League of Women Voters of Florida is popping champagne corks over the order by Circuit Court Judge Terry Lewis to the Florida Legislature on Friday, requiring lawmakers to immediately revise the state’s congressional map
Lewis set a deadline for Aug. 15.
A coalition of voter’s groups, led by the League, filed a lawsuit challenging the state’s congressional map, drawn by Republican state lawmakers. The suit claimed redistricting violated the Fair Districts rules approved by voters in 2010.
The resulting email, from League President Deirdre Macnab, is (understandably) triumphant:
This is a champagne moment for Florida voters, who have waited too long for fairly drawn congressional districts. Per his ruling, Judge Lewis has laid out a path that will allow all Florida voters, for the first time in decades, to elect their representatives in fair and constitutional districts.
We believe that the restoration of legitimate, representative democracy is well worth one extra trip to the polls.
Violating the Florida Constitution is intolerable, Macnab adds, and now it has become critical that the Legislature “follow the will of the people” — for the first time in decades, she adds – and adhere to Fair Districts amendments 5 and 6 – in both letter and spirit of the law.
Now the clock is ticking towards the Aug. 15 deadline; voters, at this point, can only hope that the will of the people indeed wins out.
