Republican lawmakers and the state of Florida filed briefs Monday ahead of an imminent Florida Supreme Court ruling that could clear the way for the GOP to use a gerrymandered congressional map this year — and invalidate the state’s voter-approved ban on gerrymandering.

Florida voters and voting advocates are challenging the new map — which could net four more GOP seats in Congress — arguing that it violates Florida’s voter-approved Fair Districts Amendment (FDA).

But in their latest court filing, Republican state representatives argued the court should find the FDA unconstitutional and strike down the amendment, which was passed by voters in 2010, in its entirety.

Republican lawmakers insisted Monday that the court should invalidate the whole amendment, arguing “(t)he removal of one standard alters the recipe the voters approved.”

Trump administration officials earlier this year killed a federal criminal investigation into the coal empire owned by Sen. Jim Justice, a Republican from West Virginia and a close ally of the president’s.

The investigation examined potential criminal violations of the Clean Water Act by the multistate mining operations largely run by Justice’s son, Jay, according to current and former officials familiar with the matter.

The criminal probe was a significant escalation in the yearslong effort to police serial pollution offenses by Virginia-based Southern Coal and dozens of affiliated mining operations controlled by the family. In the past decade, Southern Coal and other Justice corporations have racked up tens of thousands of alleged violations of the Clean Water Act and have been sued repeatedly by state and federal prosecutors over their failure to properly follow environmental laws at their mining sites.

The investigation shuttered by the Trump administration was a joint effort by prosecutors and investigators with the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Justice’s Environmental Crimes Section and the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Western District of Virginia to probe whether the incessant violations of antipollution laws had risen to the level of criminal behavior, people familiar with the matter said.

People familiar with the investigation told ProPublica that prosecutors believed they had a strong case. They initially had the blessing of Robert Tracci, President Donald Trump’s top official in the Western District of Virginia, to move forward.

Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings has ended his campaign for Florida governor after announcing he is undergoing treatment for prostate cancer.

Demings was one of only two Democrats who had been polling competitively against likely Republican nominee Byron Donalds in recent independent surveys.

The decision reshapes the Democratic field and leaves former Congressman David Jolly as the party's most prominent remaining contender, potentially shifting how undecided voters and strategists approach the race.

Demings revealed his diagnosis during his final State of the County address, saying he would suspend his campaign to focus on his health. "I received some bad news from my doctor, who confirmed that I have prostate cancer," he said, according to local station WKMG, adding that he intends to complete his term as Orange County mayor before leaving office in November. His exit removes a well‑known Central Florida figure from a race that had already shown signs of being more competitive than Florida's recent statewide elections.

Pro-voting groups asked the Florida Supreme Court Thursday to block the state’s new GOP congressional gerrymander and let the 2026 elections move forward under the 2022 map, warning that Republican officials are trying to run out the clock before voters can get relief.

The emergency filing marks a dramatic escalation in the fight over Florida’s 2026 congressional map, which voting rights advocates say was drawn to lock in Republican power before the midterms.

The petitioners* are asking the state Supreme Court to step in now — before congressional qualifying begins Monday — after lower courts refused to stop the map from being used this cycle.

“This petition presents a simple question: whether Florida’s political branches can openly defy the Florida Constitution and escape judicial review for an entire election cycle simply by attempting to run out the clock,” the petitioners wrote. “The answer from this Court should be a resounding no.”

At issue is Florida’s Fair Districts Amendment, the anti-gerrymandering reform voters approved in 2010 to stop politicians from drawing congressional districts to benefit themselves or their party.

The petitioners argue that the 2026 map was drawn in open defiance of that constitutional protection and that the Florida Supreme Court must act before the election calendar makes meaningful relief impossible.

Pro-voting groups asked the Florida Supreme Court Thursday to block the state’s new GOP congressional gerrymander and let the 2026 elections move forward under the 2022 map, warning that Republican officials are trying to run out the clock before voters can get relief.

The emergency filing marks a dramatic escalation in the fight over Florida’s 2026 congressional map, which voting rights advocates say was drawn to lock in Republican power before the midterms.

The petitioners* are asking the state Supreme Court to step in now — before congressional qualifying begins Monday — after lower courts refused to stop the map from being used this cycle.

“This petition presents a simple question: whether Florida’s political branches can openly defy the Florida Constitution and escape judicial review for an entire election cycle simply by attempting to run out the clock,” the petitioners wrote. “The answer from this Court should be a resounding no.”

At issue is Florida’s Fair Districts Amendment, the anti-gerrymandering reform voters approved in 2010 to stop politicians from drawing congressional districts to benefit themselves or their party.

The petitioners argue that the 2026 map was drawn in open defiance of that constitutional protection and that the Florida Supreme Court must act before the election calendar makes meaningful relief impossible.

Here’s a familiar story. On Tuesday night, the Supreme Court handed down a decision that will almost certainly give the Republican Party an additional seat in the US House of Representatives. Not all of the justices disclosed how they voted, but the decision appears to have come down 6-3 along partisan lines — that is, the six Republican justices voted to give the GOP another House seat, while the Court’s three Democrats dissented.

In fairness, the GOP justices’ most recent decision in Allen v. Milligan fits a broader pattern in this Supreme Court’s gerrymandering cases that can be explained without accusing those Republican justices of deciding election cases solely on the basis of partisanship. The Court has spent the past seven years dismantling all federal safeguards against gerrymandering.

Allen fits this pattern. On its face, the Republican justices’ brief opinion in the case is just the next iterative step toward a legal regime where states can draw maps however they want, regardless of whether those maps are drawn to favor one political party, or whether they are drawn to lock nonwhite voters out of power.

But the Republican justices’ new decision stands out because, while the Allen opinion is consistent with the Court’s broader trend toward redistricting anarchy, its actual legal arguments are inconsistent with things the same justices said as recently as one month ago. The decision is also inconsistent with previous orders that the Court’s Republican majority handed down in the Allen case itself.

If you want the full rundown of all of these inconsistencies, go read Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s dissent in this most recent decision. There are so many of them that it is hard to escape the conclusion that the Court’s Republicans aren’t being honest about their true motivations. The simplest explanation for Tuesday night’s decision is that the Court’s Republican majority is bending the rules because they want the Republican Party to hold a majority in the House.