NEW: State GOP Files Redistricting Lawsuit

NEW: State GOP Files Redistricting Lawsuit

The state GOP has officially filed a lawsuit that asks the courts to adopt a new plan to redraw the state’s the political districts.

The Republicans were angry with a decision to move several hundred voters between Districts 47 and 48, which pushed Donald Fox, the opponent of District 47 State Rep. Cale Keable, out of the district. Party officials have indicated that Fox will likely move back into the district to run against Keable, whom he lost to by less than 200 votes in 2010.

“We’ve come to expect that the party in power will tilt redistricting to their own advantage, but when the perk of drawing the new lines is stretched to the point where no geographic or jurisdictional continuity exists it’s time for citizens to act,” GOP Chairman Mark Zaccaria said.

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He continued: “The tortured outline of the House Rep District in question in this suit could only have been designed to disenfranchise a feared opponent. After more than seven decades of one party rule in Rhode Island one would think that the majority would be more secure than that. This lawsuit is about reminding them of the limits imposed upon them by the state laws they, themselves, wrote.”