Background
Petitioners challenged Florida’s 2026 congressional redistricting map, alleging violations of the Fair Districts Amendment in Article III, Section 20 of the Florida Constitution. The trial court denied a temporary injunction on May 26, 2026, and an appeal of that denial was docketed in the First District Court of Appeal on May 27, 2026. With a candidate-filing deadline of June 12, 2026, and a primary election scheduled for August 18, 2026, petitioners sought emergency relief directly from the Florida Supreme Court via a constitutional (all-writs) petition, asking the court to intervene in the ongoing First District proceeding.
The First District had already declined, on June 1, 2026, to certify the appeal to the Supreme Court under the “pass-through” provision of Article V, Section 3(b)(5) of the Florida Constitution, and on June 3, 2026, it also denied a motion to expedite its own review. This procedural posture closely mirrored a 2023 episode involving Florida’s 2024 congressional map, in which the First District similarly declined pass-through certification—a decision the Supreme Court later criticized in Black Voters Matter Capacity Bldg. Inst., Inc. v. Secretary, Florida Department of State, 415 So. 3d 180 (Fla. 2025) (Byrd II).
Petitioners argued that the urgency of the approaching election deadline, combined with the constitutional importance of the Fair Districts claims, warranted immediate Supreme Court intervention. The court considered the petition on an expedited basis and issued its ruling the same day, with a majority, a special concurrence, and a dissent.
The Court’s Holding
The Florida Supreme Court denied the petition for a constitutional writ by a 5-2 vote (Chief Justice Muñiz and Justices Couriel, Grosshans, Francis, and Sasso in the majority; Justice Tanenbaum specially concurring; Justice Labarga dissenting). The court held that it lacked jurisdiction over the matter while the First District’s consideration of the non-final-order appeal remained ongoing, reiterating that the all-writs doctrine is not an independent source of jurisdiction. The court expressly declined to assume that the First District’s eventual decision would provide a basis for Supreme Court review, and stated that no motions for rehearing would be considered.
Justice Tanenbaum’s special concurrence elaborated that the underlying appeal in the First District presented only an abuse-of-discretion question on a procedural, non-merits ruling—the denial of a temporary injunction—and that it was far from certain the First District’s eventual decision would expressly construe a constitutional provision in a way that would trigger the Supreme Court’s discretionary jurisdiction. He further defended the First District’s decision not to certify the case for pass-through review, characterizing that as a proper exercise of the district court’s independent judgment, and criticized petitioners for pursuing the temporary-injunction route rather than seeking an expedited final judgment on the merits.
Justice Labarga dissented, arguing that jurisdiction was not merely speculative because every claim in the complaint rested on the Fair Districts Amendment, making Supreme Court review of the eventual First District decision virtually certain. He expressed serious concern that the First District had, for a second time in three years in a substantially similar context, declined to invoke pass-through jurisdiction in time-sensitive congressional redistricting litigation, and that the court’s denial meant millions of Floridians would vote under a map whose constitutionality could not be reviewed before the election.
Key Takeaways
- The all-writs doctrine does not give the Florida Supreme Court independent jurisdiction to intervene in an appeal actively pending before a district court of appeal; the court will not assume jurisdiction simply because the underlying matter is urgent or constitutionally significant.
- Whether a district court certifies an appeal for pass-through review under Article V, Section 3(b)(5) is a discretionary call belonging to that court, and the Supreme Court declined to admonish the First District for choosing not to certify a non-final-order, abuse-of-discretion appeal involving a preliminary injunction denial.
- A trial court’s ruling on a temporary injunction is a procedural, non-merits determination; its appeal presents only an abuse-of-discretion question and will not necessarily “expressly construe” a constitutional provision so as to invoke the Supreme Court’s discretionary jurisdiction under Article V, Section 3(b)(5).
- The dissent signals ongoing tension between the Florida Supreme Court and the First District over the handling of time-sensitive redistricting cases, and raises the likelihood that the Fair Districts claims will ultimately reach the Supreme Court after the 2026 election cycle.
Why It Matters
The decision leaves Florida’s 2026 congressional map in place through the June 12, 2026, candidate-filing deadline and likely through the August primary, even as a constitutional challenge under the Fair Districts Amendment remains unresolved in the lower courts. For election-law practitioners, the ruling reinforces that emergency Supreme Court jurisdiction in Florida must rest on a concrete constitutional hook—not on time pressure alone—and that the vehicle chosen for seeking relief (a temporary injunction rather than an expedited merits proceeding) can affect the appellate path available.
More broadly, the fractured opinions highlight a structural tension in Florida’s appellate system: the First District’s repeated refusals to certify high-stakes redistricting matters for pass-through review, despite prior criticism from the Supreme Court in Byrd II, suggests that the two courts continue to disagree over which forum should exercise primary control over constitutional redistricting disputes. The dissent’s warning that millions of Floridians may again vote under a potentially unconstitutional map echoes the pattern from the 2024 election cycle, and sets the stage for further litigation after the election.