Middecade redistricting could be risky move for Florida Republicans

Yahoo

a day ago

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — While the Republican-controlled Texas Legislature wages 'maximum warfare' to carve new GOP House seats for the 2026 election and solidify President Donald Trump's lock on Congress, significant obstacles impede Gov. Ron DeSantis' desire to do the same in Florida.
The Texas Legislature met in a special session at Trump's request and quickly came up with a new gerrymandered congressional district map last week that would take away up to five seats from the Democrats.
That spurred Democrats to leave the state to prevent a vote on the new map, and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott in turn has threatened to oust them from office.
Meanwhile, Gov. Ron DeSantis said he thinks Florida could come up with three to five new Republican seats, based on conversations he's had with the U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, but he has stopped short of calling for a special session himself.
'We're looking at it seriously. I would look favorably to the Legislature taking it up, so stay tuned on that,' DeSantis said last week at a news conference.
That may be a tall order in a Republican-dominated Legislature that is nevertheless increasingly resistant to the state's lame-duck governor. State Rep. Alex Andrade, a top Republican from Pensacola, said Monday that DeSantis is 'not in a position to force us to do anything that we don't think is a good idea. All we'd have as an impetus for this is partisanship.'
House Democratic leader Fentrice Driskell of Tampa said she does not 'trust a word coming out of DeSantis' mouth about redistricting because it's all coming from Trump.'
This is about Florida getting more Republican seats positioning himself for another run for president in 2028, she said.
'He is more concerned about posturing for his next political opportunity than concern about the well-being of the people of Florida,' Driskell said.
So far, Florida GOP legislative leaders have remained silent on holding a special session on redistricting, which would be a massive, expensive logistical process. And there appears to be little appetite among Republican members of Florida's congressional delegation, many of whom are gearing up for reelection and unlikely to want to reshape districts in ways that change their voter base.
DeSantis vetoed the Legislature's last attempt at drawing new congressional district lines and forced his own map on them in 2022, one that eliminated two Black congressional districts and spurred lawsuits from voting rights groups. The map was upheld by both the federal courts and the Florida Supreme Court.
But his grip on the Legislature has slipped since he strong-armed voting districts on them. When he tried to impose his will on the Legislature in January over immigration enforcement, the Legislature rejected his plans and passed several bills of its own, creating a standoff that was resolved by a compromise.
Andrade, who served as the House health care budget chief last session, said he speaks with House Speaker Danny Perez of Miami once a week, said he 'hasn't heard anything on redistricting' from the leadership.
The impetus and data required for an accurate, constitutional middecade redistricting isn't there, he said. 'Odds are we'd be redistricting with no real basis, and drawing partisan lines.'
That would violate the state constitution, which prohibits redrawing lines for political purposes. 'If maps were to get litigated with no other justifiable reason than political gain, we would lose in court.' Andrade said. 'There has to be some other justification for me to take it seriously.'
When they drew up their congressional map based on the 2020 census three years ago, Andrade said, 'We had to bend over backwards to avoid looking partisan.'
The Legislature's map would have given Republicans just two additional seats. DeSantis' map handed the GOP four seats, giving its congressional delegation a 20-8 majority and helping secure the party's narrow control of Congress in the last two elections.
It would be impossible to avoid obvious partisanship this time around without conducting a new census, Andrade argued. DeSantis said he wants a new census but acknowledged it would be difficult to redistrict Florida given the short time frame between now and the midterms.
'Now they'd have to do that relatively soon, because you need time to draw maps and you need time to get that done,' DeSantis said.
Redistricting is traditionally done every 10 years following the census to determine how many seats each state gets in the 435-member House of Representatives and to distribute federal funds. DeSantis argued last week that the population has grown enough to require a mid-decade census and reapportionment.
DeSantis said the state was cheated out of a second new congressional seat — the state was awarded one after the 2020 census — during the last round of reapportionment because the census was poorly conducted, but Democrats said he had a chance to prevent that from happening.
Democrats pushed to create a committee in 2019 to oversee the census count to make sure Florida residents didn't get undercounted and ensure that citizens get the full number of representatives they deserve.
DeSantis rejected that plan, saying it wasn't the state's responsibility to make sure everyone got counted. He also said he didn't want to spend state money counting the heads of noncitizens.
'The census was off because DeSantis failed to work aggressively with local governments and community groups to make sure the marginalized populations were not undercounted,' said Daniel Smith, head of the political science department at the University of Florida.
Now, DeSantis wants a middecade census that counts only the people who are legally allowed to be in the U.S. But the Constitution requires 'an enumeration' of the people in each state every 10 years, and gives Congress broad powers to decide how to accomplish that, Smith said. 'You don't get to choose who you count.'
Smith said the governor has painted himself into a corner by not wanting to count noncitizens, because they're the reason Florida got even one extra seat.
'You take those people out of the equation and Florida is going to lose seats,' Smith said.
Matt Isbell, a Democrat consultant who specializes in analyzing election results by district and precinct level, said DeSantis is 'full of nonsense.'
Conducting a midcycle census would be a massive, expensive undertaking that may not even produce the result that DeSantis wants, he said.
'It's a gamble. You risk losing seats and right now you have 20 solid Republican seats,' Isbell said.
Driskell said redistricting could easily backfire on the GOP.
'You never know what issue would be to get voters to have a change of heart,' she said. 'Voters care about having their representation taken away.'
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