Lawyers for the Legislature asked a Leon circuit judge to throw out a lawsuit seeking to scrap the new state Senate districts because the Florida Supreme Court already rejected a challenge to the lines. The dispute in a case filed by a group of citizens and a coalition of voting rights groups plows new ground and could set a standard in a redistricting environment altered by the approval in 2010 of the Fair Districts amendments aimed at ending gerrymanding.
Courts already have been forced to grapple with several new issues after lawmakers’ first effort earlier this year to follow the rules during the once-a-decade redistricting process.
