By Joseph Ax
June 10 (Reuters) - Florida's Supreme Court on Wednesday declined to block a new Republican-drawn congressional map ahead of November's midterm elections, giving the party a boost in its effort to retain a narrow majority in the U.S. House of Representatives.
The decision all but guarantees that the map, which is aimed at flipping as many as four Democratic seats, will remain in place for this fall's elections. The filing deadline for congressional candidates is on Friday, and the primary
contests are scheduled for August.
In a 6-1 decision, the court ruled that it did not have the jurisdiction to intervene in a lawsuit challenging the map while it remains pending before a lower appeals court.
Democrats have challenged the new map as unlawful based on a state constitutional prohibition on drawing district lines to benefit one party over another, a process known as partisan gerrymandering. The plaintiffs had asked the high court to put the map on hold and order state officials to use the previous map until the lawsuit is resolved.
Redistricting typically occurs at the start of each decade following the decennial U.S. Census count. But President Donald Trump set off an unprecedented mid-decade redistricting fight last summer, when he pushed Texas Republicans to install a new, more friendly map.
Since then, both Republican- and Democratic-led states have sought to redraw their districts for partisan advantage.
Florida Republicans approved the state's new map in late April, on the same day that the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling hollowing out the Voting Rights Act's protections for districts with significant racial minority populations. Several Republican-led Southern states rushed to capitalize on that decision by eliminating majority or near-majority Black districts, which typically favor Democrats.
Those efforts have helped Republicans build an advantage overall in the redistricting war, though Democrats may still capture a House majority given Trump's weak approval ratings.
In a statement, Genesis Robinson, the executive director of advocacy group Equal Ground, which filed the lawsuit, said, "The Florida Supreme Court's failure to stop this brazen partisan power grab is not only an assault on democracy, but an abdication of its duty to the people of Florida."
Republicans already hold 20 of Florida's 28 U.S. House seats.
(Reporting by Joseph Ax; Editing by Sonali Paul)
