The Florida Legislature approved a new congressional map on Wednesday intended to maximize Republicans’ advantage in the state as part of the national redistricting battle that President Donald Trump launched ahead of this year’s midterms. The vote came two days after Gov. Ron DeSantis unveiled his proposal and on the same day the U.S. Supreme Court rolled back a key provision of the Voting Rights Act, a decision that could make it harder for Democrats to challenge Republican efforts to redraw congressional districts in ways that limit the influence of nonwhite voters.
Who Gets Squeezed
The people paying for this latest exercise in mapmaking power are the voters whose districts get carved up to serve the bosses’ math. DeSantis’ map could increase Republicans’ advantage in Florida’s House delegation to 24 to 4, up from the current split of 20 to 8. The potential four-seat gain is the same as what Virginia Democrats expect from a recent redistricting referendum, which is being challenged in state court there. Florida’s new districts are certain to face lawsuits, especially because the state constitution prohibits redistricting for explicitly partisan purposes. DeSantis and his aides believe those provisions will not be a legal barrier because they have been weakened previously by the Florida Supreme Court and again by Wednesday’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling.
Florida Republicans, comfortable in their supermajority in both legislative chambers, said little about the new districts during the special session. The measure’s sponsor, Rep. Jenna Persons-Mulicka, R-Fort Myers, limited her remarks to careful answers about an “evolving legal landscape” as Democrats asked her about the redistricting effort. Persons-Mulicka said, “I believe that there is a likelihood that that map will be upheld against legal challenge.”
Democrats, activists and some citizens decried the process as a partisan power play to satisfy Trump, boost DeSantis’ future ambitions and hurt the majority of registered Florida voters who are not Republicans. Rep. Michele Rayner, D-St. Petersburg, told her Republican colleagues before an 83-28 vote in favor of the measure, “Y’all are doing this because y’all’s daddy in the White House is injecting national political objectives into what should be a state-driven process.” The Florida Senate later approved the plan in a 21-17 vote.
Rep. Angie Nixon, a Jacksonville Democrat, said, “Last time I checked, we’re the ones who were supposed to be drawing the map, and yet we are allowing y’all to continue to hold the water of the governor, who is a lame duck and just trying to figure out what his next job is going to be.” House Minority Leader Fentrice Driskell, D-Tampa, said, “On destroying our democracy, they’ve been aligned, and that’s what we did here today.”
What the Map Does
The new map reshapes districts in Democratic areas around Orlando, the Tampa-St. Petersburg area and in south Florida around Palm Beach, Fort Lauderdale and Miami. The changes could cost Reps. Jared Moskowitz and Debbie Wasserman Schultz, among others, their seats. DeSantis and his aides said before and during the session that the new map is necessary to account for population growth in suburban and exurban areas since the 2020 census and to ensure Florida has a “race-neutral” congressional plan.
The proposal presumed the outcome of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Wednesday decision, which specifically struck down a Louisiana congressional district drawn for the electorate to be majority Black. Historically, Black voters have aligned more with Democrats, while a majority of white voters lean toward Republicans. The changes in Florida include the effective elimination of one nearly majority Black south Florida district that was represented by Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, a Black Democrat, until her resignation earlier this month.
From the session’s opening bell Tuesday morning, Republican leaders moved swiftly. In one of just two committee hearings, Senate Rules Chair Kathleen Passidomo, R-Naples, said she wanted “everybody who has taken the time and effort to come to Capitol to have an opportunity to speak.” Then she declared each speaker would have 30 seconds. Deborah Courtney, who drove more than two hours from Jacksonville, said all citizen speakers expressed opposition. Rob Woods, from the Tampa area, said he was a veteran who had “bought in from elementary school” on notions of the U.S. as an equal-opportunity democracy, but now “it seems as if we are back in that period of Reconstruction, moving back to Jim Crow.”
Who Drew It, Who Dodged It
On the House floor, Persons-Mulicka sidestepped specifics about what factors went into the map. She repeatedly called it “race-neutral,” citing testimony from DeSantis aide Jason Poreda, who took sole credit for the map during the session and did not disclose the names of any architects. Asked about Poreda’s admission that he examined party affiliation and voting patterns, Persons-Mulicka said, “I cannot speak to the intent of the map drawer.”
Persons-Mulicka and Sen. Don Gaetz, a Crestview Republican who sponsored the map in the Senate, deflected questions about why DeSantis unveiled the plan on Fox News. Gaetz said he had no part in drafting the map and forwarded the governor’s proposal to other senators as soon as he received it late Monday morning.
The new map could face a similar conundrum to Texas, which based its revised lines largely on Trump’s performance in 2024, redistributing the president’s voters across more districts to pull them into the Republican column. But Trump’s popularity has waned since his reelection, including among Latino voters who figure prominently in the state. Florida could face a similar problem, because creating more majority-Republican districts could leave margins thin enough to allow Democratic victories, especially if there is an anti-Trump backlash at the polls this year.
Some Republicans have expressed worry about that possibility, and a handful voted against the measure in the Florida Legislature. DeSantis had also wanted lawmakers to adopt state regulations on artificial intelligence and roll back vaccine mandates for students in Florida’s public schools, but House Speaker Daniel Perez, a Republican but not a DeSantis ally, blocked both ideas. DeSantis called it “political shenanigans.”