TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WCTV/Gray Florida Capital Bureau) – Mid-decade congressional redistricting efforts are moving forward across the country as Republican states consider redrawing district lines to protect party control in Washington.

Florida lawmakers are among those expected to pursue redistricting changes, despite opposition from voting rights groups who say the move would erode public trust in the electoral process.

“It is something that erodes public trust,” said Jacquelyn Steele of Equal Ground, a voting advocacy organization.

Voting advocates urged Tallahassee area lawmakers on Monday to keep the state’s congressional map unchanged. Steele said there is no legitimate need for redistricting in Florida.

“There really isn’t a need. The need is coming from Washington, trying to keep control in one party,” Steele said.

U.S. House districts are typically redrawn once a decade, immediately after each census. With a narrow majority, President Donald Trump is pushing states to redraw boundaries to protect Republican control. The effort is gaining support in Republican states, including Florida.

Republicans currently hold 20 of the state’s 28 congressional seats. Governor Ron DeSantis announced his support for a new census to force Florida’s redistricting in August.

WASHINGTON (AP) — For decades, the faces of American politics have grown more diverse by nearly every measure, especially as racial minority communities gained political representation after longtime legal disenfranchisement and violent discrimination.

But after some Supreme Court justices expressed skepticism about a key provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, a landmark law that civil rights leaders credit with enabling pluralistic democracy in the U.S., Black lawmakers, civic leaders and organizers fear that the faces of the nation’s elected representatives may soon return to a time before hard-fought civil rights gains.

Justices on Wednesday heard oral arguments in Louisiana v. Callais, a case that scrutinizes whether Section 2, a part of the Voting Rights Act that bars discrimination in voting systems, is constitutional.

Rep. Cleo Fields, who represents the Louisiana congressional district at the heart of the case, sat in the courtroom as the justices questioned attorneys on both sides of the case. He said he hopes the scope of the ruling’s impact would give justices pause about whether to gut the law.

The Supreme Court appeared poised today to weaken a key provision of a landmark civil rights law by limiting the ability of lawmakers to use race as a factor in drawing voting maps.

At the heart of the case is a debate over whether Louisiana violated the Constitution when it adopted a new electoral map in 2024, creating the state’s second majority-Black district. The plaintiffs challenged Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which allowed race to be used as a factor in creating electoral maps in an attempt to undo generations of efforts to suppress the power of Black voters.

During today’s oral argument, several of the court’s conservative justices appeared focused on whether there should be a time limit to using race as a factor in creating electoral maps. The court may rule that the Voting Rights Act, in seeking to protect minority voters, violates the 14th Amendment, which forbids the government to make distinctions based on race.

If the justices determine that lawmakers cannot consider race when drawing districts, the consequences could be sweeping. Republican state legislatures could use the ruling to eliminate around a dozen Democratic-held House districts across the South, according to a Times analysis, enough to make Republicans favored to win the chamber even if they lost the popular vote by a wide margin.

Democratic voting rights groups are preparing for a nightmare scenario if the Supreme Court guts a key part of the landmark civil rights-era legislation, the Voting Rights Act — a very real possibility this term.

Ahead of the court’s Oct. 15 rehearing of Louisiana v. Callais — a case that has major implications for the VRA — two voting rights groups are sounding the alarm, warning that eliminating Section 2, a provision that prohibits racial gerrymandering when it dilutes minority voting power, would let Republicans redraw up to 19 House seats to favor the party and crush minority representation in Congress.

That calculation, made in a new report from Fair Fight Action and Black Voters Matter Fund shared exclusively with POLITICO, would all but guarantee Republican control of Congress.

While a ruling in time for next year’s midterms is unlikely, the organizations behind the report said that it’s not out of the question. Taken together, the groups identified 27 total seats that Republicans could redistrict in their favor ahead of the midterms — 19 of which stem from Section 2 being overturned.

For decades, the Department of Justice (DOJ) relied on the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA) to foil and forestall attempts to discriminate against minority voters. 

On Wednesday, the DOJ filed an amicus brief urging the U.S. Supreme Court to devastate and vitiate much of what’s left of the landmark civil rights legislation.  

