Ron DeSantis’ new congressional map used partisan info, governor’s staff says

The architect of Gov. Ron DeSantis’ new congressional map, which would likely give four more seats to Republicans, said Tuesday that he used partisan criteria in drawing the plan.

DeSantis’ office has argued that it doesn’t need to adhere to Florida’s longtime ban on partisan gerrymandering, but had previously stopped short of directly acknowledging it skirted those requirements.

That’s despite the governor’s office initially releasing its map, with districts color-coded by which way it’s expected to lean politically, exclusively to Fox News.

Voters in 2010 adopted that gerrymandering prohibition as part of the Fair Districts Amendment. The constitutional amendment also prohibits lawmakers from drawing maps in a way that would dilute racial and language minority voting power.

But DeSantis’ office has said considering race in redistricting is improper.

And it has argued that if one component of the Fair Districts Amendment is inapplicable, which they say the racial requirement is, the other part — the ban on partisan gerrymandering — can’t stand either.

With that in mind, Jason Poreda, who said he drew the governor’s map, used partisan material.

“Not using race, and not having to adhere to the Fair Districts Amendment, the entire suite of redistricting criteria that are available to other states, I used here, including partisan data,” Poreda said in front of the Florida Senate.

Poreda said the only criterion he excluded was race. He said he started working on the proposal two weeks ago and finished it over the weekend.

DeSantis first called for a special session on redistricting in January. He delayed his call two weeks ago.

Mohammad Jazil, a Holtzman Vogel attorney representing the governor’s office, said his legal analysis shows the state doesn’t need to comply with the Fair Districts Amendment.

“The text of Article 3 Section 20 sets up a tiered structure,“ Jazil said. ”Now what happens when you take a tier out from under you? The structure falls.”

Florida’s current congressional map was drafted by DeSantis’ office in 2022. After years of litigation, the Florida Supreme Court upheld the map last year, agreeing with the governor’s office that a previous North Florida seat overrelied on race.

Weeks after winning that legal battle, DeSantis started pushing for Florida to again redraw its map. It coincided with President Donald Trump pushing red states to recut their districts to keep GOP control of Congress.

Lawmakers are set to vote on DeSantis’ plan this week. Lawsuits are inevitable, and it will be up to Florida courts to decide if they agree with the governor’s disregard of the Fair Districts Amendment.

This story was originally published April 28, 2026 at 4:01 PM.