Editorial: Florida lawmakers let voters down
Wednesday afternoon, in an act of pure partisan aggression, GOP lawmakers redrew Florida's congressional districts. They acted with only one goal in mind: Locking down safe seats for Republicans by stripping representation from the state's minorities, Democrats and independent voters.
And yes, just to get this out of the way: This kind of partisan vote-rigging, halfway through the normal cycle, is just as repellent when Democrats go at it, as they plan to do in Virginia and California.
In Florida, Republicans currently hold 20 of the state's 28 congressional seats. The map the Legislature passed Wednesday is supposed to open the door for the GOP to turn as many as four more seats red. We're not sure things will work out that way, for reasons we'll address in a minute. But there's no getting around the obvious truth: The intent here was vile, stacking the deck to give 41.4% of Florida voters control of 85% of Florida's seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. And lawmakers knew what they were doing - what DeSantis had commanded them to do. That was most readily illustrated by a map that was passed around a lot in the runup to Wednesday's vote, showing four little blue islands in a Florida-shaped sea of red.
The rationale behind this is a real insult to voters' intelligence. DeSantis is arguing that Florida's significant growth over the past few years merits a redraw of the state's congressional boundaries. But Florida has usually been one of the fastest-growing states in the nation. There's nothing different about 2026. In addition, the map approved Wednesday officially relies on the same data set – the 2020 Census - that was used in the regularly scheduled redistricting in 2021. It's certainly irritating to hear the governor whine about Florida's "under-represented" Census counts, since he openly refused to devote time or effort to ensuring an accurate count in 2020.
Even worse was the utter disrespect that lawmakers showed for two voter-approved amendments passed in 2008 - one addressing congressional districts, the other the state House and Senate. Both contain the same requirements for redistricting: Most important is the demand that lines should never be drawn "with the intent to favor or disfavor a political party or an incumbent." Districts should include equal numbers of voters in each district, be compact and follow existing boundaries like county or city limits, water bodies or major roads. Finally, Florida's two Fair District amendments require that districts "shall not be drawn with the intent or result of denying or abridging the equal opportunity of racial or language minorities to participate in the political process or to diminish their ability to elect representatives of their choice."
That last clause was inserted to ensure that Florida followed the protections spelled out in the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965. But also on Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court dropped a ruling that sharply limited the use of race-based consideration redistricting under the federal law. Even before the court ruled, DeSantis' attorney was telling lawmakers that they no longer have to follow any of the provisions of Florida's Fair Districts amendments - that because one portion of Florida's constitution might be invalidated as a result of that ruling, the entire Fair District language should be ignored.
First, there's no Florida case that challenges Fair Districts on those grounds, and second, Wednesday's decision on the federal law speaks specifically to the creation of so-called "minority opportunity" districts, something that is not mentioned in Florida's Fair Districts amendments. Most importantly, there is nothing in the Supreme Court decision about maps that are blatant attempts to favor one party over another. And Jason Poreda, the DeSantis aide who claims to have sole authorship of the map the Legislature approved, emphasized how careful he was to follow some provisions of the Fair Districts amendments, while blatantly ignoring the ban on partisan line-drawing.
His plan also trampled another key provision, the requirement that districts be compact. That certainly is not the case with the redrawn configuration of House District 9, currently held by U.S. Rep. Darren Soto, an Orlando Democrat. When Soto was elected, the district included all of Osceola County and parts of Orange and Polk. But Wednesday's map drags the southern boundary of the district all the way down to Glades County.
There's also significant doubt among Republicans as to whether DeSantis will even accomplish the goal of grabbing at least four more seats. They warn that the new map stretches the state's Republicans too thin, and makes bad guesses about the likely voting patterns of voters who aren't registered with either major party. One GOP consultant concluded that Republicans actually created more risk in districts that are now considered GOP strongholds. On Fox and Friends, GOP strategist Karl Rove said the same thing: "They're going to have to take Republican votes out of Republican districts and put them into Democrat districts," Rove told Fox before Wednesday's vote, "and that's going to lower the numbers for some incumbent Republicans, and they may lose a seat or two."
One of Florida's longest-serving lawmakers isn't waiting around to see what happens. U.S. Rep. Dan Webster, R-Clermont, had warned about the perils of redistricting before the special session. Within hours of Wednesday's House and Senate votes to pass it, Webster issued a bland, sunshiny press release saying that he planned to retire after his current term. We'd like to believe that Webster was taking a stand on principle, but we suspect that he looked at the voter breakdown in his new district and concluded that his chances of winning re-election had just dropped significantly - and that he did not want a grueling fight.
It would be truly ironic if GOP leaders found themselves losing seats in Florida, after treating their own voters like low-value commodities and violating their oath to uphold the U.S. and Florida Constitutions. But we're more interested in seeing more of them recognize that what happened in Tallahassee over the past week was wrong, and regret that they allowed DeSantis to persuade them to violate the trust of voters - Republicans, Democrats and independents alike - who were truly deserving of their allegiance.
The Orlando Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Opinion Editor Krys Fluker, Executive Editor Roger Simmons and Viewpoints Editor Jay Reddick. Use insight@orlandosentinel.com to contact us.
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This story was originally published May 1, 2026 at 5:41 AM.