Democrat lawyers file three suits to block DeSantis' Florida congressional map

Democrat-aligned lawyers moved quickly this week to challenge Florida's new congressional map after Gov. Ron DeSantis signed it into law on May 4. The map sets up court battles following the Supreme Court's April 29 decision in Louisiana v. Callais, which allows red states to redraw lines without strict racial considerations.

Election lawyer Marc Elias and former House impeachment counsel Norm Eisen led the three lawsuits filed in Leon County. The map would give Republicans four new seats in Florida, President Donald Trump's home state. Elias heads high-profile election cases for Democrats, while Eisen directed the first impeachment probe against Trump.

The suits claim the 24-4 Republican-favoring map violates Florida's Fair Districts Amendment, which prohibits partisan gerrymandering. The Supreme Court ruling blocks race-based challenges, so the cases focus on partisan favoritism, said Hans von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow at Advancing American Freedom.

"If they can delay, even if they eventually get the injunction overturned, by then it'll probably be too late for these new districts to be put in place," von Spakovsky told Fox News Digital.

He predicted a major court fight. "All of the different groups that filed these -- Common Cause, the League of Women Voters, all of them talk to each other, and they don't work in isolation, and I can tell you, the reason they filed three different lawsuits is that they're hoping they'll get at least one of the three judges to issue an injunction, even if they ultimately lose the case," von Spakovsky said. "The whole point of these lawsuits is to impose delay."

One suit came from Eisen and voting rights groups including Common Cause and the League of Women Voters. Elias represented the Equal Ground Education Fund and individual voters in another. The Campaign Legal Center and UCLA Voting Rights Project filed the third.

Republicans face a deadline with candidate qualifying in early June and congressional primaries on Aug. 18. A spokesperson for Secretary of State Cord Byrd declined to comment on pending litigation.

Florida joins other red Southern states redrawing maps for midterms. Tennessee seeks to split its majority-Black Memphis district, and Alabama has two Democratic-leaning seats. Broader fights include California and Texas maps approved by the Supreme Court, adding five seats each to Democrats and Republicans. In Virginia, Democrats hold a 10-1 edge, but the state Supreme Court reviews Republican challenges.

Elias' firm called the map "one of the most extreme partisan gerrymanders ever recorded," with "one of the largest pro-Republican skews ever recorded." Florida voters approved the anti-gerrymandering amendment in 2010.

Eisen said DeSantis misused the Supreme Court decision. "Gov. DeSantis has used the excuse of [Louisiana v. Callais], really within hours of that decision coming down from the Roberts court, to do a plainly partisan redistricting in Florida," he told Fox News Digital. "We and the coalition of civil rights and democracy groups and clients have filed a lawsuit to stop that."

DeSantis defended the map on Fox & Friends. "We actually had a racial gerrymander that the Supreme Court just said is unconstitutional," he said. "I knew that was going to happen, so we called the special session back in January for April. ... The other thing is, the Florida today is not the same Florida of 2020. We've netted two million people. ... It does reflect that we have had explosive growth in parts of our state."