When courts have ordered racially gerrymandered maps redrawn for violating Section 2 of the VRA, “they have compelled States to violate the Constitution to remedy phantom statutory violations,” Solicitor General D. John Sauer argued for the DOJ in an amicus brief filed in Louisiana v. Callais. 

The lawsuit could deliver a deathblow to the VRA, which was significantly weakened by 2013’s Shelby County v. Holder. In Shelby, the Supreme Court struck down the law’s requirement for jurisdictions with a history of racial discrimination — mostly in the South — to get all voting changes approved, or “pre-cleared,” by the federal government. 

Under then-President Joe Biden, the DOJ filed an amicus in December 2024, as Callais was first pending before the Supreme Court, which defended the new electoral map Louisiana had adopted in response to successful VRA challenge. But after President Donald Trump took office, the government withdrew the brief.

Florida leaders are calling for unprecedented mid-decade redistricting.

Changing the congressional map usually happens just once a decade after the U.S. Census. 

But, after Texas redid its map to send more Republicans to Congress at President Donald Trump’s urging, other states are now following suit in a political battle to tilt the balance of power ahead of the 2026 midterms.

But data released this week indicates most Floridians disagree with mid-decade changes.

That includes 45% of Republicans, 60% of independents and 62% of Democrats, according to a poll commissioned by the advocacy group Common Cause.

“Floridians do not want the Legislature to waste our taxpayer dollars and their time trying to make our voting maps even more gerrymandered than they already are,” said Amy Keith, who leads the Florida chapter of the group, in a virtual press conference on Thursday. “Floridians want our Legislature to focus on making our state a more affordable place to live.”

Efforts to redraw congressional maps in Texas and beyond are setting off a flurry of litigation as Republicans and Democrats look to add pickup opportunities in the House ahead of 2026. 

Several groups have filed lawsuits against Texas’s congressional maps, which seek to put five more seats in play for Republicans heading into next year’s midterms, arguing the map is unconstitutional and violates the Voting Rights Act. 

But pending litigation in several other states, including Louisiana and North Dakota, could have major ramifications for the Voting Rights Act and who’s allowed to bring those lawsuits in the first place — decisions that could have consequences for future maps down the line. 

Here’s a look at five legal redistricting battles to watch: 

This is FRESH AIR. I’m Tonya Mosley. The 2026 midterms are a little over a year away, but questions about election integrity are already front and center. Just this week, The New York Times reported that the Justice Department is quietly working to build a national voter roll by collecting sensitive voter data from states, a move experts warn could be used to revive false claims of widespread fraud and undermine confidence in future elections.

And recently, President Trump has openly proposed using executive power to ban both mail-in ballots and electronic voting machines. My guest today, law scholar Richard Hasen, has warned in a recent op-ed that an order like that would not only be against the law, it would wield, as he writes, the machinery of government to sow doubt, undermine trust and tilt the election playing field.

Those warnings echo a broader wave of concern. Earlier this week, Mother Jones also published a report on what it’s calling Project 2026, a coordinated effort by Trump and his allies to rewrite voting rules, redraw congressional maps and pressure state and federal officials who are responsible for overseeing elections. It all raises a profound question – are our democratic institutions strong enough to withstand that kind of strain?

Lawmakers will be back in Tallahassee next month to convene committee hearings. Among those committees will be the new House Select committee on Congressional Redistricting.

Rep. Mike Redondo, a Republican first elected in 2023 to represent part of Miami-Dade County, will chair the 11-person committee.

House Speaker Daniel Perez, a Republican, announced last month that the committee would convene. The Senate lacks a similar panel.

“Exploring” questions related to redistricting, Perez said last month, “would potentially allow us to seek legal guidance from our Supreme Court without the uncertainty associated with deferring those questions until after the next decennial census and reapportionment.”

A spokesperson for Senate President Ben Albritton, a Republican, told the Phoenix Tuesday that the Senate had no updates about whether the Senate would convene a committee on congressional redistricting.

Florida House Speaker Daniel Perez has appointed state representatives to a redistricting committee to study and complete an historic mid-decade redrawing of Congressional maps.

It’s a move prompted by President Donald Trump, who wants to ensure Republican control of the House.

That could mean the local seats held by Democrats Maxwell Frost and Darren Soto could be targeted for changes that might make it more challenging for them to retain those seats.

