{"id":272949,"date":"2026-05-16T00:07:16","date_gmt":"2026-05-16T00:07:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/272949\/"},"modified":"2026-05-16T00:07:16","modified_gmt":"2026-05-16T00:07:16","slug":"floridas-redistricting-map-faces-legal-challenge-over-partisan-gerrymandering","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/272949\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida\u2019s redistricting map faces legal challenge over partisan gerrymandering"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Three separate lawsuits have been filed against Florida\u2019s congressional redistricting map by Central Florida voting rights groups and individual voters.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">They argue the new map was drawn to illegally favor the Republican Party, potentially shifting the state\u2019s U.S. House delegation to a 24 to four GOP majority.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The plaintiffs are asking Judge Joshua Hawkes to issue a temporary injunction to strike down the new map. They contend the redistricting violates Florida\u2019s Fair Districts Amendment, which prohibits partisan gerrymandering in legislative boundaries.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Attorney Simone Leeper, representing the plaintiffs, argues the maps were drawn to favor the Republican Party. Leeper stated the redistricting is \u201cin violation of Florida\u2019s Fair Districts Amendment banning partisan gerrymandering.\u201d Attorneys representing Gov. Ron DeSantis claim there was no partisan intent in the map drawing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">This assertion comes even though partisan data was used in creating the new districts.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">If the new maps are invalidated, Orange County\u2019s elections office estimates a cost of approximately $300,000 in new voter information cards to residents.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wftv.com\/mobile-apps\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"elm:link;elmt:article_link;slk:Click here;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;Click here&quot;}\" class=\"link \">Click here<\/a> to download our free news, weather and smart TV apps. And <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wftv.com\/video\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"elm:link;elmt:article_link;slk:click here;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;click here&quot;}\" class=\"link \">click here<\/a> to stream Channel 9 Eyewitness News live.<\/p>\n<p><a data-ylk=\"ct:story;elm:img;itc:0;\" class=\"stretched-box\" href=\"https:\/\/wftvapps.com\/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\"><img alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"537\" height=\"108\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"rounded-lg\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/beda08358d6db9816e7b0d066edd22cf.jpeg\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Three separate lawsuits have been filed against Florida\u2019s congressional redistricting map by Central Florida voting rights groups and&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":272950,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[147,39199,28,30,29,116752,38652,34527,116751],"class_list":["post-272949","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-central-florida","tag-congressional-redistricting","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-joshua-hawkes","tag-partisan-gerrymandering","tag-republican-party","tag-simone-leeper"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272949","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=272949"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272949\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/272950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=272949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=272949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=272949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}