Another Red state Republican effort to disenfranchise Black voters is turned down by a court….
It does seem like Democrats stand to pick up several House seats next year if the House seats are redrawn to bolster minority voters political representation in their majority districts…
A Florida judge on Saturday struck down congressional district lines for northern Florida advocated by Gov. Ron DeSantis, ruling that the Republican governor’s map had improperly diluted Black voting power.
Circuit Judge J. Lee Marsh concluded that the congressional boundaries – which essentially dismantled the seat once held by Al Lawson, a Black Democrat – violated the state’s constitution, which protects minority-access districts.
Marsh’s order blocks the state from using the map in congressional elections and orders the legislature to draw a new one. The DeSantis administration is expected to quickly appeal the case all the way to the Florida Supreme Court.
The eventual outcome in Florida – and other litigation pending in states such as Alabama and Georgia – could play a significant role in which party controls the US House of Representatives after next year’s congressional elections. Republicans currently hold a narrow majority in the chamber.
Voting and civil rights groups that brought the challenge hailed the decision Saturday as a rebuff to an aggressive effort by DeSantis – who is seeking his party’s presidential nomination – to implement a map that heavily favored the GOP. In a rare move last year, DeSantis inserted himself into the redistricting process by vetoing a map drawn by the Republican-led legislature that had preserved existing districts represented by Black Democrats. Instead, he submitted his own map that lawmakers approved in a special session that DeSantis called….