Legislature approves DeSantis’ congressional map, escalating redistricting war

Just 48 hours after Gov. Ron DeSantis unveiled his proposal for a new congressional map that could give the GOP four more seats, the Florida Legislature approved the plan.

The map faced strong opposition from Democrats, who chided their Republican colleagues for supporting what they said was a hurried and unconstitutional plan driven by President Donald Trump’s goal of maintaining GOP congressional control.

“If it doesn’t scream illegal to you, it ought to just scream unfair and unjust,” said Sen. Barbara Sharief, a Miramar Democrat.

No Republican besides the bill sponsors spoke spoke out in support of DeSantis’ plan during debate on Wednesday in the House or Senate.

Four Senate Republicans broke from their party to vote against the proposal. One Republican in the House, Rep. Hillary Cassel, of Dania Beach, voted against the plan.

With DeSantis’ plan approved, the governor is likely to sign the change into law this week, putting the new districts on track to be in place for the 2026 midterm elections.

Lawsuits are all but inevitable.

READ MORE: South Florida Democrats may be knocked out of Congress by DeSantis’ new FL map

The proposal came together quickly. Jason Poreda, a governor’s office employee who drew the map, said he started his work two weeks ago.

Poreda finished the plan over the weekend. Lawmakers first saw the map Monday in a Fox News article, color-coded by political party.

On Wednesday, the House sped through less than two hours debate and questions before voting in favor of the plan along party lines.

“It’s a partisan map drawn in secret on demand from Washington and shoved through this chamber on a clock designed to keep the public out of the room,” Minority Leader Rep. Fentrice Driskell said Wednesday.

No Republican in the House debated in support of the plan before the vote, including bill sponsor Rep. Jenna Persons-Mulicka, a Fort Myers Republican.

When questioned about the legality of the map, Persons-Mulicka repeatedly said she had no role in crafting it and said she believed the legal arguments laid out by DeSantis’ lawyers.

“I believe the map before us today is a good map and based on viable legal theories and likely to be upheld,” Persons-Mulicka said.

During the vote, Rep. Angie Nixon, a Jacksonville Democrat running for U.S. Senate, began shouting into a pink bullhorn as lawmakers were casting their votes, saying lawmakers were violating the constitution.

Wednesday’s debates were also disrupted by the U.S. Supreme Court’s morning release of an opinion in the Louisiana v. Callais case, a decision about the Voting Rights Act that DeSantis has cited as part of his impetus for redistricting.

Murmurs began among lawmakers, who soon began pulling up the decision on their phones and underlining printouts shared by staff.

Democrats in the House tried to pause debate to give lawmakers time to read the decision, which the Republican majority rejected. The Senate, which is also planning to vote on the governor’s proposal Wednesday, took an hour-long pause.

DeSantis’ legal counsel had expected the high court would rule that race in redistricting is always improper.

Though the court’s decision was slightly more narrow, DeSantis still took a victory lap Wednesday morning.

On social media, he said the court’s decision implicated a Florida district, “the legal infirmities of which have been corrected in the newly-drawn (and soon to be enacted) map.”

Republican Rep. Alex Andrade, a Pensacola-based lawyer, said in a text message that he and other lawmakers felt pressured to “gerrymander based on race” to comply with the Voting Rights Act and Florida Constitution.

“The Callais opinion makes clear that gerrymandering based on race is unconstitutional,” he said. “I was ecstatic to read that opinion before voting today.”

In the Senate, Sen. Jason Pizzo, a Sunny Isles Beach independent, said he couldn’t vote in support of the plan because he needed more time to digest the opinion.

Opponents of DeSantis’ plan have said it violates Florida’s Fair Districts Amendment, a voter-approved part of the constitution adopted in 2010.

Fair Districts prohibits lawmakers from drawing districts that favor a political party. It also prohibits lawmakers from drawing districts to reduce minority voting power.

DeSantis’ office 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.

David Axelman, the governor’s general counsel, sent a letter to lawmakers Wednesday morning after the Supreme Court’s decision came out. In the memo, he said the court set an “extraordinarily onerous standard” for states to use race in redistricting.

Axelman said Florida can’t meet that bar.

Poreda, who says he alone drew the map, acknowledged Tuesday using partisan data in making the maps. However, he said he did not draw a map intending to favor Republicans.

Rep. Jennifer Bradley, R-Fleming Island, on Tuesday questioned the governor’s legal thinking.

Bradley asked Mohammad Jazil, a lawyer representing the governor’s office, if the governor’s legal theory was underpinned in part by the assumption that the Florida Supreme Court would agree with DeSantis’ argument that the Fair Districts Amendment cannot stand.

Jazil agreed.

Bradley is one of the four Senate Republicans who voted no on Wednesday. She was joined by Republican Sens. Ileana Garcia and Alexis Calatayud, both of Miami, and Erin Grall of Vero Beach.

Garcia attributed her no vote to “common sense and my conscience.”

Sen. Don Gaetz, R-Pensacola, sponsored DeSantis’ plan in the Senate. Though Gaetz carried the legislation, he said the governor’s argument didn’t entirely satisfy him.

Gaetz said he believes many parts of the Fair Districts amendment “ought to be saved,” including the provisions banning partisan gerrymandering.

“I don’t think we should do gerrymandering on the basis of political partisanship,” Gaetz said. “I think there’s no evidence that’s been presented on this floor that this map does that.”

As Poreda explained to lawmakers how he drew the map, he said he did not consider race as a factor.

But Sen. Darryl Rouson, D-St. Petersburg, asked if it was truly “race neutral to split up communities made largely of minority voters in ways that make no geographic sense otherwise.”

“Are we to understand that these race-neutral maps coincidentally split up predominantly Black voters in a way that just happens to be politically advantageous to one partisan group?” Rouson said.

He pointed to Tampa Bay in particular.

Under DeSantis’ plan, St. Petersburg would be split in two. The city’s downtown and neighborhoods to the south would become part of Florida’s 16th Congressional District, which would run across the Sunshine Skyway Bridge to connect with Manatee, then run east to include rural DeSoto and Hardee counties.

Tampa would be split between three different districts.

Temple Terrace and parts of East Tampa would be part of Florida’s 15th District, which would run north to include chunks of Pasco, Hernando and Citrus counties.

Florida’s 12th Congressional District would include parts of West Tampa, including Seminole Heights, and expand north to include Carrollwood, Lutz and New Port Richey.

Florida’s 14th Congressional District would include South Tampa and parts of eastern Hillsborough County, along with Brandon and Plant City.

Florida’s 13th District would include most of Pinellas County, including the northern half of St. Petersburg, and a small part of Pasco County.

Sen. Nick DiCeglie, R-Indian Rocks Beach, said it was a “fair map” and said it was “impossible for (Pinellas) not to be split.”

Rouson said under the proposal, people in the poorest neighborhoods will find themselves in districts where they seem like an “afterthought.”

“Are those people, these constituents, really just numbers, just dots on a map? Data points to be processed and manipulated?” Rouson said. “That’s not democracy.”

Herald/Times reporters Alexandra Glorioso and Garrett Shanley contributed to this report.

This story was originally published April 29, 2026 at 12:13 PM.