After waging a long-running legal battle against a congressional redistricting plan, U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown, D-Fla., has dropped an appeal to the U.S Supreme Court, according to a document filed Wednesday in federal court by Brown’s attorneys.
The move came about two months after a three-judge panel in U.S. District Court rejected Brown’s challenge to her redrawn district.
It also came two days after Brown qualified to run this year in the new Congressional District 5, which stretches across the top of the state from Jacksonville to Gadsden County, west of Tallahassee.
Brown’s attorneys on April 25 filed a notice of appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court but said in the document Wednesday they had not filed what is known as a “jurisdictional statement” and the case had not been docketed at the Supreme Court.
“Plaintiffs now no longer wish to pursue their appeal in the United States Supreme Court and wish to dismiss said appeal,” the document said.
Brown has been perhaps the most outspoken critic of a congressional redistricting plan that stemmed from the “Fair Districts” anti-gerrymandering standards approved by voters in 2010.
Voting-rights groups won a court case in which they argued the Legislature violated the standards when drawing congressional districts.
That led to the drawing of new boundaries and dramatically changed Brown’s district, which has stretched from Jacksonville to Orlando.
Brown argued the new east-west configuration of the district violated the federal Voting Rights Act, but the three-judge panel in April rejected her position.