Attorneys representing Florida voters squared off against state officials in court Friday, arguing that the state's newly drawn U.S. House districts were built to favor Republicans and violate a voter-approved constitutional ban on partisan gerrymandering. A state judge heard arguments on whether to block the map before midterm elections but gave no timetable for a ruling.
The hearing marked the first legal test of districts signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis after a two-day special legislative session. The Florida Legislature approved the new map on April 29, the same day the U.S. Supreme Court weakened federal Voting Rights Act protections for minorities and struck down a majority-Black congressional district in Louisiana.
What followed in Florida, and across the South, is a redistricting fight that will help decide which party controls the U.S. House. Republicans already hold 20 of Florida's 28 House seats. The new lines could improve the GOP's chances to win four more in November.
Florida voters approved a constitutional amendment in 2010 that prohibits U.S. House districts from being drawn with the intent to favor or disfavor a political party or incumbent. The same amendment bars districts from diminishing the ability of racial or language minorities to elect their preferred representatives, and it requires districts to be compact and to use existing political and geographic boundaries where feasible.
The lawsuits, filed on behalf of voters and backed by Common Cause among other groups, seek a temporary injunction to block the new map and reinstate districts used in previous elections. The arguments focus heavily on political favoritism.
Chris Shenton, an attorney for the challengers, told the court that 82 percent of voters in districts represented by Republicans remain in the same districts under the new map. Just 41 percent of voters in Democratic-held districts kept their same districts.
"It shows that Democratic districts are being targeted for reconfiguration. And why? To favor Republicans and disfavor Democrats. That is unconstitutional."
That 41-point gap is the statistical backbone of the plaintiffs' case. Whether a judge finds it persuasive enough to warrant emergency relief before a full trial remains an open question.
Attorneys for Florida's executive officials and lawmakers did not merely argue the facts. They mounted a broader constitutional challenge to the very amendment the plaintiffs rely on.
David Axelman, DeSantis' general counsel, asserted in a memo to lawmakers that the amendment's provision protecting racial minorities in redistricting violates the U.S. Constitution. If one element is invalid, Axelman wrote, the entire 2010 amendment is void, including the ban on partisan gerrymandering.
Mohammad Jazil, representing Florida's executive officials, pressed that argument in court Friday. He told the judge that the anti-gerrymandering provision and the racial-minority provision are inseparable.
"It is intertwined, it is interlocked, it is interwoven."
In other words, the state's position is that the Supreme Court's April 29 ruling gutting federal minority-voting protections may have fatally undermined the legal basis for Florida's own Fair Districts Amendment. If the racial provision falls, the state argues, so does the partisan-gerrymandering ban, and the lawsuits collapse with it.
The state also argued that partisan intent had not been proven and that a temporary injunction is not appropriate before a fully developed trial. DeSantis' office maintained that no racial data was used to prepare the new map he presented to the Legislature. It also said a southeastern district was created to help elect a Black representative in an attempt to comply with federal law.
That legal theory, that the entire 2010 amendment is now a dead letter, would have enormous consequences for Florida redistricting if a court accepts it. The political trajectory of DeSantis and the Florida GOP could be shaped by the outcome.
Florida is far from the only front. Congressional districts are typically redrawn once a decade after each census, but several states are redrawing lines mid-cycle in a fight for House control.
Republicans believe they could gain as many as 15 seats from new House maps across Texas, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Florida, Tennessee, and Alabama. Democrats think they could gain six seats from new maps in California and Utah. Democrats had also counted on winning up to four additional seats in Virginia, until the Virginia Supreme Court struck down a Democratic redistricting plan last week, ruling the legislature violated procedural requirements when placing it on the ballot. On Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a request to restore that map.
In Tennessee, a new House map gives Republicans a shot at winning all nine of the state's U.S. House seats. Democratic U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen of Memphis announced Friday that he is ending his reelection bid, a week after Tennessee Republicans enacted the new lines. Cohen's majority-Black district was reshaped.
