STEINHATCHEE, Fla. (WCTV/Gray Florida Capital Bureau) — Governor Ron DeSantis announced Wednesday he is calling for a special session this spring to redraw Florida’s congressional boundaries, citing changes in the legal context since the current maps were signed into law in 2022.
Several states have made similar efforts while the U.S. Supreme Court is considering a case out of Lousiana on the Voting Rights Act.
“It’s going to affect the validity of some of these districts nationwide, including some here in the state of Florida,” DeSantis said.
DeSantis anounced the special session during a news conference in Steinhatchee while awarding rural infrastructure grants. He issued a proclamation Wednesday forcing state lawmakers to consider redrawing congressional maps this spring.
The special session will convene in Tallahassee the week of April 20. The Legislature will only consider legislation relating to the drawing of Congressional districts for Florida and appropriating additional funds for any legal challenges.
“Every Florida resident deserves to be represented fairly and constitutionally,” DeSantis said in the proclamation. “This Special Session will take place after the regular legislative session, which will allow the Legislature to first focus on the pressing issues facing Floridians before devoting its full attention to congressional redistricting in April.”
Florida Secretary of State Cord Byrd issued a directive declaring 2026 as a year of apportionment for candidate qualification.
U.S. House districts are typically redrawn once a decade, immediately after a census. DeSantis said the context of congressional districts is different than when he signed the current maps into law in 2022.
“We didn’t have a sound expectation that deviating from that previous understanding would’ve met the map would’ve been upheld. Now you’re probably in a situation where the map can’t be upheld,” DeSantis said.
The proclamation states the redistricting is needed to ensure Florida’s congressional maps accurately reflect the population of the state and to comply with an upcoming U.S. Supreme Court ruling.
House Minority Leader Fentrice Driskell said she does not accept that argument.
“Our state has seen population growth over the last century, and it has never caused us to redraw the maps in the middle of the decade. It has never caused us to redraw the maps absent a census,” Driskell said.
Redistricting work is already being done in the Florida House with a dedicated committee meeting twice ahead of next week’s regular session. The committee chair ignored reporters when asked about the committee’s plans after its second meeting in December. It is not clear if the committee will continue working over the 60-day session.
Political analyst Susan MacManus said redistricting outside the usual cycle will add time to an already lengthy process, especially for the maps to be in place for the November election.
“You have to anticipate that whatever map they come up with, it will be contested. So you have to add to that the court,” MacManus said.
MacManus said there is only one reason to do it now.
“So this is a case, this redistricting is drawn primarily in response to the president’s request to bone up the representation of Republicans in the U.S. House,” MacManus said.
This will cause problems since Florida has a constitutional amendment banning political gerrymandering.
“At the end of the day, no matter what they do on these maps, no matter what happens at the end, the people are frustrated,” said Nikki Fried, Florida Democratic Party Chair.
The announcement comes just days before the regular session begins on Tuesday.
Florida Politics
During the conference at Sea Hag Marina, the governor also announced infrastructure investments for several Big Bend counties:
$36 million to Taylor County through the Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery and from the Rural Infrastructure fund$25 million to Perry$1 million to Taylor County commissioners for residential roads in Steinhatchee$4.9 million for Taylor County special needs emergency shelter$300,000 for a critically needed infrastructure, commercial seafood offload processing and distributing facility$4.4 million for Doctors’ Memorial Hospital in Perry$4.5 million for the Big Bend Water Authority in Steinhatchee$2.5 million for the city of Carrabelle to repair damages and harden the sanitary sewer collection and treatment system$7 million for the city of Gretna to rehabilitate and upgrade the city’s production wells$4.1 million for the city of Monticello to rehabilitate or replace deteriorated lift stations and force mains, along with installing permanent standby generators at critical sites and hardening electrical and mechanical components$1.2 million to Hamilton County to restore and provide improvements to the sheltering facility $1.3 million to Lafayette County to restore and harden the drainage and roadway system$8 million to Madison County to its Board of County Commissioners to reconstruct the special needs shelter$2.8 million to Wakulla County to design and construct a project to line manholes, gravity sewers and tie-ins
During the conference, DeSantis also revealed that $8.5 million will be provided to 10 small and rural communities to assist with critical infrastructure projects.
$700,000 to Gretna$167,000 to Franklin County$300,000 to Hamilton County$100,000 to Madison County$300,000 to Jennings
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