TALLAHASSEE, Florida — The Florida Supreme Court on Thursday ordered the redrawing of at least eight of the state’s 27 U.S. congressional districts, including some in the most populous areas, before the 2016 elections.
In a 5-2 ruling, the state’s high court affirmed an earlier ruling that the Legislature’s redistricting plan was tainted by “unconstitutional intent to favor the Republican Party and incumbents,” the latest twist in a long-running legal battle.
The eight districts include parts of the Tampa Bay area in central Florida and of the southern section of the state, as well as a serpentine-shaped area occupied by Democratic U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown of Jacksonville. The court also acknowledged that adjacent districts would need to be redrawn.
The court ruling introduces political uncertainty across much of the state heading into the 2016 elections, when Florida is expected to be the largest swing state in the presidential race. Republicans dominate Florida’s congressional delegation, its Legislature and its statewide offices, but voters there twice helped to elect President Barack Obama.
The state’s congressional maps, and in particular Brown’s oddly-shaped district stretching from Jacksonville to the Orlando area, have been the subject of ongoing litigation.
Brown, elected to Congress in 1992 as one of the first three black members of the Florida delegation since the Reconstruction period following the Civil War, issued a statement calling the state Supreme Court ruling “seriously flawed.”
She said the decision failed to recognize the spirit of the 1964 Voting Rights Act to protect minorities. “Minority communities do not live in compact, cookie-cutter like neighborhoods,” Brown said.
A circuit court judge ruled last year that the Legislature’s 2012 maps “made a mockery” of anti-gerrymandering provisions in the state’s constitution.
“The court has made it abundantly clear that partisan gerrymandering will not be tolerated,” said David King, a lawyer representing a group of plaintiffs led by the League of Women Voters of Florida and Common Cause.
The state’s high court urged the maps to be redrawn quickly. It was not immediately clear whether that would require the Legislature to meet in special session.