The South Carolina House began debate Friday on a bill that would reshape U.S. House districts to try to help Republicans gain a seat and sweep all seven of the state's congressional districts. Republican Gov. Henry McMaster called lawmakers into a special session for that purpose.
"We have to have a functioning Congress."
McMaster said it is important for South Carolina to send as many Republicans to Washington as possible to try to prevent Democrats from taking control of the House. The proposal would move congressional primaries from the June 9 statewide primary to August. Debate is expected to continue into next week.
State Rep. Justin Bamberg of South Carolina gave a floor speech against the bill, framing it as driven by one person's influence. He did not mince words about where the pressure came from.
"How did we get here? One man made the call. He didn't call every state in this country. He didn't make calls across the North."
"Where'd he go? The place that since the beginning of this country, you go to take this country backwards. He went to the South."
Bamberg's rhetoric reveals where many Democrats have landed: casting redistricting as a regional grievance rather than engaging the legal merits. That framing may play well in certain districts, but it does not address the constitutional questions at the heart of the Florida case, or the broader political reality that both parties redraw maps when they hold the pen.
The 2019 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that the federal judiciary has no authority to decide whether partisan gerrymandering goes too far looms over every state-level fight. The Court said such claims could continue in state courts under state constitutions and laws. That decision pushed redistricting battles into state courthouses, which is exactly where Florida's case now sits.
On Friday, the Texas Supreme Court refused to declare that Democratic lawmakers had vacated their offices when they briefly fled the state to block a redistricting vote. That ruling kept Democratic members seated, a small win for opponents of the Texas redistricting push, but one that did not stop the underlying map effort.
The pattern across multiple states is clear. The April 29 Supreme Court ruling on Louisiana and the Voting Rights Act opened a window. Several Southern states moved quickly to try to eliminate minority districts that had elected Democrats. DeSantis called Florida lawmakers into session before the Supreme Court even issued its ruling in the Louisiana case, suggesting the governor anticipated the outcome and moved to capitalize.
Whether that speed constitutes partisan intent, the legal standard under Florida's 2010 amendment, is what the judge must now decide. The broader legislative momentum among Republicans in Washington and state capitals shows a party pressing its advantages while it holds them.
The Florida judge gave no indication of when he will rule on the temporary injunction. If the court blocks the new map, elections would proceed under the prior districts. If the court allows the new lines to stand, or accepts the state's argument that the entire Fair Districts Amendment is void, Florida's congressional landscape shifts sharply in the GOP's favor heading into November.
The case also raises a question that extends well beyond Florida: can a state executive use a federal court ruling to retroactively nullify a constitutional amendment that the state's own voters approved? The Axelman memo's logic, that one invalid provision voids the whole package, would effectively erase a reform that passed at the ballot box sixteen years ago.
Democrats, meanwhile, face an uncomfortable position nationally. They have struggled to mount effective counter-narratives against Republican political gains. Their redistricting losses in Virginia, Tennessee, and potentially Florida are compounding. The six seats they hope to gain in California and Utah may not offset the 15 seats Republicans are targeting elsewhere.
The math is unforgiving. And the legal terrain, after the Supreme Court's April 29 ruling, has shifted under Democrats' feet.
Both parties have redrawn maps to their advantage when they held power. That is not new. What is new is the speed, the coordination across multiple states, and the legal theory that a voter-approved anti-gerrymandering amendment can be wiped out because a separate federal ruling undermined one of its provisions. If that argument holds, the voters who passed the 2010 amendment will have had their reform taken from them, not at the ballot box, but in a courtroom.
The national political landscape heading toward 2028 will be shaped in part by how these redistricting fights resolve. House control is the immediate prize. But the precedent, on state constitutional amendments, on the reach of federal rulings into state law, on how fast legislatures can move when the legal ground shifts, will last far longer than one election cycle.
Voters in Florida told their government in 2010 how they wanted districts drawn. Whether that instruction still means anything is now up to a judge who hasn't said when he'll answer.