When Republican leaders redrew congressional maps in 2022, that turned a 16-11 GOP advantage in Florida to an even bigger one, 20-8. The governor believes another round of redistricting could give republicans 2-3 more seats in Congress.

“There will be major court battles. You already have some groups saying that they are going to sue no matter what the maps look like,” said University of South Florida political expert Susan MacManus during an interview with WESH 2.

Dear Mayor Deegan, Sheriff Waters, & Chief Administrative Officer Bowling,

As voting rights organizations, we respectfully request that the City of Jacksonville provide free parking within one block of the Duval County Supervisor of Elections Office during early voting and on election day for all future elections. We propose making parking free along East Monroe Street and East Duval Street between Ocean Street and Newnan Street, and ideally expanding to North Laura Street through North Market Street.

Covering the surrounding parking meters near this key voting location with “Voter Parking Only” during early voting and on election day will directly improve voter access and confidence in our local elections. The downtown Supervisor of Elections Office is not only a centrally recognized hub for voting, but it’s also the go-to location for voters who are unsure of their polling site, need to resolve issues, prefer to drop off their vote-by-mail ballot, or are seeking to cast a provisional ballot. Additionally, this downtown office is where many of our organizations bring community members during ‘Souls to the Polls’ and other civic engagement events. 

Providing free parking for voters is a good practice that other cities in Florida already offer. As you can see in the included photo below, the City of Saint Petersburg offers free parking for its downtown Supervisor of Elections office by covering its parking meters with red sleeves during early voting and on election day.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WFLA) — As Governor Ron DeSantis and Attorney General James Uthmeier fight for a mid-decade census in the ongoing redistricting battle, could districts in the Tampa Bay area be targeted?

Political analyst, Tara Newsom says there are a number of seats Republicans have their eyes on flipping, one of them being U.S. Representative Kathy Castor’s 14th congressional district, but Governor DeSantis is also drawing attention to other areas like South Florida.

“North of I-4, I think, is a pretty sound map. I don’t think there’s any basis, I think when you get into central, but particularly southeast Florida, there starts to become questions,” said Governor DeSantis.

Florida currently has 28 congressional seats, 20 of them occupied by Republicans. And as Texas and California deal with redistricting showdowns, could Florida be next?

“Can Republicans really cobble together more congressional districts than the 20 that they already hold in the state of Florida, and that’s where I think going after Tampa Bay is a real issue because we’re just too moderate, too centrist, and there’re too many Democrats and moderate Republicans that live in this area,” said Newsom.

Gov. Ron DeSantis will have multiple opportunities over the next eight months to call a special legislative session so the boundaries of Florida’s congressional districts can be redrawn.

It appears the Republican governor has his eye on one of Palm Beach County’s congressional seats — the District 20 spot held by U.S. Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, a Democrat. During remarks on Aug. 20 at Palm Beach State College near Lake Worth Beach, DeSantis mocked the shape of the district, which was crafted after the 1990 Census to increase the chances that a Black candidate could win there.

“It’s the most irregularly shaped district on Florida’s map,” DeSantis said of District 20, whose boundaries bow out and squiggle to include the Glades, Mangonia Park and Riviera Beach before dipping down to encompass heavily Black portions of Broward County.

There are many oddly shaped districts in the Sunshine State, and DeSantis could ask state legislators to change their boundaries during any of the two-week committee meetings scheduled to be held in Tallahassee in October, November and December. The 2026 legislative session is also scheduled to begin in mid-January and run through March, a month before the April 20-24 filing window for candidates who want to run in the mid-term elections in November 2026.

Aug. 26 (UPI) — The League of Women Voters said Tuesday it opposed the unconventional mid-cycle congressional district redrawing effort led by Republicans. The group outlined non-partisan advice to help guide state lawmakers.

The league said it opposed mid-cycle gerrymandering because it can “easily be used to disenfranchise voters based on race or party affiliation,” read a joint statement by LWV’s CEO Celina Stewart and its president, Dianna Wynn.

The Washington-based League of Women Voters unveiled its guidance on mid-cycle map drawing for governors and state legislators under the heading of “No Harm to Our Communities: Mapping Guidance for Elected Leaders.”

Wynn and Stewart called the Republican-led political moves “uncharted territory” for the country.

