The NewsA Florida judge struck down the state’s congressional map on Saturday, ruling that it violated the Florida Constitution by diminishing the influence of Black voters, and ordering the State Legislature “to enact a new map which complies with the Florida Constitution.”Under state constitutional amendments that Florida voters passed in 2010, lawmakers are forbidden to draw districts “with the intent or result of denying or abridging the equal opportunity of racial or language minorities to participate in the political process or to diminish their ability to elect representatives of their choice.”In a 55-page ruling, Judge J. Lee Marsh of the Leon County Circuit Court ruled that lawmakers had violated that prohibition with the new maps they drew after the 2020 census. Judge Marsh rejected the Florida secretary of state’s argument that the prohibition didn’t apply to this case because Black voters had been a plurality, rather than a majority, in a district that the new map dismantled. The secretary inaccurately conflated two pieces of the law, he ruled. One requires the creation of new majority-minority districts in certain circumstances. The other limits the “diminishment” of existing districts in which voters from a minority group had sufficient numbers and influence to elect their candidate of choice, even if they weren’t an absolute majority — and that was the piece that applied to this case, he said.

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Persons: Judge J, Lee Marsh, Judge Marsh Organizations: Legislature, Circuit Locations: Florida, Leon