DeSantis Signals Florida Will Gerrymander Its Maps in the Spring

In an interview on Monday, Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis indicated that he will likely call a special session of the state legislature in the near future to redraw congressional boundaries, as many GOP-led states across the country have already done in order to benefit the Republican Party.

In his comments to The Floridian, DeSantis was unforthcoming about the partisan nature of his plan, framing the move as a “requirement,” depending on the outcome of a Supreme Court case involving Texas’s mid-census redistricting.

“So, we’re going to redistrict,” he told the publication. “We’re going to do it next spring.”

Florida maps have already changed somewhat, following a challenge by state Republicans to a previously drawn map that had created a Black-majority district. The conservative state Supreme Court ruled that map was unlawful, splitting the district up and diluting Black voting power in the process.

DeSantis indicated that, pending the outcome of the federal Supreme Court case, Republicans may make more changes to Florida’s congressional maps, calling considerations for race as outlined in the Voting Rights Act “defects” that may have to be “remedied.”

Several progressive organizations in the state have decried the governor’s statements.

Genesis Robinson, executive director of Equal Ground Education Fund, a voting rights organization focused on empowering Black voters, called the move “a mid-decade redistricting process designed to tip the scales of power for political purposes and silence voters, particularly those in the most marginalized communities of our state.”

Robinson further described the plan as being “unprecedented, dangerous and fundamentally undemocratic.”

Notably, Florida voters decided in a 2010 ballot initiative to change the state constitution, forbidding partisan gerrymandering. Despite DeSantis claiming that his intentions are to “remedy” a flawed map, any new maps would likely be challenged on that basis, given the redistricting scheme orchestrated by several GOP-led states to stymie any Democratic Party gains in the 2026 midterms next fall.

“Lawmakers are taking the illegal step of redrawing districts halfway through the normal cycle to avoid being held accountable by voters,” said Brad Ashwell, Florida state director for All Voting is Local.

A rally is planned for Thursday at the Florida state Capitol building to voice opposition to the redistricting plans.

The voluntary redrawing of maps by state legislatures is rare — indeed, from 1970 to 2024, there were only three instances of state lawmakers deciding to redistrict their congressional maps before the next census. But this year, at the urging of the Trump administration, four Republican-led states have passed new maps for partisan reasons, with one Democratic-led state, California, doing so in response to those states’ actions. Several more states are planning to redistrict before next year’s midterms.

Although both major political parties have engaged in partisan gerrymandering, a group of Democratic lawmakers in Congress have proposed a bill aimed at limiting the practice. The Redistricting Reform Act requires states to comply with the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and to draw maps that would “respect communities of interest” and “representational needs based on common ethnic, racial, economic, Tribal, social, cultural, geographic, or historic identities, or arising from similar socioeconomic conditions.”

The bill also requires states to establish independent redistricting commissions to ensure that state lawmakers are not drawing their own political maps to benefit themselves. It would forbid mid-census redrawing of maps unless a state is ordered to do so by a court to remedy a noncompliant map.

The bill does not have a high likelihood of passage, given that the House and Senate are both controlled by Republicans who are supportive of Trump’s efforts to redraw maps to keep their party in control of Congress. However, the measures outlined in the bill are incredibly popular among voters across the U.S.

According to an NBC News/Decision Desk poll conducted in September, 82 percent of voters support the idea of states having nonpartisan commissions redraw maps instead of state lawmakers themselves. A Common Cause poll from that same month found support among voters from all political stripes for restricting mid-census redistricting, with 76 percent of Democratic-leaning voters and 57 percent of Republican-leaning voters agreeing with that idea.