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Tag: Florida redistricting

  • DeSantis sets special session on redistricting in April



    Credit: Ron DeSantis/X

    Gov. Ron DeSantis on Wednesday called a special legislative session in April to redraw congressional districts, as Republicans seek to maintain control of the U.S. House in this year’s elections.

    With Florida’s regular 60-day session starting next week, DeSantis called the special session for the week of April 20, at least in part to give the U.S. Supreme Court time to rule in a pending Louisiana redistricting case. The DeSantis administration also rescheduled a qualifying period for Florida congressional candidates.

    “I know there’s a lot of people that are excited in both the (Florida) House and the Senate to be able to do it (redraw the districts). So, they’re going to get their chance to do it,” DeSantis said during an appearance in Steinhatchee. “But realistically, you can’t do it now. The Supreme Court hasn’t ruled. So, we’ve got to give some time for that.”

     

    The call came after the Florida House, whose leaders have clashed with DeSantis on a variety of issues during the past year, started a redistricting review. Redrawing lines in the middle of the decade would be highly unusual, as redistricting traditionally occurs after the U.S. census is released.

    Amelia Angleton, a spokeswoman for House Speaker Daniel Perez, R-Miami, said in an email that the House was “made aware of the (special session) proclamation this morning.”

    Senate President Ben Albritton, a Wauchula Republican who had previously expressed support for delaying redistricting until after the regular session, said in a memo to senators Wednesday that there is “no ongoing work regarding mid-decade redistricting taking place in the Senate at this time. I’ll continue to monitor legal developments and will keep you updated.”

    President Donald Trump has pushed several Republican-controlled states to redraw districts in advance of the 2026 elections. Democratic-dominated California has responded with its own redistricting effort.

    Democrats, who are far outnumbered by Republicans in the Florida House and Senate, and groups such as the League of Women Voters of Florida have warned that a mid-decade redistricting process would lead to costly litigation. Such litigation likely would focus, at least in part, on 2010 state constitutional amendments — known as the Fair Districts amendments — that created standards for redistricting.

    “Florida’s Fair Districts Amendment strictly prohibits any maps from being drawn for partisan reasons, and regardless of any bluster from the governor’s office, the only reason we’re having this unprecedented conversation about drawing new maps is because Donald Trump demanded it,” state Senate Minority Leader Lori Berman, D-Boca Raton, said in a statement.

    Lawmakers will start the regular session on Tuesday, and it is scheduled to end March 13.

    DeSantis, who said he also might seek a special session to address his priority of cutting property taxes, has said he expects the U.S. Supreme Court in the Louisiana case to make changes related to the Voting Rights Act of 1965. That could help bolster efforts to redraw districts. The case, Louisiana v. Callais, involves issues about the creation of two majority-Black districts and the Voting Rights Act.

    Wednesday’s proclamation for the special session said “the Legislature should wait as long as is feasible for conducting the 2026 elections before redrawing Florida’s congressional district boundaries in order to take advantage of any further guidance from the United States Supreme Court, which is expected in early 2026, on the use of race in drawing electoral districts.”

    DeSantis also contends new congressional district lines would better reflect Florida’s increased population since the 2020 census was conducted.

    But state House Minority Leader Fentrice Driskell, D-Tampa, said the governor’s goal is to draw maps that favor Republicans, who already hold 20 of the state’s 28 congressional seats.

    “Florida’s government should not be rigging elections. That’s what they do in places like Cuba and Venezuela, not America,” Driskell said in a conference call with reporters. “This is a cynical swamp-like behavior that makes people hate politics.”

    In conjunction with DeSantis’ special-session proclamation, Secretary of State Cord Byrd issued a separate directive to county elections supervisors that, in part, moved back the congressional-candidate qualifying period, which had been scheduled the week of April 20. It was moved back to June 8 to June 12, the same qualifying period for candidates seeking state offices.

    As part of the regular post-census redistricting process in 2022, DeSantis pressured lawmakers to revamp North Florida’s Congressional District 5, which in the past stretched from Jacksonville to west of Tallahassee and elected Black Democrat Al Lawson. Lawmakers redrew the district in the Jacksonville area, with Republicans then winning it and all other North Florida districts.

    DeSantis argued that keeping the previous design of the district would have been an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. Voting-rights groups challenged the constitutionality of the redrawn district, but the Florida Supreme Court upheld it.

