We The People should pick our elected officials, not the other way around.

Fair maps mean counting everyone equally, playing by the rules, and having a transparent process. Gerrymandering denies voters our right to fair representation and a meaningful choice at the polls – we must end it.

The Fair Districts Amendments

In November 2010, Floridians overwhelmingly spoke out against gerrymandering by passing the Fair Districts Amendments to the Florida Constitution with 63% of the vote:

• Article III, Section 21 of the Florida Constitution provides standards for establishing legislative district boundaries for state-level representation in Florida’s Senate and House of Representatives  
• Article III, Section 20 provides standards for establishing congressional district boundaries for Florida’s federal representation in the U.S. House of Representatives 

The Fair Districts Amendments were intended to prevent the longstanding practice by ruling parties in the Legislature  — Democrats, then Republicans — of drawing lines favoring their party. 

Both amendments require the legislature to comply with the following standards in the redistricting process.

Tier 1 Standards:

• No district shall be drawn with the intent to favor or disfavor a political party or an incumbent. 
• Districts shall not be drawn 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.
• Districts shall consist of contiguous territory.

Tier 2 Standards, which must be met unless they conflict with federal law or with the Tier 1 standards:

• Districts shall be as nearly equal in population as is practicable.
• Districts shall be compact.
• Districts shall, where feasible, utilize existing political and geographical boundaries.

The Fight for Fair Districts: 2010s

When it came time to draw new maps in advance of the 2012 elections, the Florida Legislature did not follow the Fair District standards. Floridians saw the consequences of this: Republicans won almost ⅔ of Florida’s congressional seats in 2012, even though only a little over half of Floridians voted for them.

Common Cause and the League of Women Voters challenged the Congressional and State Senate maps in court, and the Florida Supreme Court told the Legislature to fix their maps. Then they gerrymandered again, and they were told to fix it again.

Finally, in December 2015, the Florida Supreme Court approved the congressional map submitted by Common Cause Florida and the League of Women Voters Florida. And in January 2016, the Second Circuit Court in Leon County adopted this plan for State Senate districts. This was a major victory for the people of Florida, but the damage was done — communities across Florida had been deprived of the chance to make their voices heard in the intervening elections.

The Ongoing Fight for Fair Districts: 2020s

When it came time to redraw the maps again in 2022, the Florida Legislature started out following the Fair District standards, but then enacted a map created and pushed through by Governor DeSantis. This map stripped Black voters of fair representation.

See how Florida was graded this past redistricting cycle.

Federal Lawsuit (Common Cause Florida v. Byrd): Common Cause Florida, Fair Districts Now, the NAACP Florida State Conference, and individual voters from across Florida challenged Florida’s congressional map in federal court. This federal case argued that the Florida Legislature engaged in intentional racial discrimination in violation of the 14th and 15th Amendments of the U.S. Constitution in crafting the state’s congressional map. Read more about this case here.

State Lawsuit (Black Voters Matter Capacity Building Institute v. Byrd): Equal Ground Education Fund, Black Voters Matter Capacity Building Institute, League of Women Voters of Florida, Florida Rising Together, and 12 individual plaintiffs challenged Florida’s congressional map in state court. This state case argued that the map violated the Florida Fair Districts amendment (specifically Article III, Section 20 of the Florida Constitution) because it favored Republicans and diminished the ability of Black voters to elect candidates of their choice. Read more about this case here.

Unfortunately, despite the federal court clearly recognizing Florida’s history of racial discrimination and the state court acknowledging that the map dismantled a Black opportunity district, the Governor’s map was upheld in both cases.

Opposing Mid-Decade Redistricting

Mid-decade redistricting refers to cases where politicians re-draw voting maps in the middle of the decade for political purposes, without a court order to re-draw the map and without waiting for new decennial Census data.

In early summer 2025, President Donald Trump began encouraging Republican state leaders to redraw their congressional maps in the middle of the decade in order to benefit Republicans in the 2026 midterm elections. In July 2025, Governor DeSantis started pushing to re-draw Florida’s congressional map: the map that he drew in 2022.

Partisan gerrymandering may not be illegal on the federal level, and it may not be illegal in many other states, but the Fair Districts Amendments clearly make it illegal in Florida. Click here to read more about our fight against mid-decade redistricting.