House seeks speedier redistricting

Jim Turner
News Service of Florida

As a House committee began working Thursday to possibly redraw Florida congressional districts that would be more favorable to Republicans, its chairman pushed for a quicker timeline than suggested by Gov. Ron DeSantis and Senate President Ben Albritton.
In discussing the process to redraw congressional lines, House Select Committee on Congressional Redistricting Chairman Mike Redondo said the map should be completed by the March 13 scheduled end of the regular 2026 legislative session.
“Given the fact that we are less than a year away from the election, not to mention the fact that the candidate qualifying period for federal offices is in late April, it would be irresponsible to delay the creation and passage of a new map, especially until after session,” Redondo, R-Miami, said.
On Wednesday, Albritton, R-Wauchula, noted in a memorandum to senators that DeSantis “has expressed a desire to address this issue next spring,” adding “there is no ongoing work regarding potential mid-decade redistricting taking place in the Senate at this time.”
On Monday, the online conservative news outlet The Floridian reported that DeSantis intends to call a special session on redistricting in the spring.
Asked about redistricting Wednesday during an appearance in Tampa, DeSantis said his staff hasn’t developed a map, and he continues to wait on a ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court in a Louisiana redistricting case. That case involves issues about the creation of two majority-Black districts and the Voting Rights Act.
“We’re going to be forced to do it (redraw Florida’s districts), I think, because the Supreme Court’s decision is going to impact the current map,” DeSantis said. “So just no matter what else happens, that is going to have to be addressed.”
Redondo said his committee next week will review the legal impact of changes that the Legislature made in 2022 at DeSantis’ direction to a North Florida congressional district. The changes eliminated a district that Black Democrat Al Lawson had held and led to Republicans winning all North Florida districts.
“Our work as a committee and as a legislative body is not directed by the work of other states or partisan gamesmanship,” Redondo said.
Redondo’s comment drew mocking laughter from many people in an overflow crowd that was mostly opposed to the possibility of a highly unusual mid-decade round of redistricting. President Donald Trump has pushed some Republican-led states to redraw districts to help the GOP maintain its slim majority in the U.S. House in the 2026 elections. Democrats have countered by trying to add more Democratic-held seats in California.
Jessica Lowe-Minor, president of the League of Women Voters of Florida, said people came on buses to the Capitol from various parts of the state to object Thursday to the “clear partisan power grab.”
“There’s a national context in which, you know, states are competing against each other to try to secure control of Congress before a single vote has been cast in the midterm elections, and it’s a very partisan context,” Lowe-Minor said after the meeting. “And so within that context, we do not believe that the state of Florida is allowed to do partisan gerrymandering, it’s a violation of our state Constitution.”
The meeting was scheduled for one hour but ended in about 30 minutes. No public comments were taken.
Redistricting usually happens after each U.S. census, with the last round in Florida in 2022. Republicans hold 20 of the state’s 28 congressional seats.
The dispute about the North Florida district involved Congressional District 5, which previously stretched from Jacksonville to west of Tallahassee. During the 2022 redistricting process, DeSantis argued that keeping such a district would be an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. Lawmakers approved drawing District 5 in the Jacksonville area.
An unsuccessful legal challenge to the change involved the interplay of the U.S. Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause and the state Constitution’s “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.
Voting-rights groups argued that the District 5 overhaul violated the non-diminishment requirement because it effectively prevented Black voters in North Florida from electing a candidate of their choice.
But the Florida Supreme Court upheld the map. Along with the “non-diminishment” requirement, the Fair Districts standards also say, in part, that no “apportionment plan or individual district shall be drawn with the intent to favor or disfavor a political party or an incumbent.”