Although a special session on congressional redistricting suddenly is in doubt, Florida Democrats are preparing lawsuits if the Legislature goes through with plans for a rare mid-decade redrawing of the state’s 28 congressional districts.
President Donald Trump has publicly urged Republican-led states to redraw their maps without a new census – a count of people and where they live – to favor the GOP. That’s to counter gains Democrats are expected to make in the mid-term election.
The move comes at a time when the GOP has a bare minimum number of 217 members, a four-vote majority to advance Trump’s agenda. It is the thinnest majority to control the chamber in nearly 100 years.
Gov. Ron DeSantis called a special session for April 20–24 to set new boundaries. The state’s congressional delegation currently is 20 Republicans and eight Democrats.
Bill Helmich, a GOP political consultant and lobbyist, joked it would take just a weekend to draw a map with no Democratic seats. Others say tweaks to the current map could create an additional five seats for the GOP.
But the plan appears to be unraveling.
Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried said the move by DeSantis and Trump is a desperate attempt to help the GOP retain control of the U.S. House in violation of the state’s Fair Districts Amendments, passed in 2010.
They limit partisan gerrymandering that favor a political party or incumbent and require political boundaries to respect minority voting rights.
“This illegal partisan redistricting scheme to rig the maps is simply about placating Donald Trump and protecting GOP power,” Fried said in a April 15 online news conference.
DeSantis had timed the session in anticipation of a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court that might weaken the Voting Rights Act and provide cause for a redraw, but so far there’s been no opinion released.
And five days before the scheduled start of the session, DeSantis has produced no new map for lawmakers to consider. Moreover, there appears to be no consensus on what one would look like without the House or Senate staff producing drafts for lawmakers and the public to review.
DeSantis has said it is possible the session could be delayed because of unresolved logistics.
A risky venture
State Sen. Carlos Guillermo Smith thinks DeSantis is “hedging” on having a special session because he needs time to find a way to make the partisan-driven effort “look legal.”
Since the House and Senate apparently are not working on a new map, Smith said that leaves only the governor’s office to produce one, and he wants to know who DeSantis has brought in to help him with the drawing.
“This whole process is completely illegal and corrupt,” the Orlando Democrat said. “They’ve made a mockery of the redistricting process.”
But DeSantis said the one criticism he is considering is that the timing isn’t right. The Legislature has yet to pass a state budget, due July 1, and the governor suggests some people have told him to consider a later date.
“I haven’t made any decisions on that,” DeSantis said April 14. “But you can’t really push it very far, you got to get it done probably within the next couple of weeks. So that will happen one way or another.”
Democrats believe there is no legitimate reason for a mid-decade redistricting and, if Republicans adopt a new congressional map, Fried and Smith said it will be challenged immediately in court.
That would be a potential inconvenience for legislative leaders. They could be tied up in depositions all summer, a time when they would usually be launching their fall reelection campaigns.
The danger of ‘dummymander’ing
Fair Districts prevent Republicans from simply redrawing lines on partisan grounds, and Fried said explicit partisan goals publicly stated by Trump and DeSantis will make it easier to prove a map was drawn with the intent to violate Fair Districts.
And then there is the danger of Republicans doing a “dummymandering.”
Kyle Kondik, an analyst with the Sabato’s Crystal Ball newsletter at the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, used that term to warn that Florida Republicans “have to be careful” not to create marginal-gains areas that will flip to Democrats with shifting political winds and reduce the size of the Republican delegation.
A recent Emerson College Poll finds 47% of Florida voters disapprove of Trump’s job performance, with 46% approval, while 56% of voters say mid-decade redistricting is a “bad idea,” with 64% of no-party-affiliated voters in opposition.
Fried is positioning Democrats to leverage Fair Districts as a legal shield for costly litigation for Republican efforts and as a political tool to exploit GOP resistance to the plan. The amendment doesn’t just limit how far DeSantis can go with redistricting without risking a lawsuit or electoral blowback.
This story contains previously published reporting. James Call is a member of the USA TODAY NETWORK-Florida Capital Bureau. He can be reached at jcall@tallahassee.com and is on X as @CallTallahassee.
This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Florida Democrats plan lawsuits over political redistricting push
Reporting by James Call, USA TODAY NETWORK – Florida / Tallahassee Democrat
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