The Southern Poverty Law Center labeled Moms for Liberty – a group of concerned parents – a hate group.
Now that same organization is in Florida court fighting to protect Democrat-friendly congressional districts.
Three lawsuits landed in Leon County circuit court within 24 hours of DeSantis signing the new map – and the SPLC is running the legal attack.
Democrats Lost Florida. Now They Want Courts to Give It Back.
Republicans won 20 of Florida's 28 congressional districts in 2024.
Trump carried the state by double digits.
Florida voters re-elected Rick Scott to the U.S. Senate and sided with DeSantis on two high-profile constitutional amendments.
The state has delivered Republican supermajorities in both chambers of the legislature.
And yet the congressional map being challenged in court gave Democrats eight safe seats in that same state.
DeSantis's new map cuts Democrat-leaning U.S. House districts from eight to four.
Common Cause and the League of Women Voters filed suit against it.
https://twitter.com/FFAFamily/status/2051352543251280029?s=20
The League of United Latin American Citizens joined them.
The SPLC – which parks $69 million offshore in the Cayman Islands and has paid out millions in defamation settlements for falsely labeling conservatives – is providing their legal representation.
The SPLC Is the Wrong Messenger for This Fight
A former SPLC staffer once described the organization publicly as a "highly profitable scam."
The group has called Alliance Defending Freedom – a legal organization that has won 49 Supreme Court cases defending religious liberty – a hate group.
They put Moms for Liberty on their extremist list for opposing critical race theory in elementary schools.
In 2012, a gunman targeted the Family Research Council after finding it on the SPLC hate map, telling investigators he planned to kill everyone inside the building.
This is the organization now asking Florida courts to block a map that reflects how Florida actually votes.
The Campaign Legal Center and the UCLA Voting Rights Project filed a second suit alongside a group of Florida voters, claiming DeSantis violated the state's Fair Districts Amendment – a 2010 measure that bars drawing maps with partisan intent.
Here's the problem with that argument.
https://twitter.com/JimRosicaFL/status/2051501458588045813?s=20
DeSantis's legal team has explained that the new map responds directly to the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Louisiana v. Callais, which changed how states must handle race-conscious district drawing under the Voting Rights Act.
Florida's own Supreme Court upheld a similar DeSantis-drawn map in 2022 after Democrats made nearly identical arguments.
The courts already ruled on this once.
Democrats lost.
This Is What Losing at the Ballot Box Looks Like
The pattern here is identical to every other fight Democrats have picked since 2016.
Lose the election.
Run to court.
Claim the other side cheated.
Florida voters passed the Fair Districts Amendment in 2010 with 62% of the vote.
https://twitter.com/AGJamesUthmeier/status/2050184749700759971?s=20
Those same Florida voters have been electing Republicans in landslide after landslide ever since.
If the amendment means the congressional map must look like 2012's Florida regardless of how voters have moved since – that's not protecting democracy.
That's a dead hand reaching up from 2010 to undo every election since.
DeSantis posted the signed map on X with three words: "Signed, Sealed, and Delivered."
Three lawsuits in 24 hours from the SPLC and their allies tells you everything about who has the stronger argument here.
It isn't them.
Sources:
- Jacob Ogles, "Voting rights groups bring third challenge to Florida's newly enacted congressional map," Florida Politics, May 5, 2026.
- Jacob Ogles, "Campaign Legal Center files another lawsuit against Ron DeSantis' congressional map," Florida Politics, May 5, 2026.
- "DeSantis Enacts New Florida Congressional Map Following Supreme Court Redistricting Shift," YourNews, May 4, 2026.
- "Conservatives Wrongly Demonized as Hate Groups May Get Justice at Last," The Heritage Foundation.
- "SPLC Setting the Record Straight," Alliance Defending Freedom.
- "Conservatives respond as SPLC continues to brand them 'hate groups,'" Fox News.
