In a landmark decision Thursday, the Florida Supreme Court reportedly upheld the state’s congressional map championed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, affirming what the governor and his allies have long maintained: that race-based gerrymandering has no place in a constitutionally sound redistricting process.
The 5-1 ruling marks a decisive victory for DeSantis and Florida Republicans, who gained four congressional seats under the new map — helping the GOP reclaim the House majority in 2022.
“This was always the constitutionally correct map — and now both the federal courts and the FL Supreme Court have upheld it,” DeSantis posted on X following the decision.
At the center of the legal battle was a north Florida district previously held by Democrat Al Lawson, which had been drawn a decade ago by judicial mandate to link Black communities across nearly 200 miles from Jacksonville to Tallahassee.
The new map, pushed by DeSantis and enacted by the legislature, dismantled that district and split those voters across four others.
The court, now composed entirely of justices appointed or elevated by DeSantis, concluded the previous district constituted an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. Chief Justice Carlos Muñiz emphasized that the redistricting process must comply with the U.S. Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause — a principle he said lawmakers rightly prioritized.
“There is no plausible, non-racial explanation for using a nearly two-hundred-mile-long land bridge to connect the Black populations of Jacksonville and Tallahassee,” Muñiz wrote. “Nor can the plaintiffs offer a plausible non-racial justification for the way the proposed remedial district carves up those cities.”
The decision dealt a blow to far-left advocacy organizations such as Black Voters Matter and the League of Women Voters, backed by the Democratic Party’s redistricting arm, which had argued the map violated the state’s 2010 “Fair Districts” amendment.
Those groups vowed to continue the legal fight, calling the ruling “a textbook violation” and “a dark day” for minority representation.
But the Court’s majority took a different view — one grounded in constitutional originalism. It held that the state’s duty to avoid racial gerrymandering overrides any state-level redistricting constraints that could conflict with federal law.
Florida’s lone dissent came from Justice Jorge Labarga, who argued the court should have returned the case to a lower court.
But Muñiz dismissed that suggestion, writing that “even when a district court disagrees with a decision of this court, it is the lower court’s duty to follow our precedent.”
The court’s ruling affirms a broader conservative principle: that redistricting must be rooted in legal standards, not racial engineering or partisan pressure.
Though critics framed the decision as an erosion of minority voting rights, supporters argued it restored constitutional clarity to a process long mired in political gamesmanship.
In rejecting a federal-style racial quota system for congressional lines, Florida’s high court has charted a course that prioritizes equal protection and race-neutral governance — a principle DeSantis and his allies say is long overdue.
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