Florida seeks to end lawsuit after redistricting plan passes

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – As a brand new spherical of authorized battling begins about congressional redistricting, the state is asking a federal court docket to dismiss a lawsuit that has urged judges to attract new district traces.

Attorneys for Secretary of State Laurel Lee filed a movement Friday that mentioned the federal lawsuit, which was filed March 11, is moot. The movement got here shortly after Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a congressional redistricting plan that lawmakers handed final week in a particular legislative session.

The teams Widespread Trigger Florida and FairDistricts Now and particular person plaintiffs filed the federal lawsuit final month as DeSantis and lawmakers had been at an deadlock within the once-a-decade reapportionment course of. The lawsuit contended that judges ought to step in to ensure revamped districts are set earlier than this 12 months’s elections, as persevering with to make use of present districts can be unconstitutional.

Advert

Within the four-page movement filed Friday, Lee’s attorneys wrote that the newly handed redistricting plan made these arguments moot.

“Now that Florida’s outmoded congressional districts have been outmoded by correctly apportioned congressional districts, there is no such thing as a longer any controversy, and this court docket can not present the plaintiffs and plaintiff-intervenors (different plaintiffs who joined the case) the reduction they search,” the movement mentioned.

As of Monday morning, the plaintiffs’ attorneys had not filed a response to the movement, in accordance with a web-based docket.

Regardless, the redistricting plan that DeSantis signed Friday already faces one authorized problem and will face others. Teams such because the League of Ladies Voters of Florida and 12 particular person plaintiffs filed a lawsuit in Leon County circuit court docket Friday contending the congressional map (SB 2-C) fails to adjust to state redistricting legal guidelines and is badly designed to favor Republicans.

Advert

DeSantis known as final week’s particular session after he vetoed a redistricting plan that lawmakers handed. In the course of the particular session, the Republican-dominated Home and Senate handed a map that DeSantis’ workplace proposed.

The map is projected to extend the variety of Republican congressional seats in Florida from 16 to twenty, primarily based on 2020 election outcomes. Additionally, it will reduce the variety of districts prone to elect Black Democrats from 4 to 2 — a change that spurred a uncommon protest by Democratic lawmakers that briefly shut down proceedings on the Home flooring Thursday.

Within the federal lawsuit filed final month, attorneys for the plaintiffs proposed utilizing a map that the Senate handed in January. That map, for instance, would have usually stored intact a sprawling North Florida district that has elected U.S. Rep. Al Lawson, a Black Democrat.

DeSantis criticized the present configuration of the district, which stretches from Jacksonville to west of Tallahassee, as being unconstitutionally gerrymandered. The DeSantis-backed plan handed final week would condense the district within the Jacksonville space and make it prone to elect a Republican.

Advert

Earlier than the particular session, a three-judge panel dealing with the federal lawsuit scheduled a trial to start out Could 12. However the court docket’s order appeared to acknowledge that the lawsuit may turn into moot, saying that for “now, we have to put ourselves able to attract a brand new congressional map if the Florida Legislature and Governor DeSantis fail to agree on one throughout the particular session.”