The two pointed blame to an “unpopular, authoritarian president” who they said “exploits racial division and seeks to silence voters in a shameless bid for power” as Republicans fear losses in the 2026 midterm elections.

TALLAHASSEE, Florida — Gov. Ron DeSantis isn’t budging on his push for mid-decade redistricting in the nation’s third-largest state, even as the war over congressional maps is currently being waged largely between Texas and California.

DeSantis — along with Attorney General James Uthmeier — laid out reasons Wednesday why the Florida Legislature may eventually need to redraw maps. Florida’s current maps — which were muscled into law by DeSantis three years ago — already give the GOP a 20-8 delegation edge.

Both top Republican officials continue to blast the last Census as flawed, with both raising questions as to whether Florida was deliberately undercounted to ensure it did not gain more than one seat following the 2020 Census. Uthmeier went so far as to mention a “deep state” effort to deny extra representation to Florida.

Leaders of the two most populous states, Democrats in California and Republicans in Texas, are trying to redraw the voting lines for the midterm congressional elections next year. It’s a break from the usual process and was touched off by President Trump calling on Texas to give Republican candidates an edge.

For months, the slim Republican majority in Congress has given the green light to mass deportations, health care cuts, tax breaks and many other Trump priorities.

But Republicans have only a 219-to-212 advantage in the U.S. House. To maintain that majority, the White House is calling on GOP-led states to redraw their voting maps in ways that help Republican candidates win more seats.

States usually redistrict early in each decade after the census count. This technical process is important. Whichever way people vote, the way they’re grouped in congressional districts can determine who wins and whether a citizen’s vote makes a difference.

The Texas and California legislatures plan to meet on their opposing plans this week.

President Trump sparked a national sprint to redistrict when he asked Texas Republicans to draw five more congressional seats for the GOP in their state ahead of next year’s elections.

In response, Democratic and Republican leaders in at least seven other states have said they’re open to moving their political lines in the fight over the U.S. House, but that means very different things in different places.

States are often bound by constitutional language and laws that dictate how redistricting happens. And time is running out for maps to be set ahead of the 2026 midterms.

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To see how likely redistricting is before then, we asked reporters in the NPR Network to explain what’s going on in their states.

Just weeks after Florida’s Supreme Court weakened voter-approved restrictions against gerrymandering, Governor Ron DeSantis is already pushing to take advantage of the new ruling.

Fresh off a 5-1 Supreme Court win in his pocket, DeSantis announced plans to redraw Florida’s congressional map again, well before the next census. “Stay tuned,” DeSantis teased at a press conference outside of Tampa in late July.

The push is already underway, adding to a national effort by the GOP, in full swing in Texas, to lock in more seats before the midterms. Florida House Speaker Daniel Perez said he will name the members of a new redistricting committee next month.

Even if Republicans forgo a new map this year, the ruling locks in Florida’s existing gerrymander, and it’s likely to embolden the GOP whenever it next redistricts the state.

The court blessed DeSantis’ 2022 push to dismantle a North Florida district where Black voters had consistently elected their preferred candidate for three decades. 

More than that, the justices signaled a retreat in their willingness to protect Black voting power with the Fair Districts Amendments, a set of standards approved by voters in 2010.

If Republicans succeed in pulling off an aggressively partisan gerrymander of congressional districts in Texas, they will owe the Supreme Court a debt of gratitude.

In the two decades Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. has led the Supreme Court, the justices have reshaped American elections not just by letting state lawmakers like those in Texas draw voting maps warped by politics, but also by gutting the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and amplifying the role of money in politics.

Developments in recent weeks signaled that some members of the court think there is more work to be done in removing legal guardrails governing elections. There are now signs that court is considering striking down or severely constraining the remaining pillar of the Voting Rights Act, a towering achievement of the civil rights movement that has protected the rights of minority voters since it was enacted 60 years ago last week.

Taken together, the court’s actions in election cases in recent years have shown great tolerance for partisan gamesmanship and great skepticism about federal laws on campaign spending and minority rights. The court’s rulings have been of a piece with its conservative wing’s jurisprudential commitments: giving states leeway in many realms, insisting on an expansive interpretation of the First Amendment and casting a skeptical eye on government racial classifications.

