Court rips up Florida’s congressional map

The Florida Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that some congressional districts drawn by the state’s GOP-led legislature are unconstitutional and ordered them to be changed before the 2016 elections. 

In a 5-2 ruling, the court concluded a 2012 redistricting process and resulting map favored Republicans and incumbents. The court directed the Legislature to redraw eight of the state’s 27 districts. 

{mosads}Those districts include seats held by Democratic Reps. Corrine Brown (5th), Kathy Castor (14th), Ted Deutch (21st), Lois Frankel (22nd) and Republican Reps. Mario Díaz-Balart (25th) and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (27th). 

They also include districts for 2016 battleground races involving Republican Reps. Carlos Curbelo (26th) and David Jolly (13th), and any neighboring districts affected by the redo, affecting much of the state map.

The court called for the Legislature to expedite its redrawing of the eight districts ahead of the elections and chastised lawmakers for their previous work on the boundaries.

“[T]he Legislature itself proclaimed that it would conduct the most open and transparent redistricting process in the history of the state, and then made important decisions, affecting numerous districts in the enacted map, outside the purview of public scrutiny,” the ruling said.

A circuit court judge had ruled last year that some of the congressional districts were unconstitutional and violated anti-gerrymandering laws.

The Florida Supreme Court sided Thursday with a collection of Democratic-backed voter groups concluding that districts drawn by lawmakers violated provisions of the “Fair Districts” amendments to the state Constitution. 

“This is a complete victory for the people of Florida who passed the Fair District amendment and sought fair representation where the Legislature didn’t pick their voters,” said David King, lead attorney for the League of Women Voters which brought the challenge, according to the Miami Herald. 

“The Supreme Court accepted every challenge we made and ordered the legislature to do it over,” King added.

Plaintiffs in the case had attempted to get a lower court to redraw the entire congressional map, citing the 2010 voter-approved amendment to curb districting that favored political parties or incumbents.