The Southern Poverty Law Center spent decades labeling mainstream conservatives as hate groups.
Now they're in Florida courtrooms trying to stop Ron DeSantis from drawing a map that doesn't sort voters by skin color.
DeSantis saw the filing and laughed.
The Map That Drove the Left to Court Twice in One Week
Florida's new congressional map does something radical by 2026 standards: it ignores race.
DeSantis signed it May 4th with a post showing the map and three words – "Signed, Sealed, and Delivered" – and within hours, Marc Elias filed the first lawsuit in Leon County's Second Circuit Court.
https://twitter.com/GovRonDeSantis/status/2051332545841660356?s=20
That's Marc Elias – the Democrat lawyer who hired Fusion GPS to feed the FBI the Steele dossier in 2016, who drew a Maryland map so lopsided a judge threw it out for extreme partisan gerrymandering, and who spent 2024 trying to count votes from people not registered to vote. His own firm's website says it is "committed to helping Democrats win."
By Wednesday, lawsuit number two arrived – this one backed by the SPLC.
DeSantis posted the filing on X with six words: "Glad to see the SPLC is not on our side!"
He's right to celebrate.
When the SPLC shows up to fight you, it means you drew a map that doesn't hand-deliver seats to Democrats based on racial categories the Supreme Court has already ruled unconstitutional.
What the Left Is Actually Arguing
The complaints from both lawsuits claim the new map produces a 24-4 Republican advantage in Florida's congressional delegation.
They call that a "statistical outlier."
Florida has a 1.5 million Republican voter registration advantage.
A 24-4 map isn't an outlier. It's math.
The left's argument requires you to believe that drawing districts without considering race is itself discriminatory.
https://twitter.com/GovRonDeSantis/status/2052082896564081075?s=20
The Supreme Court told states to stop engineering racial outcomes in redistricting. Florida complied. Now the SPLC wants a federal judge to undo that compliance.
They're arguing, with a straight face, that race-neutral is the new racist.
The specific targets in the lawsuits tell the story.
Plaintiffs claim the map "decimates" seats held by Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Jared Moskowitz in South Florida.
In Tampa, Democratic voters get "cracked." In Orlando, they get "packed."
What they're describing – without saying it out loud – is that the previous map was engineered to protect specific Democrats in specific seats.
DeSantis stopped doing that.
And they sued him for it.
The SPLC Showing Up Is the Tell
The Southern Poverty Law Center built its brand flagging the Ku Klux Klan in the 1970s.
It spent the last two decades expanding that brand to label groups like the Family Research Council, Alliance Defending Freedom, and the Center for Immigration Studies as hate groups – organizations staffed by lawyers and policy experts who appear regularly before Congress and the Supreme Court.
https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/2052089291988226507?s=20
The SPLC's "hate map" has gotten people shot.
In 2012, a gunman opened fire at the Family Research Council's Washington headquarters after finding them on the SPLC's list.
He later told investigators the map guided his target selection.
When that organization files a lawsuit against a redistricting map, ask yourself what threat they're actually responding to.
It's not hate.
It's a Republican advantage in a state that votes Republican.
Heritage Action has praised the new map for rejecting "racial engineering" and restoring equal protection principles – the same principles the current Supreme Court has consistently upheld.
What Happens Next and Why Democrats Know They're Losing
With Florida's candidate qualifying deadline approaching in June, the state will move fast to defend this map in Leon County.
The legal ground has shifted hard against the left's redistricting strategy.
The Supreme Court's ruling in Louisiana v. Callais – handed down just days before DeSantis signed the map – raised the bar dramatically for race-based redistricting claims.
Florida built this map explicitly around that new standard.
Elias and the SPLC are betting on a sympathetic judge who will block the map before November.
That's the play – not winning on the merits, but running out the clock before candidate qualifying closes in June.
https://twitter.com/AGJamesUthmeier/status/2051378905358180403?s=20
DeSantis has been through this before.
In 2022, Florida courts blocked his first congressional map.
He fought back, built a legislature that draws lines his way, and now holds a 1.5 million voter registration advantage that no map can ignore forever.
Ron DeSantis drew a map without sorting people by skin color.
The SPLC, Marc Elias, and the Steele dossier crowd all showed up to stop him.
That's not a legal crisis.
That's a roster.
Sources:
- Michelle Vecerina, "DeSantis Blasts SPLC as 'Race-Neutral' Map Faces Second Liberal Legal Challenge," Florida Voice News, May 6, 2026.
- Staff, "3 Lawsuits Now Filed to Block New Florida Congressional Map," ClickOrlando, May 5, 2026.
- Staff, "DeSantis Argues LA v. Callais Ruling Nullifies Florida's Fair Districts Amendments," Florida Phoenix, April 29, 2026.
- Paul Sperry, "After 2024 Losses, Hardball Democrat Lawyer Marc Elias Vows to Fight Back in '26 and '28," RealClearInvestigations, December 10, 2024.
- Staff, "Family Research Council Shooting," The Washington Times, February 7, 2013.
- Heritage Action for America, Statement on Florida Congressional Redistricting, May 2026.
