{"id":259646,"date":"2026-05-05T19:57:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T19:57:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/259646\/"},"modified":"2026-05-05T19:57:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T19:57:08","slug":"new-florida-congressional-map-sparks-legal-battle-over-partisan-gerrymandering-claims","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/259646\/","title":{"rendered":"New Florida congressional map sparks legal battle over partisan gerrymandering claims"},"content":{"rendered":"

Several lawsuits have been filed since Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a new congressional map on Monday<\/a> boosting the GOP advantage.<\/p>\n

And those suing say more than the map is at stake. <\/p>\n

“I think this says more about whether or not you have a state that is able to govern itself [and] allow the people to pass rules and policies that will be respected and protected,” said Genesis Robinson, executive director of Equal Ground Education Fund, which filed the first lawsuit. <\/p>\n

In 2010, Florida voters approved the “Fair Districts” amendments, which modified the state Constitution to in part block districts from being drawn with “the intent to favor or disfavor a political party or an incumbent.”<\/p>\n

Robinson said the map was “clearly” drawn to create a Republican advantage, making it unconstitutional. His organization joined a number of state voters in filing a lawsuit in Leon County’s circuit court soon after DeSantis signed the map. <\/p>\n

That map adds four GOP-leaning districts in Florida. This means the state could send twenty-four Republicans and only four Democrats to the U.S. House.<\/p>\n

“This is just a clear follow-up on the request of Donald Trump to create these districts for partisan reasons, and that’s why we’re filing suit and asking the court to intervene,” Robinson said. <\/p>\n

More lawsuits <\/a>have been filed by other advocacy organizations alleging the same partisan gerrymandering violation, setting up a legal showdown with big implications for the midterm elections and the U.S. House majority.<\/p>\n

DeSantis has said<\/a> he believes the courts will rule in his favor. <\/p>\n

His office didn’t respond to a media request. Neither did Florida House leadership. A Senate spokesperson declined to comment.<\/p>\n

If you have any questions about state government or the legislative process, you can ask the Your Florida team\u00a0by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This story was produced by WUSF as part of a statewide journalism initiative funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Several lawsuits have been filed since Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a new congressional map on Monday boosting the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":259647,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-259646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=259646"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259646\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/259647"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=259646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=259646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=259646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}