Florida Supreme Court fast-tracks request to block gerrymander

By Brentin Mock

Protestors opposed to mid-decade redistricting wave signs outside of Florida’s Capitol building in Tallahassee, Fla. on Dec. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Kate Payne)

The Florida Supreme Court has granted a voting rights coalition’s request for it to speed up a decision on whether to block the state’s new gerrymandered congressional map. 

In an order issued Friday, the Supreme Court gave the GOP lawmakers behind the map until noon Monday to respond to a request filed Thursday by a coalition of voting rights groups to block the map. 

Monday is the same day that the state’s congressional qualifying period, scheduled to run through June 12, kicks off.

The map, drawn by state Republicans as part of the GOP’s war on majority-Black and Democratic congressional districts, could net Republicans four extra seats in Congress. 

The plaintiffs argue the map violates a state constitutional ban on partisan gerrymandering. They want the state to have to use the map that’s been in place for the last two elections, which was created by a court in 2022.

Lower courts denied the coalition’s attempt to speed up the case, setting out a slower appeals process that wouldn’t have required GOP lawmakers to respond until weeks after the congressional qualifying period had already ended. 

The emergency writ that the Supreme Court granted Friday preserves the court’s power to rule on the case before it’s too late to stop the GOP gerrymander.