On Friday, The Washington Post reported on how Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) is attempting to push the GOP-controlled legislature to pass a more aggressive gerrymander of the state's congressional maps — in particular urging they carve up a North Florida district spanning from Tallahassee to Jacksonville that exists to allow Black voters to elect a candidate of their choice.
The new report notes that even some Republicans who are normally allied with him are pushing back on the idea.
Florida is a rare example of a Republican-controlled state that was not already gerrymandered going into this decade's redistricting process. The Florida Supreme Court struck down the GOP's original 2011 gerrymander in 2015, citing the state's Fair Districts Amendment, and forced implementation of a fair map. But Republican appointees taking over the state Supreme Court, combined with Florida gaining a new seat from the Census, led some GOP activists to hope the state could draw an aggressive gerrymander that would survive the whole decade, possibly giving Republicans 3 to 4 more seats.
DeSantis has led the charge — but, according to the report, his fellow Republicans in the legislature aren't on board, believing a map that too aggressively denies seats to Black voters won't hold up in court.
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"It ... shocked even fellow Florida Republicans when, in the midst of a pressure campaign from Donald Trump’s former senior adviser Stephen K. Bannon, DeSantis incited a redistricting battle with his own party, roping the state’s two legislative chambers into the fray and asking the state’s highest court to pick sides," reported Colby Itkowitz, Lori Rozsa, and Michael Scherer. "Days before the Florida state Senate was to vote on new congressional district lines in January, DeSantis presented a dramatically more partisan map that boosted Republican seats and eliminated a district where a plurality of voters are Black."
"The state Senate ignored DeSantis’s last-minute appeal and passed its version, a map that received support from every Republican and all but four Democrats in the chamber," noted the report. "DeSantis responded by asking the state Supreme Court to weigh in on whether his map’s erasure of the 5th Congressional District, where Black Democrats are advantaged, would withstand legal scrutiny ... On Thursday, in a rare legal setback for DeSantis, the state Supreme Court rejected his request for an advisory opinion, saying the governor’s request was 'broad and contains multiple questions that implicate complex federal and state constitutional matters and precedents interpreting the Voting Rights Act of 1965.'"
State Sen. Ray Rodrigues, who heads up redistricting efforts in the Florida Senate for Republicans, put things bluntly: “I’m a proud Republican, a very conservative Republican, but when I was elected, I was sworn into office on an oath to follow and protect the Constitution whether I like it or not. I have a responsibility to be in compliance with our Constitution.”
The Florida State House's proposed map is a bit more favorable to Republicans than the Senate's; it reduces Black voters' representation in the Tampa-based 10th District and makes the currently Democratic-held 7th District in suburban Orlando more Republican-leaning. But neither the House nor Senate plan, which will need to be reconciled in a compromise draw, will be much like the aggressive racial gerrymander that DeSantis sought.
You can read more here.
