Desantis' Florida Redistricting Map Advances — But Draws Gop No Votes, Legal Scrutiny

TALLAHASSEE, Florida — Florida’s Republican-controlled Legislature on Tuesday began quickly advancing new congressional maps that could deliver four more seats to the GOP. But legal questions still swirled around the mid-decade redistricting push by Gov. Ron DeSantis and prompted some Republican defections.

On the opening day of the state's redistricting special session, a top aide for the GOP governor acknowledged to legislators that he relied on political data as part of his map drawing effort — a potential violation of voter-approved standards that ban lines drawn for partisan gain.

But lawyers for the governor asserted that the state doesn’t need to abide by these standards anymore — known as the “Fair Districts” amendments — due to a ruling last year from the state’s Supreme Court that dealt with minority voter protections.

Florida is seen as the last possible place before the November midterms for Republicans to gain seats in mid-decade redistricting, a process kickstarted last year by President Donald Trump and the White House.

Republicans already hold a 20-8 edge in the Sunshine State's Hill delegation. The new map makes significant changes to the districts held by several Democrats including Reps. Kathy Castor, Darren Soto and Debbie Wasserman Schultz and places other incumbents such as Rep. Jared Moskowitz in a new district. Several organizations, including those with ties to national Democrats, have promised to sue if the map is adopted.

State senators of both parties grilled Jason Poreda, who once worked on redistricting for the Legislature, about who he talked to while drawing up the map and whether people outside the DeSantis administration reviewed the map before it was submitted.

Poreda, citing advice from lawyers for the governor, refused to say who he talked to about the map and whether it was seen by others. Several legislators also asked why Fox News was given a copy of the map that showed the partisan breakdown in red and blue before it was given to lawmakers. Poreda said he didn’t know the answer.

But Poreda contended that while he looked at partisan data, he used it as just one factor.

“It was not at the exclusion of everything else and was not predominant over everything else,” Poreda said.

The map was also drawn in a “race neutral” way that resulted in major changes to one South Florida district that had been held by Democratic Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick until she resigned earlier this month. A lawyer defended this approach based partly on an expected decision from the U.S. Supreme Court that could bar the use of racial considerations when redistricting.

Republicans have a supermajority in the Legislature, so the outcome of this week’s special session should not be in doubt. But that didn't stop Democrats from blasting the effort as illegal.

“Nobody up here can say this is not politically motivated because it just would not be true,” said state Sen. Shevrin Jones, a Miami Gardens Democrat.

One Republican state senator — Jennifer Bradley — voted no in the Senate Rules Committee after saying the DeSantis map rests on an untested “legal theory." Two other Republicans on the committee also voted against the map.

“I can’t do it, it’s just unconstitutional,” the Fleming Island Republican said.

Other Republican legislators, however, said they were willing to move ahead with the map.

State Rep. Jenna Persons-Mulicka, a Fort Myers Republican who is sponsoring the House version of the map, called the arguments from the governor’s office “persuasive.” She noted that DeSantis — who muscled through Florida’s current map in 2022 — was able to successfully defend it.

“We feel confident again in moving forward with the maps presented by the governor’s office,” said Persons-Mulicka.

The first day of the special session drew a contingent of opponents to the state Capitol ahead of the initial votes.

A coalition of voting rights advocacy groups rallied outside the Capitol. Several Democratic legislators joined about 150 protesters who carried signs and called for lawmakers to draw fair maps.

“We are witnessing an illegal power grab by greedy politicians who want to control the outcome of our elections before we even cast a vote,” said Genesis Robinson, the executive director of voting rights advocacy organization Equal Ground. “They want to rig maps so that they can pick their voters instead of voters picking their politicians.”

Speakers at the rally slammed the DeSantis administration for not releasing the maps until Monday, and said voters had not been given a chance to weigh in on how their communities would be affected by redistricting. Opponents also argued the new maps would further disenfranchise voters in districts that had already been changed when the DeSantis administration redrew congressional maps in 2022.

Reginald Gundy, a pastor at a Jacksonville Baptist church, said during the rally that he was declaring “a curse” on the legislative body, DeSantis and Trump until they “repent of what they’re doing and start doing what’s right.”

“We must declare it’s wrong. So I claim the power of God from upstairs to come down here and change this mess that’s going on,” Gundy said to loud cheers from the crowd.