TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) \u2014 Groups across the Bay Area joined a national day of protests Saturday opposing the redrawing of congressional maps in Florida and other states.<\/p>\n
The national movement<\/a>, main-staged in Montgomery, Alabama, is called \u201cAll Roads Lead to the South.\u201d<\/p>\n Florida\u2019s new congressional map<\/a>, signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis, has been the subject of several lawsuits.<\/p>\n Protesters gathered outside Tampa City Hall and Largo Central Park, saying the redistricting efforts are dividing communities.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s dividing people, and\u2026 it\u2019s bad in the long term,\u201d said Jesse Skipper, who came from St. Petersburg.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re in the middle of a season, and they\u2019re just going to change the rules, change the districts, do things as they want?\u201d Stephen Finney in Largo said.<\/p>\n The latest redistricting push follows a request last year from President Donald Trump for Republican-led states to redraw congressional maps, as well as a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that limited how race can be used when drawing district lines under the Voting Rights Act of 1965.<\/p>\n The new congressional map signed by DeSantis last week could flip up to four Democratic-held U.S. House seats.<\/p>\n Democratic state Rep. Michele Rayner said the changes could weaken minority representation.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s absolutely the representatives picking their people and the people not picking their representatives,\u201d Rep. Rayner said. \u201cHere\u2019s the reality of the situation. If you did not have to cheat to win, you wouldn\u2019t do this.\u201d<\/p>\n DeSantis\u2019 general counsel told state lawmakers in a memorandum in April that a 2025 Florida Supreme Court ruling found the state could not draw districts based primarily on race, and that parts of the voter-approved Fair Districts Amendment passed in 2010 could no longer be enforced.<\/p>\n 4_27_26_Combined_PDF_Congressional_Map_Submission_by_Governor_DeSantis (1)<\/a>Download<\/a><\/p>\n A Florida judge held a hearing in one of the related lawsuits on Friday.\u00a0He said he will issue a\u00a0written ruling, but the timing is unknown as of right now.<\/p>\n