The Florida Supreme Court on Wednesday allowed new U.S. House districts drawn by Republicans to be used in the midterm elections, rejecting a request to block them while a lawsuit challenging the maps proceeds. The 6-1 decision denied a temporary injunction without ruling on the merits of the case, with the justices saying they lacked jurisdiction to intervene while the litigation plays out in lower courts.
The ruling provides some certainty for prospective congressional candidates who face a Friday deadline to qualify for the state’s Aug. 18 primaries. Republicans already hold 20 of Florida’s 28 U.S. House seats, and the new voting districts could improve the GOP’s chances of winning four additional seats in November, according to analysts.
The Florida Legislature approved the new House map on April 29 — the same day the U.S. Supreme Court weakened federal Voting Rights Act protections for minorities while striking down a majority-Black congressional district in Louisiana. DeSantis had called lawmakers into a special session before the high court’s ruling but had anticipated the outcome. The governor’s office said no racial data was used in the map he presented to the legislature. The new map redraws a southeastern Florida district that DeSantis’s office said was created to help elect a Black representative in an attempt to comply with the Voting Rights Act.
James Uthmeier, the Republican attorney general who defended the new districts in court, declared “complete and total victory” in a social media post.
Opponents expressed outrage and pledged to continue the court fight even though it may stretch into the 2028 election cycle. “The Florida Supreme Court’s failure to stop this brazen partisan power grab is not only an assault on democracy, but an abdication of its duty to the people of Florida,” said Genesis Robinson, executive director of Equal Ground, a community organizing group that sued.
“The new districts are a pretty clear partisan gerrymander,” said Amy Keith, executive director of Common Cause Florida. “We’re going to do everything we can to prevent this map from impacting further, future elections.”
Attorneys for voters who sued argued that the new congressional districts violate a state constitutional prohibition on partisan gerrymandering, approved by Florida voters in 2010. The amendment also prohibits districts from being drawn to deny or diminish the ability of racial or language minorities to elect the representatives of their choice, and requires districts to be compact and, where feasible, to use existing political and geographic boundaries.
Florida is one of several Republican-led states that have undertaken mid-decade redistricting as part of Donald Trump’s plan to try to hold on to a slim House majority in November by reshaping district boundaries to the GOP’s advantage. Since the U.S. Supreme Court’s Voting Rights Act ruling in April, several southern states have taken steps to try to eliminate minority districts that have elected Democrats.