Gov. Ron DeSantis could ask lawmakers to redraw congressional boundary lines after the Florida Supreme Court last week upheld a 2022 map that gave Republicans control of a North Florida district previously held by a Democrat.
DeSantis raised the possibility of further redistricting Thursday as Texas Republicans look to redraw districts amid a push by the Trump administration to help the GOP keep its slim control of the U.S. House.
“I think if you look at that Florida Supreme Court analysis, there may be more defects that need to be remedied, apart from what we've already done,” DeSantis said during an appearance at the Manatee Performing Arts Center in Bradenton.
“So, I do think it would be appropriate to do a redistricting here in the mid-decade,” DeSantis added. “So, we're working through what that would look like.”
Florida’s congressional delegation has 20 Republicans and eight Democrats. Redistricting typically happens once a decade after the U.S. census. In South Florida, Democrats outnumber Republicans, 5-4, among House members representing the region.
READ MORE: Florida Supreme Court backs DeSantis, upholds elimination of majority-Black congressional district
'Dangerous abuse of power'
Democrats said Thursday there is no reason to redraw Florida districts other than for Republican partisan purposes. The GOP holds supermajorities in the state House and Senate.
House Minority Leader Fentrice Driskell, D-Tampa, derided DeSantis’ plan as a “dangerous abuse of power and an attempt to put Donald Trump’s agenda ahead of the people of Florida.”
“Redistricting is intended to occur once every 10 years — following the census — to reflect population changes, not to serve as a political weapon whenever those in power fear losing their grip,” Driskell said in a statement.
Driskell said mid-decade redistricting would lead to “all new rounds of expensive state and federal litigation.” She also cited 2010 constitutional amendments — known as the Fair Districts amendments — that created standards for redistricting.
“Unless the governor wants to take a crack at actually drawing free and fair maps the way the voters intended when they passed Fair Districts, he should leave well enough alone and start dealing with the real problems facing Florida families,” Driskell said.
The Florida Supreme Court on July 17, in a 5-1 decision, upheld a congressional map that DeSantis pushed through the Legislature in 2022. The ruling centered on North Florida’s Congressional District 5, which in the past stretched from Jacksonville to west of Tallahassee and elected Black Democrat Al Lawson.
2022 redistricting process
During the 2022 redistricting process, DeSantis argued that keeping such a district would be an unconstitutional racial gerrymander and pressured lawmakers for an overhaul that included drawing District 5 in the Jacksonville area. White Republicans have won all North Florida congressional seats under the new map.
Rejecting arguments of voting-rights groups, the Supreme Court ruled that using a design similar to the old Lawson district would violate the U.S. Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause because it would involve racial gerrymandering.
The Supreme Court reached the same conclusion as DeSantis about the old design of District 5, saying there “is no plausible, non-racial explanation for using a nearly 200-mile-long land bridge to connect the Black populations of Jacksonville and Tallahassee.”
“My guys are going through the court's opinion, to look at different avenues,” DeSantis said Thursday of the potential for a mid-decade redistricting process.
'Fair Districts' standards
The Supreme Court case involved the interplay of the Equal Protection Clause and the state Fair Districts standards, which include prohibiting drawing districts that would “diminish” the ability of minorities to “elect representatives of their choice” — often called a “non-diminishment” requirement.
The voting-rights groups argued that the District 5 overhaul violated that non-diminishment requirement because it effectively prevented Black voters in North Florida from electing a candidate of their choice.
The Supreme Court’s 48-page majority opinion, written by Chief Justice Carlos Muniz, said that in redistricting, the Legislature’s “obligation to comply with the non-diminishment clause was bounded by its superior obligation to comply with the Equal Protection Clause.”
“The Legislature’s obligation to comply with the Equal Protection Clause is superior to its obligation to comply with the non-diminishment clause as interpreted by our court,” Muniz wrote. “The plaintiffs did not prove the possibility of complying with both the non-diminishment clause and the Equal Protection Clause in North Florida. Therefore, they did not meet their burden to prove the invalidity of the enacted plan.”
Justice Jorge Labarga wrote a dissenting opinion that said the Supreme Court should have sent the case back to a circuit judge for a trial on the equal protection issue. He called the majority opinion “highly consequential.”
