Florida judge lets DeSantis's partisan map stand for 2026

Florida voters approved Amendments 5 and 6 — the Fair Districts Amendments — on November 2, 2010, with 63 percent of the vote, writing anti-gerrymandering standards directly into the Florida Constitution. The amendments banned the legislature from drawing congressional and state legislative maps that favor or disfavor a political party or incumbent, and required maps to follow county and city boundaries. The Republican-controlled Florida Legislature was the primary target, having drawn every redistricting map since 1992 to protect incumbent and partisan advantage.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed a congressional redistricting map on April 22, 2022, that split Black voters in Jacksonville across three separate districts, reducing Black voting-age population in each from over 45 percent to below 35 percent and eliminating the only majority-Black congressional district in northern Florida. DeSantis had vetoed the Florida Legislature's own map — drawn to comply with the voter-approved Fair Districts Amendment — and submitted a replacement drawn by his own staff with assistance from national Republican redistricting operatives. The move eliminated US Representative Al Lawson's seat, ending three decades of Black congressional representation in northeast Florida that began with Corrine Brown's 1992 election.