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    Jim Turner, News Service of Florida
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  • Federal judges back Gov. DeSantis’ congressional map that eliminated Black district

    Federal judges back Gov. DeSantis’ congressional map that eliminated Black district

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    Photo via Ron DeSantis/Twitter

    A three-judge federal panel Wednesday rejected a constitutional challenge to a congressional redistricting plan that Gov. Ron DeSantis pushed through the Legislature in 2022, saying opponents did not prove lawmakers acted with “racially discriminatory purpose.”

    The decision was the second time in less than four months that courts have upheld the map in cases focused on the overhaul of a North Florida district that in the past elected a Black Democrat. The state’s 1st District Court of Appeal on Dec. 1 backed the plan — a decision that has been appealed to the Florida Supreme Court.

    The federal-court lawsuit, filed by plaintiffs such as Common Cause Florida and the Florida NAACP, alleged that the map involved intentional discrimination and violated the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment and 15th Amendment. The 14th Amendment ensures equal protection, while the 15th Amendment prohibits denying or abridging the right to vote based on race.

    But Wednesday’s opinion shared by Judges Adalberto Jordan, M. Casey Rodgers and Allen Winsor said the plaintiffs had not met a key test of showing that the Legislature acted with racial motivation.

    “There are two relevant state actors in this case — the Florida Legislature, which passed the enacted map, and the governor, who proposed, pushed for, and signed the enacted map into law,” the opinion said. “It is not enough for the plaintiffs to show that the governor was motivated in part by racial animus, which we will assume without deciding for purposes of our decision. Rather, they also must prove that the Florida Legislature itself acted with some discriminatory purpose when adopting and passing the enacted map. This they have not done.”

    The opinion said the “plaintiffs freely concede there is no direct or circumstantial evidence of racially discriminatory purpose on the part of any member of the Florida Legislature.”

    “A public and collective decision-making body, like the Florida Legislature, is answerable only for its own unconstitutional actions and motivations,” the 58-page opinion said. “The unlawful motivations of others — whether constituents, the governor, or even a single member of the body itself — do not become those of the decision-making body as a whole unless it is shown that a majority of the body’s members shared and purposefully adopted (i.e., ratified) the motivations.”

    But Jordan and Winsor, in concurring opinions, took opposing stances on whether DeSantis had racial motivations. Unlike ordinary federal-court cases, three-judge federal panels hear redistricting cases.

    Jordan, a judge on the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, wrote that “the evidence presented at trial convinces me that the governor did, in fact, act with race as a motivating factor.”

    “I do not think that Governor DeSantis harbors personal racial animus toward Black voters,” Jordan wrote. “But I do believe that he used race impermissibly as a means to achieve ends (including partisan advantage) that he cannot admit to.”

    Winsor, a district judge, disagreed with Jordan and wrote that the plaintiffs did not provide discriminatory purpose by the Legislature or DeSantis.

    “Florida governors, like United States presidents, routinely use their legislative authority to advance their policy goals, just as legislators do.” Winsor wrote. “Plaintiffs call the governor’s insistence here ‘bull(ying) the Legislature.’ Others might call it exercising political will. But one shouldn’t call it racist.”

    The North Florida district, Congressional District 5, in the past elected Black Democrat Al Lawson. The former configuration of the district stretched from Jacksonville to Gadsden County, west of Tallahassee, and incorporated areas with sizable numbers of Black voters.

    DeSantis vetoed a redistricting plan passed by the Republican-controlled Legislature and muscled through a replacement that placed District 5 in the Jacksonville area. White Republicans won all North Florida congressional seats in the November 2022 elections.

    DeSantis argued that keeping a district similar to the former shape of Congressional District 5 would be an unconstitutional racial gerrymander.

    The three-judge federal panel held a trial in September and October. Meanwhile, a separate case was playing out in state courts. That case focuses on a 2010 state constitutional amendment, known as the Fair Districts amendment, that prohibited drawing districts that would “diminish” the ability of minorities to “elect representatives of their choice.”

    Leon County Circuit Judge J. Lee Marsh agreed with voting-rights groups that the redistricting plan violated the Fair Districts amendment. But the 1st District Court of Appeal rejected that decision in December, citing the sprawling shape of the district that elected Lawson.

    The appeals court’s main opinion said protection offered under the non-diminishment clause and under the federal Voting Rights Act “is of the voting power of ‘a politically cohesive, geographically insular minority group.’” It said linking voters across a large stretch of North Florida did not meet such a definition of cohesiveness.

    The Florida Supreme Court has agreed to hear an appeal by voting-rights groups, though it has not scheduled arguments. As a result, the 2022 congressional map will remain in place for this year’s elections.

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    Jim Saunders, News Service of Florida

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