Redistricting

Voting rights groups challenging the state congressional map want the Florida Supreme Court to reinstate a district that gave Black voters in one region the chance to elect their preferred candidate.

They say the legislature wrongly assumed that South Florida's Hispanic voters are cohesive when that's no longer the case since the white majority in Florida regularly votes in coalition with the Hispanic voters.

The redrawn districts in Pinellas and Hillsborough counties were approved by legislators in 2022 and used in the election that November. They are being challenged by five residents.

Voting-rights groups and others asked the court to take up the case, which centers on a North Florida district that in the past elected Black Democrat Al Lawson but was overhauled during an April 2022 special legislative session.

Attorneys for plaintiffs filed a brief seeking a reversal of an appeal that upheld the plan, which the legislature passed in 2022.

An appeals court upheld the map, which plaintiffs say violated part of the constitutional amendment that barred drawing districts that would “diminish” the ability of minorities to “elect representatives of their choice.”

A federal three-judge panel heard closing arguments on Tuesday in a federal trial over the removal of North Florida's only district where Black voters could elect their candidate of choice.

A federal trial over Florida’s congressional map could wrap up early this week after attorneys for civil rights groups and voters suing over North Florida’s districts rested their case on Monday afternoon.

The change eliminated two of four Black voting districts, including one in North Florida that stretched from the Big Bend to Jacksonville.

The Hillsborough County School Board voted 4-3 to approve new school boundaries. The plan will take effect in the 2024-25 school year.

After hours of public comment, board members voted Tuesday to close Just Elementary. A second vote will be held on May 9.

It came at the start of the 2023 legislative session, in which the Republican supermajority is expected to rubber stamp much of DeSantis' agenda.