Today is another dark day in the history of Florida. With today’s ruling, the Florida Supreme Court has turned its back on Black voters, the state constitution, and the fundamental principles of representative democracy.

By allowing a map that clearly diminishes Black voting power to stand in a 5-1 decision, the Court has sent a chilling message: the constitutional rights of Black Floridians are negotiable, and the will of the people can be ignored, even when it is written into the very fabric of our laws.

This ruling, handed down by a court largely appointed by Governor Ron DeSantis, disregards the Fair Districts Amendments, which were overwhelmingly passed by Florida voters to protect minority voters and prevent partisan gerrymandering. It confirms that even when communities play by the rules, organize, and demand fairness, those in power can still bend the system to serve themselves.

At the heart of this case was a basic question: Do Black Floridians have the right to fair representation in Congress? Today, the Court answered with a resounding no.

This is not just a legal setback, it is a direct attack on Black political power and a decision that will have ripple effects for generations. It cements an unjust political advantage and further erodes trust in our institutions.

Florida’s Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the state’s current congressional redistricting map, rejecting a challenge over the elimination of a majority-Black district in north Florida that was pushed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis.

The court, dominated by DeSantis appointees, ruled that restoration of the district that previously united Black communities from Jacksonville to west of Tallahassee, or across 200 miles (322 kilometers), would amount to impermissible racial gerrymandering. That, the majority ruled, violates the Constitution’s equal protection guarantees.

“The record leaves no doubt that such a district would be race-predominant. The record also gives us no reasonable basis to think that further litigation would uncover a potentially viable remedy,” said Chief Justice Carlos Muniz in the court’s majority opinion.

The decision means Florida’s current congressional districts that give Republicans a 20-8 advantage over Democrats will remain in place for the 2026 midterm elections and beyond. The former north Florida district was most recently represented by a Black Democrat, former Rep. Al Lawson. The new districts divide that area among three Republicans.

Republicans in Florida racially gerrymandered two key state senate districts to disenfranchise Black voters and skew results in the Tampa Bay area, a panel of judges has heard.

In one district, they took a small chunk of St Petersburg heavy with minority voters and added it to an area of Tampa in a different county, and across a 10-mile waterway, leaving the remainder of its electorate “artificially white”, the court was told.

Lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, representing voters at a four-day trial in Tampa last week, said the state’s defense that the waters of Tampa Bay made the new district contiguous was ridiculous, pointing out in the lawsuit that “manatees don’t vote”.

“These are cities on opposite sides of the bay and there’s no way to go directly between them,” Caroline McNamara, an ACLU staff attorney, said.

“You either have to go across 10 miles of open ocean at the mouth of Tampa Bay, or you have to cut through other districts in the area through the north end.”

The case has direct parallels in previous moves by Republican officials in Florida to manipulate voting districts to their advantage by undercutting Black voting power.

A panel of three federal judges is now weighing whether a Tampa Bay state Senate district created in 2022 was the result of illegal racial gerrymandering.

A four-day trial resulting from a lawsuit over the district concluded on Thursday afternoon and judges must decide whether the constitutional rights of voters in Hillsborough and Pinellas counties were violated when the Legislature created the Senate district in 2022 that crossed from St. Petersburg over the water to Hillsborough County.

Florida was sued by three voters who are represented by the ACLU of Florida and the Civil Rights & Racial Justice Clinic at New York University School of Law. The plaintiffs allege that the Legislature’s plan to connect Black populations from parts of Hillsborough and Pinellas counties violated their equal-protection rights by unjustifiably concentrating Black voters into District 16 by removing them from nearby District 18, reducing their influence there.

The defendants, Senate President Ben Albritton and Florida Secretary of State Cord Byrd, have denied that claim, saying that the maps were lawfully drawn up and previously approved as legally sound by the Florida Supreme Court.

TAMPA, Fla. — A federal trial is underway in Tampa this week as a panel of three judges hears arguments in a lawsuit challenging a Tampa Bay-area Senate district, alleging the district map was racially gerrymandered in violation of constitutional rights.

The suit was filed by the ACLU of Florida and several voters from the Tampa Bay area. Plaintiffs claim the 2022-adopted district map improperly packs Black voters into District 16, diluting their electoral influence, particularly in Pinellas County.

