{"id":258107,"date":"2026-05-04T19:13:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T19:13:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/258107\/"},"modified":"2026-05-04T19:13:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T19:13:11","slug":"desantis-moves-to-gerrymander-florida-days-after-supreme-court-guts-voting-rights-act-jurist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/258107\/","title":{"rendered":"DeSantis moves to gerrymander Florida days after Supreme Court guts Voting Rights Act – JURIST"},"content":{"rendered":"

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis unveiled<\/a> on Monday a new congressional map that would carve out four additional Republican-friendly seats in the state \u2014 a move made significantly easier by a Supreme Court ruling<\/a> just days earlier that gutted the primary legal tool minority voters have used for four decades to challenge discriminatory maps.<\/p>\n

The GOP-heavy proposal, which the Republican-controlled state legislature is expected to approve in a special session this week, could be in place before the 2026 midterms. DeSantis framed the map as a corrective to the 2020 Census and a step toward eliminating race-based districting \u2014 even as critics said it would dilute Black voting power in a state where race-conscious maps had been legally required.<\/p>\n

The timing was no coincidence. Last Wednesday, the Supreme Court\u2019s 6-3 ruling in Callais v. Robinson<\/a> overhauled the legal framework<\/a> courts have used since 1986 to evaluate minority voting rights claims, making it substantially harder for plaintiffs to challenge redistricting plans as racially discriminatory.<\/p>\n

Writing for the majority, Justice Samuel Alito held that plaintiffs bringing claims under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act<\/a> must now prove that racially polarized voting cannot be explained by partisanship alone, a standard critics say will be nearly impossible to meet. Under the new framework, a state can draw maps that predictably disadvantage minority voters as long as it can attribute the outcome to political rather than racial motivations. \u201cIf a Section 2 plaintiff cannot disentangle race from the State\u2019s race-neutral considerations, including politics,\u201d Alito wrote, \u201cthen Section 2 cannot impose liability.\u201d<\/p>\n

The map\u2019s legal rationale<\/a> made clear it was engineered around the anticipated Callais outcome, not drafted after the fact. In a letter accompanying the proposal, the governor\u2019s general counsel David Axelman wrote that \u201cthe Supreme Court is poised to affirm this basic non-discrimination principle in Louisiana v. Callais\u201d \u2014 a ruling that had not yet come down when DeSantis submitted the map to lawmakers on April 27.<\/p>\n

The governor\u2019s office went further, arguing that Florida\u2019s own voter-approved anti-gerrymandering rules \u2014 the 2010 Fair Districts Amendments<\/a> to the state constitution \u2014 are themselves unconstitutional because they require lawmakers to account for race when drawing districts. \u201cThe use of race in redistricting should never happen,\u201d Axelman wrote, arguing that because the amendments lack a severability clause, striking the racial provisions would take down the entire voter-approved framework with them.<\/p>\n

The effort is part of a broader mid-decade redistricting push that President Donald Trump has encouraged<\/a> Republican governors in red states to pursue.<\/p>\n

Democrats and voting rights advocates warned the SCOTUS ruling could mark a turning point in the dismantling of minority voting protections. \u201cThis decision is a profound betrayal of the legacy of the civil rights movement,\u201d said<\/a> Sophia Lin Lakin of the ACLU\u2019s Voting Rights Project after last week\u2019s ruling. \u201cThe Court has weakened the primary legal tool that voters of color rely on to challenge discriminatory maps.\u201d<\/p>\n

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