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Rep. Corrine Brown Preps For Court Battle Over New District Shape

Corrine Brown
U.S. House of Representatives
/
U.S. House of Representatives

U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown (D-FL5) plans to continue her legal fight against the redesigned Fifth Congressional District.

The district runs from Jacksonville south to Orlando, but the Florida Supreme Court recently approved a district map that shifts it west from Jacksonville to the Panhandle instead.

Brown filed a federal lawsuit in July after the court ruled her district violates Florida’s Fair Districts amendments, which prohibit drawing boundaries to protect an incumbent or political party.

The lawsuit was paused pending the state Supreme Court's ruling on the map, but now, Brown’s attorney Noel Lawrence says, she is not backing down from the fight.

“She’s defending CD5 to run north-south, and she’s going to go all the way to the Supreme Court if she has to," Lawrence says. 

He says the congresswoman is also asking the court to stop the new district from being used in next year’s election. And he discounts the rumor that she might move to Orlando and run there. 

A status hearing on Brown’s federal lawsuit will likely be held in January.  

Cyd Hoskinson began working at WJCT on Valentine’s Day 2011.