A judge in Florida told Republicans that no, this redistricting map you’ve created won’t fly — it’s an obvious “partisan attempt” to skew future elections, he said.
Leon County Circuit Judge Terry Lewis issued his ruling in Tallahassee against the state legislature’s Republican political consultants, saying they’d “made a mockery” of the whole redistricting process and were obviously guilty of gerrymandering, the Los Angeles Times reported.
The districts were redrawn by the Republican-dominated state legislature in 2010. Mr. Lewis said Districts 5 and 10 were obviously redrawn to favor Republicans and create a GOP stronghold for future elections — and that several other districts seemed to stink of gerrymandering, too.
“I find the congressional redistricting plan adopted by the legislature to be constitutionally invalid,” he wrote, the Los Angeles Times reported. “[This case goes] to the very foundation of our representative democracy.”
It’s not yet clear how this ruling will impact elections in November.
Legislators are likely to appeal, and that would place on hold any attempt to draw new district boundaries.
• Cheryl K. Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com.
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