The Florida state legislature on Wednesday advanced a new congressional map proposed by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), giving Republicans four more seats they are likely to win over Democrats.
The redistricting bill seeks to give Republicans a 24-4 advantage in the state, which is now represented in the U.S. House by 20 Republicans and seven Democrats. One seat is vacant after former Democratic congresswoman Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick resigned last week ahead of a sanctions hearing; she faced expulsion for campaign finance violations.
The map passed both the Republican-controlled state House and Senate on Wednesday. The new map passed the Florida House by a party-line vote of 83-28, but passed the Senate by a vote of 21-17, with four Republicans defecting to vote with Democrats. For the measure to fail, it would have needed seven GOP defectors in the Senate.
The two votes came hours after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down race-based redistricting in Louisiana by narrowing a section of the Voting Rights Act that requires some states to create majority-minority districts, in which a racial minority is considered the majority of a district’s total population. In Florida, at least one of its redrawn districts was previously a Hispanic-majority area in the central part of the state.
DeSantis celebrated the Supreme Court’s ruling on Wednesday as a boon to his GOP-friendly map. “The decision implicates a district in FL — the legal infirmities of which have been corrected in the newly-drawn (and soon to be enacted) map,” DeSantis wrote on X.
The Florida governor had pushed the state’s legislature to consider redrawing congressional district boundaries during a four-day special legislative session this week.
While redistricting was the primary purpose of the special session, the governor also wanted Republican lawmakers to pass legislation that would provide vaccine exemptions for children and regulate artificial intelligence at the state level. Shortly after the session started on Tuesday, though, Florida House Speaker Daniel Perez (R) blocked the two bills.
DeSantis and Perez have long feuded over certain policies, but they were aligned on adding four more Republican-friendly districts to the state ahead of the midterm elections.
The move came just over one week after Virginia passed a redistricting referendum that would likely give Democrats a 10-1 edge in the commonwealth. That measure is already being challenged in court.
FLORIDA REDISTRICTING PUTS PRO-ISRAEL DEMOCRATS AT RISK
The Virginia Supreme Court on Tuesday barred state officials from certifying the April 21 special election, thereby halting Democrats’ efforts to enact the new congressional map for now while the court weighs the legality of the vote.
Florida’s Constitution includes strict anti-gerrymandering provisions, so the new map may be challenged in court if it’s enacted.