Florida Voters Sue Over Trump-DeSantis 'Gerrymander on Top of an Already Egregious Gerrymander'

As Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Friday did his part to advance President Donald Trump's gerrymandering spree by signing a rigged congressional map into law, state voters swiftly sued over the newly drawn districts.

"Signed, Sealed, Delivered," DeSantis posted on social media Monday, celebrating Florida's new US House of Representatives map that's expected to give the GOP a 24-4 advantage, up from 20-8. It's part of Trump's campaign to redraw districts in various Republican-governed states in hopes of keeping control of both chambers of Congress.

Meanwhile, Floridians supported by the National Redistricting Foundation (NRF) and the Equal Ground Education Fund filed a lawsuit against the state Legislature and Secretary of State Cory Byrd over the map in the Circuit Court of Leon County.

"In 2010, the people of Florida voted overwhelmingly to enact the Fair Districts Amendment to the state's constitution, imposing constraints on the worst abuses of congressional redistricting and entrusting the Florida judiciary to enforce those safeguards," notes the complaint, which goes on to highlight a map tossed out by the Florida Supreme Court in 2015.

The filing also lays out the current battle initiated by Trump last year: He pressured Texas Republicans to redraw their state's US House map. North Carolina and Missouri's GOP leaders followed suit, prompting voters in California and Virginia to support drawing new districts that favor Democrats, who aim to reclaim congressional majorities in the November midterm elections.

The complaint then lays out DeSantis' monthslong push to redraw Florida's districts to appease the increasingly authoritarian president, in violation of the state constitution. It stresses that recent "changes to Florida's congressional plan come on the heels of a 2022 redistricting plan that already substantially advantaged Republicans."

The state's new map "is, by traditional measures of partisan gerrymandering, one of the most extreme gerrymanders in American history," the document declares. It was "made by professionals with sophisticated tools and a clear partisan goal: to pack and crack Democratic voters with surgical precision and deprive Florida voters of a fair map guaranteed to them by the Florida Constitution."

The Democratic and unregistered Florida voters behind the case, who live in various districts, asked the court to block the latest rigged map from being used in this year's election and strike it down completely.

"Florida's mid-decade gerrymander is a blatant violation of the state's constitution," said NAF executive director Marina Jenkins in a statement. "This map is a gerrymander on top of an already egregious gerrymander that cracks apart numerous districts in nonsensical ways with the intent to favor one party over another."

"Given the clear violations of state law, this should be a clear-cut case," Jenkins added, "and all Floridians should see justice for this blatant attempt to reduce their rightful voting power even more than before."

The plaintiffs are represented by the Orlando-based firm King, Blackwell, Zehnder, & Wermuth as well as Elias Law Group, which was founded by Democratic election lawyer Marc Elias.

Nikki Fried, chair of the Florida Democratic Party, and US House Democratic Majority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) also spoke out against the new state map on Monday.

"The lame-duck governor of Florida is auditioning for Donald Trump's undying love after his presidential aspirations were crushed in 2024," Jeffries said in a statement. "Democrats have brutally thwarted the MAGA midterm power grab, and we will continue to push back aggressively. Today, less than a week after corrupt Republican legislators approved an unconstitutional partisan map leaked to a right-wing news outlet, Ron DeSanctimonious signed it into law."

"By his own lawyer's admission, these boundaries were drawn with partisan intent, a shameless disregard for Florida voters who overwhelmingly passed the Fair Districts Amendment to bar political favoritism and incumbent protection in 2010," Jeffries emphasized. "Ron DeSantis knows this gerrymander is a direct violation of Florida law."

As Politico reported Monday

A top aide for the GOP governor acknowledged last week that he relied on political data as part of his map drawing effort—a potential violation of "Fair Districts" standards.

Attorneys for DeSantis contended that these anti-gerrymandering standards no longer needed to be followed because the state Supreme Court last year ruled that the minority voter protections that were also part of the same amendment did not need to be strictly followed. They said the amendment was a "package" that could not be broken apart.

DeSantis and his Republican allies have also cited Florida's growth as a reason to redraw the lines, but the new map relies on the same 2020 US Census data that was used in the current map, which has been approved by both state and federal courts.

The fight playing out in Florida comes after the US Supreme Court last week gutted the remnants of the Voting Rights Act in a battle over Louisiana's congressional map that preceded Trump's gerrymandering campaign. Republican Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry responded by suspending a primary election already underway, sparking lawsuits from civil rights groups and voters.