District 16, currently represented by Democratic State Sen. Darryl Rouson, stretches across Tampa Bay, linking the southern portion of St. Petersburg with parts of Tampa and Hillsborough County.

“We’re not asking for special treatment,” St. Petersburg resident and plaintiff Meiko Seymour said in an interview with 10 Tampa Bay. “We’re asking for fair representation.”

Seymour and others argue that crossing the bay to group voters of color into a single district limits their influence in their direct neighborhood.

“When lines are drawn in a way to pack Black voters into one district, it actually weakens our influence across the rest of the city,” Seymour said. “It keeps us from having an actual seat at the table where decisions are being made that impact our schools, our streets and our future.”

A Florida law that has pushed public schools to remove thousands of books, including literary classics, from their shelves could get even more restrictive soon, as Republican lawmakers move to close a “loophole” they say still allows volumes depicting nudity or sexual conduct to remain on campuses.

New bills backed by GOP legislators would mean school districts could no longer consider a book’s artistic, literary, political or scientific value when deciding whether to keep it. Instead, any book that “describes sexual conduct” could face removal.

Already, critics argue the 2023 law is unconstitutional — a pending federal lawsuit says it violates the First Amendment — and overly broad and vague. Some worried educators have removed children’s picture books, such as “No David!” by David Shannon, showing cartoonish bare bottoms out of fear they depict the prohibited “sexual conduct.” Classics such as Leo Tolstoy’s “Anna Karenina” and Ernest Hemingway’s “For Whom the Bell Tolls” also have been pulled.

But Republicans say there are still inappropriate and “pornographic” books in school libraries and classrooms, and they argue the law needs to be strengthened.

Federal Judges are allowing a legal challenge to South Florida’s congressional and Florida House districts to move forward.

But the three-Judge panel also said plaintiffs were only allowed to continue a challenge against eight of 10 districts originally called out in federal complaints.

The lawsuit ironically alleges the same motivations behind the cartography that Gov. Ron DeSantis claimed motivated him to veto a congressional map (P 0109) approved by the Legislature before his office submitted the map, which has been in place since 2022.

The lawsuit said Florida’s 26th, 27th and 28th Congressional Districts were all drawn motivated primarily by race. Notably, all three districts are currently represented by Republican Cuban Americans: U.S. Reps. Mario Díaz-Balartof Hialeah, María Elvira Salazar of Coral Gables and Carlos Giménez of Miami-Dade, respectively.

The courts only will allow a legal challenge to CD 26, Díaz-Balart’s district. That notably spans from Immokalee in Collier County to Hialeah and Miami Beach in north Miami-Dade County.

MIAMI – The City of Miami is fighting back against a judge’s ruling that said commissioners drew a voting map based on race and ethnicity. 

In 2022, voting rights activists sued Miami over the new map. 

Last month, a judge agreed and invalidated the boundaries of the city’s five districts calling the map unconstitutional. CBS News Miami partner The Miami Herald cited comments from the commissioners themselves in which they said the map was drawn to ensure the commission had three Hispanic, one white, and one Black commissioner. 

The city was set to approve a new map as part of a settlement with minor changes and a payout of one point six million dollars in legal fees to the voting rights activists but they pushed off the decision for another two weeks. The settlement map would be in effect for next year’s local election.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A federal judge in Florida yesterday struck down Miami’s city commission districts for being unconstitutional racial gerrymanders and ordered the implementation of a new map for future elections. 

The ruling stemmed from a federal lawsuit filed in 2022 by local organizations and individual residents alleging that the districts for Miami’s five-member city commission were “drawn along racial lines for the predominant purpose of maintaining racially segregated districts.” As the city’s governing body, the commission has the power to pass local laws, adopt regulations and more. 

TALLAHASSEE — The Florida Supreme Court on Wednesday agreed to take up a challenge to the constitutionality of a congressional redistricting plan. But it appears the case will not be resolved before a candidate-qualifying deadline for the November elections. The Supreme Court issued an order saying it will hear an appeal by voting-rights groups and other plaintiffs, rejecting arguments by the state that it should turn down the case. The voting-rights groups went to the Supreme Court after the 1st District Court of Appeal on Dec. 1 upheld the constitutionality of the redistricting plan.

