer at Florida Rising, ironically lamented, “Many of us had hoped the Florida Supreme Court would recognize the inherent unfairness of gerrymandered districts.” 

But the former District 5 was by far the most gerrymandered, uncompetitive district.

“Today, our Black and Brown communities could feel the brunt of this authoritarianism,” Holder added. “However, we draw strength and inspiration from the struggles of our ancestors, a testament to the fact that we can overcome even the darkest hours.”

Critics like Holder cry “disenfranchisement” based on an imaginary right to ethnic Congressional districts. But no such right exists, and no eligible citizen will be denied a ballot after this ruling. 

The claim that dismantling District 5 dilutes minority voting power rests on a flawed premise: that the Constitution guarantees group rights rather than individual rights. Minority citizens, like all citizens, have the right to vote—but not the right to a predetermined outcome. This line of thinking favors a reservation system for black Americans that never formed part of the American body politic. 

The broader stakes could not be clearer. Normalizing race-based districts marches us down a perilous road toward tribal politics, where minority voters are only “truly” represented by their own politicians. This erodes the concept of a shared civic identity. The United States is not a patchwork of ethnic nations like Serbs, Croats, and Bosniaks. The Indian tribal system represents the only example of that in the U.S. but that’s a unique case, as those nations predate the U.S. on this continent. 

The Florida Supreme Court rightly recognized that DeSantis’s map fosters genuine representation based around geographic proximity—just as the Founders intended. From a practical standpoint, this forces candidates to appeal to different constituencies in competitive districts rather than relying on ethnic bloc voting. By upholding a map that treats voters as individuals, the court set a precedent for fair, lawful redistricting that other states should emulate. America is at its best when it remembers that its strength lies in the shared bond of citizenship, not in tribal quotas. Florida has taken a bold step back toward that ideal. 

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