Supreme Court Accepts Senate's Redistricting Map on Second Try

The Florida Supreme Court has declared that the Senates second attempt to redraw its political boundary lines is valid.

The majority of the court rejected the arguments from critics of the map submitted by the Senate -- under the once-a-decade redistricting -- that the boundary lines failed to follow the anti-gerrymandering requirements of the voter-approved Fair Districts amendments.

Pursuant to this courts directive, the Legislature adopted a revised Senate apportionment plan that sought to remedy the constitutional infirmities apparent on the face of the invalidated Senate plan, the justices wrote in the order released Friday. In this proceeding, we conclude that the opponents have failed to demonstrate that the revised Senate plan as a whole or with respect to any individual district violates Floridas constitutional requirements.

The map was contested by the Florida Democratic Party, the League of Women Voters, National Council of La Raza, Common Cause and the Florida State Conference of NAACP Branches.

The court had rejected the Senates first map on March 9, declaring eight of the 40 districts in the Senate map failed to meet standards of the Fair Districts amendments and that the renumbering plan devised by the Senate could allow some currently sitting members to exceed the state constitutional term-limit requirements.

More to come.