Federal judge blocks Florida restrictive voting law
By: NBC News
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
March 31, 2022, 5:48 PM UTCBy Jane C. Timm
A federal judge barred Florida from enforcing the bulk of its new restrictive voting law on Thursday, siding with opponents who said the law was discriminatory and needlessly infringed on Floridians' voting rights.
The ruling, which will likely be appealed, is the first major invalidation of a spate of restrictive new election laws passed in Republican-controlled states last year, fueled by voter fraud anxieties and President Donald Trump's stolen election lie.
The Florida law, known as Senate Bill 90, added new restrictions on drop boxes, third-party voter registration, mail voting, and "line warming" activities like giving voters food and water while they wait in line to cast a ballot. It was challenged last May in federal court by voting rights advocates led by the League of Women Voters of Florida.
March 3, 202201:30
In a stinging 288-page ruling, U.S. District Court Chief Judge Mark Walker declared the bulk of the state's new voting rules unconstitutional and issued a permanent injunction barring their enforcement.
The plaintiffs "allege that SB 90 runs roughshod over the right to vote, unnecessarily making voting harder for all eligible Floridians, unduly burdening disabled voters, and intentionally targeting minority voters — all to improve the electoral prospects of the party in power," Walker, who was nominated by former President Barack Obama, wrote. "Having reviewed all the evidence, this Court finds that, for the most part, Plaintiffs are right."
Walker writes in his ruling that certain provisions of the law intentionally discriminated against Black voters — though he notes the plaintiffs were not able to prove intentional discrimination against Latino voters — and says that the law fundamentally was designed with partisan aims.
"If the Legislature were merely reacting to the political mood, we would expect to see the Legislature carpet-bomb the election code," Walker wrote, citing testimony from Dr. Morgan Kousser, an expert witness in the case. "This Court finds that the Legislature enacted SB 90 to improve the Republican Party's electoral prospects, not to respond to the general political mood."
The judge also ordered Florida to submit to a process known as "preclearance," using Section 3(C) of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, a part of the law that allows courts to force jurisdictions to get pre-approval on election law changes.
Under the order, Florida must clear voting law or regulation changes with Walker's court for the next ten years, when those changes involve third-party voter registration organizations, drop boxes, or line-warming activities.
The ruling is in many ways a hearty defense of the Voting Rights Act and a call for federal courts to firmly enforce it. Repeatedly quoting Martin Luther King, Jr., Walker's decision defends judicial branch power to police discrimination in elections, while acknowledging that other, higher courts — including the U.S. Supreme Court — have declined to do so.
"This is an opinion that full throatedly reads the Voting Rights Act in the expansive way that Congress intended it to be read, and essentially dares the higher courts to overrule it," said Rick Hasen, an election law expert at the University of California, Irvine.
He noted the application of preclearance was particularly surprising, because the parties of the suit had spent little time arguing the issue and included less than six pages of briefs between both parties.
Jane C. Timm
Jane C. Timm is a senior reporter for NBC News.
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DeSantis is on a hell of a losing streak.
The good news is if he drops out of the presidential race, he will still be your governor.
Cheers to that!!!
He will be for another three years and then he will fall into the dust bin of history.
Cheers to that as well.
No, the right guess is he will run again in 2028 no matter if Biden or Trump wins 2024, and will handily win 2 terms.
That will really tick off liberals.
Good!!!
No, the right guess is he will run again in 2028 no matter if Biden or Trump wins 2024, and will handily win 2 terms.
That will really tick off liberals.
Good!!!
He will have been out of office (governor) for two years by then he will be pretty much be forgotten since he couldn't win in 2024.
I doubt it but you certainly are free to imagine what a loser like DeSantis will do.
Cheers.
He's on a race to the bottom, one he can win.
He is leading the pack, and that is not a good thing.
the law was discriminatory and needlessly infringed on Floridians' voting rights
gee, what kind of unamerican scum would write or sign a law like that into existence? /s
Mr. ''These Boots Are Made For Walking'' is stumbling into oblivion.
Sounds like they didn't even try defending it.
DeSantis top notch legal team is to busy writing appeals.
Truly a shame that the Second Amendment can be used only by those who desire to take away freedoms instead of the other way around.
As far as DeSantis----he'll never have Ivanka.
LOL, probably not.
... and she'll never have him, Casey is the puppet master.
Excellent ruling. Very encouraging.
You guys still fall for this?
The Dems forum shop for this judge, who assigns every DeSantis case to himself. He then writes a hysterical opinion that generates lots of media coverage. He gets reversed on appeal with the appellate court trashing his dishonesty.
Rinse, Repeat.
Heres' what they wrote the last time they reversed him a few months ago.
This happens every few months. I'd hope you'd catch on by now.
Well, then you should be quite pleased. You do realize that there are a number of other cases pending that have not been overturned, right?
And it seems that you keep falling for DeSantis as he races to the bottom of the heap. Your kind of guy a loser.
BTW, pointing fingers on judge shopping is living in a glass house, the right is famous for doing just that.