The fight over Amendments 5 and 6, already litigious, is about to heat up.

U.S. Reps. Corrine Brown, a Democrat, and Mario Diaz-Balart, a Republican, announced Monday their support for a political action committee that will fight the amendments, which are designed to draw more representative districts in Florida.

Brown represents Florida’s 3rd Congressional District -- one of the most gerrymandered in the state. It snakes south from Jacksonville and includes parts of Gainesville and Orlando. She became the first African-American elected to Congress in Florida in 125 years when the U.S. Supreme Court created her district in 1992. She invoked the Voting Rights Act of 1965 in defending her district lines and accused proponents of the amendments -- including the NAACP -- of trying to reduce minority representation.

Speaking at a press conference at the Florida Press Center in Tallahassee, Brown said, “Let’s remember the Voting Rights Act of 1965 said that you can put together communities of interest in a district. That’s how my district was drawn.”

The amendments are supported by FairDistricts, which calls itself a nonpartisan group, but were financed to the tune of $4 million by unions, trial attorneys and other Democratic interests in order to get them on the ballot. Brown and Diaz-Balart point to the Republicans’ comfortable majority in the state Legislature, in a state evenly split among registered Democrats and Republicans, as evidence of Florida’s unfair district boundaries.

Critics of Brown’s stance say she is fighting the ballot measures solely to keep the large majority she enjoys in her district in order to keep her seat safe from challengers. But she maintains that's not the case.

“I support making sure we have minority representation at every level,” Brown said.

Of Florida’s 25 congressional districts, six are held by minorities -- three African-Americans and three Hispanics.

Republican Diaz-Balart is counted among the three Hispanic representatives, and represents Florida’s 25th Congressional District in South Florida. But he is currently trying to replace his brother, Lincoln, who holds the more solidly GOP seat in District 21.

“I’m trying to make sure that minorities have the chance to elect their own candidates at the congressional and state level. These amendments will have the effect of bleaching the state representatives in the Legislature,” Diaz-Balart said.

Both representatives have already filed an unsuccessful lawsuit to take the amendments off the ballot, but are convinced they will take redistricting decisions out of the hands of legislators and into the hands of judges.

Amendments 5 and 6 call for legislators to draw legislative and congressional districts without favoring or disfavoring incumbents or political parties, with regard for minority representation and participation, and with the regular standards of making districts contiguous and as equal in population as possible.

Opponents of the amendments say this renders redrawing districts impossible, leading to inevitable litigation, with districts ultimately being drawn by the courts.

“It’s totally unworkable,” Diaz-Balart said of the amendments.

Former Florida Secretary of State Kurt Browning was also on hand to announce the foundation of Protect Your Vote, a PAC designed to defeat Amendments 5 and 6.