TALLAHASSEE — Voting-rights groups Wednesday night asked the Florida Supreme Court to take up a battle about the constitutionality of a congressional redistricting plan and to quickly decide the case as the 2024 elections loom. Attorneys for the groups and other plaintiffs argued in a brief that the Supreme Court should reject a Dec. 1 ruling by the 1st District Court of Appeal that upheld the plan, which Gov. Ron DeSantis pushed through the Legislature in 2022.

Progressive advocacy groups in Arkansas on Monday asked a full federal appeals court to reconsider a three-judge panel’s ruling that private groups can’t sue under a key section of the federal Voting Rights Act. The Arkansas Public Policy Panel and the Arkansas State Conference NAACP asked for the case to go before the full 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals after a panel ruled 2-1 last month that only the U.S. attorney general can enforce Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Congressional Democrats have introduced legislation that would allow people convicted of a felony to vote in federal elections, a proposal that if enacted could restore the voting rights of millions of people in U.S. elections. Rep. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Sen. Peter Welch of Vermont submitted the legislation, named the Inclusive Democracy Act, on Tuesday which would guarantee the right to vote in federal elections for all citizens regardless of their criminal record.

WASHINGTON — Kaylie Martinez-Ochoa arrived at an elementary school at 5 a.m. on Election Day barely awake for duty as a poll worker in northern Virginia. The 22-year-old recent college graduate spent hours at the polling site earlier this month helping check in hundreds of voters. Despite the exhausting day, Martinez-Ochoa plans to do it again in 2024 and hopes more young people will join the pool of much-needed poll workers.

It has been more than a year since Gov. Ron DeSantis announced the arrests of 20 people across the state who allegedly voted illegally in 2020 elections. DeSantis touted the arrests as cracking down on election fraud, a national hot-button issue for Republicans after former President Donald Trump’s loss in the 2020 election and his subsequent false claims of voter fraud. However, not long after the arrests were announced, judges started dismissing cases, ruling that the Office of Statewide Prosecution did not have jurisdiction.

A Florida appeals court upheld Gov. Ron DeSantis’ congressional redistricting map, finding a lower state court should have dismissed a lawsuit challenging North Florida’s districts. Even though DeSantis’ lawyers admitted his map violated the state constitution by diminishing Black voting power, the First District Court of Appeal said state voting protections shouldn’t apply to a Jacksonville-to-Tallahassee congressional district ordered by the Florida Supreme Court last decade.

Today is Giving Tuesday, a global generosity movement unleashing the power of people and organizations to transform their communities, and that is what we hope to do, transform communities. State Voices Florida is a  statewide civic engagement organization committed to bringing together progressive Non Partisan organizations to work together in building power around civic issues.  If the progressive movement works together and speaks with one voice, great things will happen. We believe everyone should have the right to vote, and voting should be simple and easy. We also support reproductive rights, environmental justice, criminal justice reform, economic justice and affordable housing for everyone. Along with our partner organizations, we use data and technology, people-powered campaigns, and coalitions to collectively build a multiracial democracy that allows every Floridian to thrive and live in their full dignity. We are a member of the State Voices Affiliated Network, a network of state-based coalitions,

As a minority voter in the United States, I have experienced firsthand the detrimental effects of gerrymandering on our democratic process. Gerrymandering, a practice that involves manipulating electoral boundaries to favor a particular political party, has long been a cause for concern. With reference to the insightful article from the NYC Daily Post on the overview of political segregation and gerrymandering, I will shed light on how this practice disproportionately affects minority communities.

An appeals court Tuesday took up a battle about the constitutionality of a congressional redistricting plan that Gov. Ron DeSantis pushed through the Legislature last year, and some judges appeared skeptical of the challenge filed by voting rights groups.

She said they timed this week’s stop and voter canvassing to correspond with the Florida Classic, the annual matchup between HBCU football teams from Bethune Cookman University and FAMU, in order to reach young people attending the game.

Republicans have been more successful than Democrats since 2010 at gerrymandering congressional districts to their advantage. But the Republican advantage may be about to fade because of a few court cases.

Floridians across the state are hearing a lot about redistricting.If you’re not sure what it is, and its significance in the fight for a healthy democracy and political power for Black people, Indigenous people, and other people of color, you’re in the right place.