Response Letter To NAACP (11!01!22)

BENJAMIN J.
GIBSON
PARTNER
Shutts & Bowen LLP
215 South Monroe Street
Suite 804
Tallahassee, FL 32301
DIRECT (850) 241-1723
FAX (850) 241-1718
EMAIL [email protected]
November 1, 2022
VIA ELECTRONIC MAIL AND U.S. MAIL

Janette McCarthy-Wallace
NAACP, Office of the General Counsel
4805 Mt. Hope Drive
Baltimore, MD 21215
[email protected]
RE: Leading for Our Future PAC Response to Letter Dated October 28, 2022
Dear Ms. McCarthy-Wallace:
This law firm represents Leading for our Future Political Action Committee (PAC). It
has come to our attention through posts on social media that you have written a letter to the
PAC’s chair, William Stafford Jones, dated October 28, 2022, regarding recent political
communications distributed by the PAC highlighting your organization’s long-standing policy
position opposing at-large voting districts.
We have reviewed your letter, as well as the political mailer our client has distributed
that appears to be the subject of your letter. At the outset, we cannot help noticing one glaring
omission from your letter: There is no denial that the quotation our client uses and attributes to
your organization is true. That’s because it is.
Our client’s mailer accurately contains a quote pulled from an NAACP Legal Defense
Fund FAQ regarding At-Large Voting.1 As you are aware, the NAACP LDF routinely
represents the NAACP’s branches in litigation relating to at-large voting. Below is the full
question and answer and the quote pulled and appearing in our client’s mailer is italicized and
underlined in bold word-for-word:
How does at-large voting affect communities of color?
Fewer and fewer districts still practice at-large voting. That is

because courts and other decision-makers long have recognized
that discriminatory methods of election, like at-large voting,
enhance the discrimination that communities of color experience
because of socioeconomic and other disparities in life opportunities
1AT-LARGE VOTING FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS, https://www.naacpldf.org/wp-

content/uploads/At-Large-Voting-Frequently-Asked-Questions-1.pdf, last visited October 31, 2022.
Janette McCarthy-Wallace
November 1, 2022
Page 2 of 2
between Black and white communities.
Furthermore, contrary to your assertion, nowhere in the mailer does it state that the
NAACP or the Alachua County Branch NAACP supports the Alachua County referendum on
single member districts. What it does state and represent is your organization’s long-standing
opposition to at-large voting and support for single-district voting. This is emphatically true.
In fact, as recently as 2019, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund sent a 6-page letter to the
Morgan County Commission in Alabama strongly opposing the new at-large districting
scheme.2 In 2018, the NAACP passed a resolution stating in part, “It would be difficult to
argue that at-large districts serve a compelling state interest when single member
districts allow minority groups a greater chance to choose a candidate of their choice. . .
.” 3 In addition, over 100 examples can easily be found of prior opposition by either the
NAACP, NAACP branches, or the NAACP Legal Defense Fund to at-large districts.4 Finally,
for many decades, the NAACP has routinely advocated in our nation’s courts against the use of
at-large elections by local governments. See, e.g., Brief of NAACP Legal Defense & Educational
Fund et al. in Rogers v. Lodge, 458 U.S. 613 (1982) (urging United States Supreme Court to affirm
the invalidation of an at-large districting scheme in Georgia on the grounds that at-large
districts “minimize or cancel out the voting strength of black citizens,” are “racially
discriminatory,” and were “an option well suited for maintaining the reins of government in the
hands of white citizens at the expense of black citizens.”).
Our client understands your organization’s long-standing support for single-member

districts may now differ from its desired political outcome in Alachua County, and therefore,
may not be something you would want voters in Alachua County to be aware of. Even so,
Leading for our Future PAC steadfastly believes, like Thomas Jefferson did, that “the best
defense of democracy is an informed electorate.” As a political committee, Leading for our
Future PAC legally has a right to reproduce truthful and accurate information as part of
undertaking lawful campaigns in support of its positions.
For these reasons, we have advised our client that it may continue its dissemination of
truthful and accurate information about positions your organization has taken on at-large
districts.
Respectfully,
Benjamin J. Gibson
SHUTTS & BOWEN LLP
2 Letter from NAACP Legal Defense Fund to Ray Long, Chair, Morgan County Commission, Alabama
(Feb. 7, 2019), https://www.naacpldf.org/wp-content/uploads/2019-02-07-Morgan-Co-Letter.pdf.
3 NAACP Resolution, Make the Right to Vote a Fundamental Right (2018),
https://naacp.org/resources/make-right-vote-fundamental-right.
4 A simple search of “at-large” on naacpldf.org returns 6 pages of 15 results on each page with examples
of strong opposition to “at-large” districts. See Your Search Results, NAACP Legal Def. Fund,
https://www.naacpldf.org/your-search-results/?_sf_s=%22at-large%22 (last visited Oct. 31, 2022).

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BENJAMIN J.

VIA ELECTRONIC MAIL AND U.S. MAIL

Dear Ms. McCarthy-Wallace:

How does at-large voting affect communities of color?

Fewer and fewer districts still practice at-large voting. That is

1AT-LARGE VOTING FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS, https://www.naacpldf.org/wp-

between Black and white communities.

Our client understands your organization’s long-standing support for single-member

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