by Misty Severi
The Florida Supreme Court declined Wednesday to halt the use of a new congressional map that state Republicans passed earlier this year amid a mid-decade redistricting push.
Gov. Ron DeSantis had signed the map into law in May, after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a Louisiana redistricting case that the state’s existing congressional map that includes an additional majority-black district violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.
A Florida judge blocked a lawsuit from several Democratic groups that sued the state in May over the map, which could have given Republicans as much as a 24-4 advantage. Republicans in Florida currently hold a 20-8 majority in its U.S. congressional delegation.
The Florida Supreme Court upheld that ruling in a 6-1 split, according to The Hill, refusing the request to issue a temporary injunction against the new districts.
Attorneys for the voters who sued have argued the new House districts violate a state constitutional provision prohibiting partisan gerrymandering. They asked the court to order the state to continue using the same districts as in the previous election in the state’s August primaries.
Besides Florida, other Southern states have attempted to rework their congressional maps. Tennessee called a special session last month to redraw its congressional map, shifting the partisan split from 8-1 in favor of Republicans to 9-0. Tennessee Democrats attempted to sue over the new congressional map, but dropped their lawsuit this week.
South Carolina called a special session to redraw its congressional maps, but the Legislature failed to pass a new one. In Alabama, Republicans tried to redraw the state’s congressional map, but were blocked by a federal court.
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Misty Severi is a reporter for Just the News.  Zachery Schmidt is the digital editor of The Star News Network and contributed to this story.
Photo “Florida Supreme Court” by Urbantallahassee. CC BY-SA 4.0.
