ORLANDO, Fla. – Florida is now facing three lawsuits over its congressional redistricting map.
Gov. Ron DeSantis announced on X.com Monday that he signed the redistricting bill lawmakers passed last week with a simple post showing the map, with the words “Signed, Sealed, and Delivered.”
Signed, Sealed, and Delivered. pic.twitter.com/mKFQdQ2Xbo
— Ron DeSantis (@GovRonDeSantis) May 4, 2026
On Tuesday, Common Cause, the League of Women Voters Florida and the League of United Latin American Citizens filed a lawsuit in Florida’s Second Circuit Court in Leon County against the state.
The lawsuit alleges the new congressional map violates Florida’s constitution, specifically the Fair Districts amendment.
“Floridians have consistently said they are not interested in political gamesmanship within redistricting, which is why they passed the Fair Districts standards overwhelmingly in 2010. We hope the courts restore the rule of law and uphold the Florida Constitution’s explicit prohibition against partisan gerrymandering,” said League of Women Voters of Florida President Jessica Lowe-Minor in a news release.
You can read the full lawsuit HERE.
The new map redraws a number of districts, particularly in Central Florida, the Tampa area, and South Florida.
DeSantis pushed for the mid-decade redistricting for a few reasons.
- He said the influx of new residents after the 2020 Census necessitated a new map.
- The U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Louisiana v. Callais would end drawing maps to favor minority representation.
However, another reason is that President Trump called on Republican states to redraw congressional maps to better favor Republicans and hopefully hold onto the U.S. House majority in the midterm elections in November.
[INTERACTIVE: Slide the middle bar to see how the district map would change if approved]
The map, which DeSantis’ office drew, seeks to remove several Democratic majority districts and maximize Republican majority districts in the state.
For instance, the new map redraws U.S. House District 9, a majority Hispanic district, so that it now stretches from Orange County down to Glades County, adding more registered Republicans.
Voters overwhelmingly passed Florida’s Fair Districts Amendment in 2010. That amendment to the Florida Constitution says maps cannot be drawn to favor an incumbent or a political party. Districts are also supposed to be drawn to be compact.
The League of Women Voters, Common Cause and LULAC were among the original groups that campaigned for the Fair Districts Amendment.
They’re not the only lawsuit filed against the new Congressional map.
On Monday afternoon, prominent election lawyer Marc Elias filed a lawsuit in Florida’s Second Circuit Court in Leon County, seeking to block the map from being used, on behalf of the Equal Ground Education Fund and several Florida voters.
“The 2026 Plan was not compelled by any legal mandate or neutral justification,” the lawsuit reads. “It cannot, for example, be explained by a desire to adhere to traditional redistricting principles. Indeed, although the map no longer even attempts to comply with the Fair Districts Amendment’s protections for minority voters, which the Governor has argued requires traditional redistricting principles to be compromised, the 2026 Plan is less compact and introduces more county and city splits than the 2022 Plan.”
You can read the full complaint HERE.
A third lawsuit, also filed on Monday, seeks to block the new map. The lawsuit was filed by the Campaign Legal Center and the UCLA Voting Rights Project on behalf of several Floridians. The lawsuit specifically focuses on the districts drawn in the Tampa Bay and Orlando areas, and also cites the Fair Districts Amendment as the justification for the lawsuit.
Late Tuesday afternoon, Congressman Maxwell Frost (D) was one of several speakers representing the Central Florida Black Caucus in Orlando to denounce the new congressional district map.
When News 6’s Mike Valente asked Frost if he believes there could be an appetite in Congress for a bill prohibiting partisan gerrymandering the congressman answered, in part, by pointing to President Trump’s push last year for Texas to changes its congressional district map in order to favor Republicans.
“So he started this whole thing,” Frost said of Trump. “Democrats have said, ‘Well we are going to respond.’ It is a race to the bottom. I hate that we’re in this race right now of redistricting, but it’s something that the president started. We’re going to finish it. We’re also going to make sure we pass laws that ban redistricting.”
Frost was joined outside Orlando City Hall Tuesday by local and state elected officials, as well as the founder of Equal Ground.
The speakers took turns decrying the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision last week in Louisiana v. Callais, which they said dealt a “devastating blow” to Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, a landmark civil rights bill established to protect Black and minority voters.
You can read the full lawsuit HERE.
[POLITICALLY MOTIVATED: Florida’s special session on redistricting]