The Florida Supreme Court will take up a challenge to a controversial congressional map that voting rights groups say discriminates against Black voters, though a ruling is not expected to come in time for the slate of elections in 2024.
The state’s high court agreed to hear the appeal led by Black Voters Matter Capacity Building Institute and other groups arguing that the current map for the 5th Congressional District weakens Black voting power and goes against precedent. Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis championed the map, which took away a Black majority district that was represented by Democratic Rep. Al Lawson, during redistricting following the 2020 census.
The voting rights groups appealed a December ruling from the First District Court of Appeal of Florida that said the map was legal.
Nick Warren, a staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) told theGrio that the map violates constitutional protections for minority voters.
“It diminishes the power of Black voters in North Florida,” he said.
The map helped Republicans secure 20 out of the state’s 28 congressional seats. Lawson served the former 5th Congressional District from 2017 to 2023.
Adrianne Shropshire, executive director of BlackPAC, a political action committee that focuses on the engagement of Black voters, told theGrio that the discriminatory map was designed in response to “the historic Black turnout” across the nation that helped lead to President Joe Biden’s victory over former President Donald Trump, who won the state of Florida in the 2020 election.
Republican lawmakers are trying “to undermine Black representation and Black political power,” she said.
Janette McCarthy Wallace, general counsel for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), told theGrio that democracy cannot exist “without the Black vote” and urged that the map be redrawn.
Florida’s legislature approved the new…
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