Florida Sued Over DeSantis‑Drawn US House Map Favoring GOP (1)

Liberal voters are suing Florida, alleging that a new congressional map signed Monday by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) violates a state constitutional provision against political gerrymandering.

The new map gives Republicans an advantage in 24 of the state’s 28 congressional seats—four more seats than Republicans currently hold. The complaint argues that the lines—drawn explicitly to aid conservative candidates—violates Sec. 20 of the constitution, which says “no apportionment plan or individual district shall be drawn with the intent to favor or disfavor a political party or incumbent.”

“Florida has become the latest battleground in an unprecedented nationwide effort to redraw congressional maps for partisan gain outside the traditional decennial redistricting cycle,” says the complaint, filed in Leon County. But unlike other states like Texas and California, “Florida’s constitution continues to expressly prohibit partisan gerrymandering—a constraint the Legislature chose to ignore.”

Attorney General James Uthmeier (R), who will be defending the map, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Racial Gerrymandering

DeSantis signed the map legislation Monday, less than a week after the US Supreme Court struck a blow to plaintiffs suing over racial gerrymandering under the federal Voting Rights Act.

In a press conference last week DeSantis claimed that the federal ruling “not only vindicated what we were doing, it compelled what we were doing,” referencing the US Supreme Court majority opinion that greatly limited the instances in which race could be considered when drawing political districts.

With its large Hispanic and Black populations, Florida has long been a hotbed for racial gerrymandering litigation. Until 2013, five counties were required to clear proposed election law changes with the US Justice Department out of concern that minorities would be discriminated against at the polls.

The all-Republican Florida Supreme Court has been skeptical of racial gerrymandering cases. Last year the court rejected a challenge to a DeSantis-drawn map that eliminated the district of former Rep. Al Lawson (D)—a Black man who won his 2020 race by 35 points, but lost under the new lines by nearly 20 points to Rep. Neal Dunn (R), who is White, in 2022.

“I said last year we’d have to do this because of the racial gerrymandering being done in southern Florida,” DeSantis said.

Severability

Testimony and debates before a legislative special session last month revealed DeSantis’ legal team’s strategy. They have advised Republicans that they can ignore the state’s anti-gerrymandering provisions.

Their theory is that the US Supreme Court would entirely ban consideration of race in map-drawing, and therefore the state’s anti-gerrymandering laws would be entirely invalid.

But the nation’s high-court didn’t go that far, leaving the state open to an attack that Florida’s partisan line-drawing ban still stands, and the partisan-ban also could be “severed” from the racial gerrymandering portion of the law if that was found unconstitutional.

“It is this Court’s duty, given to it by the citizens of Florida, to enforce adherence to the constitutional requirements and to declare a redistricting plan that does not comply with those standards constitutionally invalid,” the complaint said, quoting a prior Florida Supreme Court decision. “Florida’s voters ask this Court to uphold that duty here.”

Elias Law Group and King, Blackwell, Zehnder and Wermuth represent the voters.

The case is Equal Ground Educ. Fund v. Byrd, Fla. Cir. Ct., No. 247396571, complaint filed 5/4/26.