A state judge struck down North Florida’s congressional districts Saturday, rebuffing Gov. Ron DeSantis’ open defiance of anti-gerrymandering protections, finding the governor’s map illegally reduced Black voters’ electoral power.
DeSantis had wagered the state’s Fair Districts Amendment against the U.S. Constitution, arguing mandatory protections for Black voters violated the Equal Protection Clause; Second Judicial Circuit Judge J. Lee Marsh flatly rejected that gamble, rendering a decision that could reverberate from the halls of Tallahassee to the streets of Jacksonville, paving the way for a new, Democratic district where Jacksonville’s Black voters have more influence.
Marsh refused to bite on DeSantis’ claim that the state’s Fair Districts Amendment violated the U.S. Constitution, saying DeSantis’ secretary of state and the Legislature didn’t even have standing to make such an argument.
“The Secretary can point to no case finding the non-diminishment language of the Fair Districts Amendment, nor the comparable Section 5 language of the Voting Rights Act, to violate the Equal Protection provision of the 14th Amendment,” Marsh wrote.