A circuit court judge on Wednesday threw out a state Senate map that would have divided Sarasota County into two districts and would have meant North Port residents were represented by the same state senator as some residents of Okeechobee County. While the decision by Judge George Reynolds stated that map was clearly drawn in a way that benefitted Republicans at a statewide level, local Republican officials welcomed the decision.

“In our case, the judge chose the right map,” said state Sen. Nancy Detert, R-Venice. Desert had voted against the map that divided Sarasota County when it came out of special session earlier this year. State Sen. Bill Galvano, R-Bradenton had led the effort the produced the map.

But while Detert was happy with the map chosen by Reynolds, she did not appreciate the years-long process getting to this point. The special session came after the courts rejected a map drawn by the Legislature in 2012, and Detert still feels that map was sound. “I served on the committee that drew that map in 2012, and there was not a thing a matter with it,” she said. “I think the League of Women Voters, the Democrats and the ACLU put us through a painful exercise for pretty much no good reason.”

Pundits statewide predict that changes to boundaries in Tampa Bay and Central Florida could mean significant gains for Democrats in the Senate elections in 2016, when every Senator will be up for election under the new lines. With the map set, Detert’s district appears almost exactly as it did after the 2012 map was put in place, including all of Sarasota County and west Charlotte County. Galvano’s district, however, used to include most of Manatee County and part of south Hillsborough County while then sprawling eastward into all of Hardee, DeSoto and Glades counties and the southern half of Highlands County. Under the new lines, his district includes all of Manatee, southeast Hillsborough County and a small part of south Pinellas County.