FLORIDA — Florida is one of several states looking at potentially redrawing its congressional districts for partisan advantage ahead of next year’s elections.
The Florida House Select Committee on Congressional Redistricting has 11 members — 8 Republicans and 3 Democrats.
The committee will meet next month on Dec. 4 and 10 after Gov. Ron DeSantis posted on social media to “stay tuned” on the matter.
Florida’s congressional district boundaries already favor the GOP, with 20 Florida Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives and only 8 Florida Democrats.
“The question I think that may be in front of DeSantis or anybody who’s thinking about doing this is the sort of friction that this creates. Is this political friction? Is this really worth it? How many more seats are we going to get?” Florida Atlantic University professor Craig Burnett asked.
While the redistricting committee has withheld any proposed maps, Democrats have vowed to “push back hard” against GOP efforts to do so.
“We need to stop the cheating and just keep the map we already had from redistricting. Florida doesn’t do mid-decade redistricting. And, make the case to the voters rather than cheating to try to screw up the map,” U.S. Rep. Darren Soto, D-Florida, said.
Florida still has time to implement a new congressional map.
The state will not hold primary elections until the middle of next August.
Spectrum News Staff
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