![\"Florida](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/MIA_6_Florida_Legislation_Session_2026_MJO.JPG\" "\\"Florida")
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Florida Governor Ron DeSantis delivers his State of the State address during the first day of the legislative session at the Florida State Capitol on Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2026, in Tallahassee, Fla.<\/p>\n
Photo by Matias J. Ocner<\/p>\n
mocner@miamiherald.com<\/p>\n
Tallahassee<\/p>\n
Gov. Ron DeSantis on Monday released a redistricting proposal that could give the Republican Party four more seats in Congress.<\/p>\n
His plan, released to Fox News before it was sent to lawmakers, could leave Tampa Bay without any Democratic seats and South Florida with fewer left-leaning seats.<\/p>\n
Only four seats out of Florida\u2019s 28 \u2014 District 10 in Central Florida, and Districts 23, 20 and 24 in South Florida \u2014 would lean in favor of Democrats, according to the proposal from the governor\u2019s office. The map his office released is colored according to political party.<\/p>\n
The governor\u2019s proposal comes amid a national redistricting battle initiated by President Donald Trump, who last summer started pushing red states to redraw their maps and keep GOP control of Congress.<\/p>\n
Some left-leaning states retaliated, and both parties are at about where they started before about half a dozen states created new maps.<\/p>\n
Florida\u2019s proposal, if passed, could tip those scales.<\/p>\n
Florida lawmakers are set to vote this week on the proposal during a special session called by DeSantis. Unlike in some other states, the map does not have to go in front of voters for approval.<\/p>\n
Florida\u2019s rules<\/p>\n
Opponents say DeSantis\u2019 plan flies in the face of Florida\u2019s ban on partisan gerrymandering, which more than 60% of Florida voters supported and the state adopted into its constitution in 2010.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is illegal, plain and simple,\u201d Florida House Minority Leader Fentrice Driskell said.<\/p>\n
In discussing redistricting, DeSantis has avoided citing politics as a motivating factor. But Driskell said DeSantis releasing the map first to Fox News \u201cshows this is just about giving red meat to his base.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the Fox News article, DeSantis also cites the state\u2019s 1.5 million Republican voter advantage and says his proposal \u201cmore fairly represents the makeup of Florida today.\u201d<\/p>\n
DeSantis first started pushing for redistricting last summer as Trump began asking friendly states to help him keep a GOP majority.<\/p>\n
Though Florida bans partisan redistricting, the governor\u2019s office on Monday suggested that it doesn\u2019t need to follow the Fair Districts Amendment.<\/p>\n
The Fair Districts language says that redistricting can\u2019t be done to favor a political party or an incumbent and can\u2019t be done to deny equal opportunity to racial and language minorities.<\/p>\n
The governor\u2019s office, in drawing the map, made \u201cno attempt to adhere to the race-based requirements,\u201d according to a memo sent to lawmakers from DeSantis\u2019 general counsel, David Axelman.<\/p>\n
Axelman argued that those requirements are unconstitutional. He said that the U.S. Supreme Court is poised to say the same in a pending Voting Rights Act case.<\/p>\n
If one part of the Fair Districts Amendment is unconstitutional, Axelman argued the whole thing has to come down \u2014 including the prohibition on political gerrymandering.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe [Fair Districts Amendment] was sold to voters as a package,\u201d Axelman said. \u201cAnd because one part is unconstitutional, there\u2019s little reason to think that voters would have approved the remaining parts by themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n
Genesis Robinson, the executive director of the left-aligned group Equal Ground, said the governor\u2019s plan is a \u201cviolation of the Fair Districts Amendment, which still exists.\u201d<\/p>\n
Robinson said DeSantis can\u2019t unilaterally decide to disregard part of the constitution.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it should unnerve every Floridian that their governor is refusing to follow the law of the land, of this state,\u201d Robinson said.<\/p>\n
The map<\/p>\n
The governor\u2019s proposal for mid-cycle redistricting would slice up Tampa Bay.<\/p>\n
Florida\u2019s 13th Congressional District \u2014 which now includes most of Pinellas County \u2014 would include a portion of western Pasco County starting around Holiday and running south through Pinellas Park, including the north part of St. Petersburg.<\/p>\n
Much of St. Petersburg, including the city\u2019s downtown and neighborhoods to the south, would become part of Florida\u2019s 16th Congressional District, which would include parts of Manatee and Polk counties and rural DeSoto and Hardee counties.<\/p>\n
Florida\u2019s 14th Congressional District would include South Tampa and parts of eastern Hillsborough County, along with Brandon and Plant City.<\/p>\n
Temple Terrace and parts of East Tampa would be part of Florida\u2019s 15th District, which would include chunks of Pasco, Hernando and Citrus County.<\/p>\n
Florida\u2019s 12th Congressional District would include parts of West Tampa, including Seminole Heights, and expand north to include Carrollwood, Lutz and New Port Richey.<\/p>\n
Other districts in Florida also would take on long stretches, including Congressional District 22. Under the governor\u2019s proposal, both Weston and Parkland in Broward County would be combined with southern Collier County.<\/p>\n
Some residents of Coral Springs, the neighboring city of Parkland, would be included in that district. Others would have a different representative.<\/p>\n
Benjamin Schneer, an associate professor at the Harvard Kennedy School, said it\u2019s generally unusual to combine such disparate communities in one district.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut of course, when there are extreme gerrymanders, we see departures from that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The political and legal stakes<\/p>\n
Ahead of DeSantis releasing his proposal, some members of Florida\u2019s Republican congressional delegation warned that redrawing could backfire and leave them vulnerable.<\/p>\n
U.S. Rep. Carlos Gimenez, a Miami Republican, last month told Punchbowl News that lawmakers should take heed of the special state legislative elections held earlier this year, in which Democrats flipped two Republican seats.<\/p>\n
Republican Party of Florida Chairperson Evan Power \u2014 who is running for the congressional district encompassing Tallahassee \u2014 shrugged off concerns, saying Floridians have shown they will vote for Republicans.<\/p>\n
Power also dismissed criticism about how the maps were released \u2014 to Fox News, with the party advantage highlighted for each district.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe optics are going to be the optics no matter what we do,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The new, aggressive map could risk a couple of competitive seats if voters swing left compared to the last election.<\/p>\n
While 24 of the proposed districts voted for Trump in 2024, two of those did not in the election prior. And another three leaned red in 2020 by less than 3 percentage points.<\/p>\n
One of the possible competitive seats would be the proposed 14th District, in Tampa Bay.<\/p>\n
Trump won the area, which would include South Tampa, Town \u2019N Country and the Brandon suburbs, by 11 points in 2024 but by 3 in 2020.<\/p>\n
But Schneer said even if Democrats do well under the map, it could leave them at about where they stand now. Democrats currently hold eight of Florida\u2019s 28 seats.<\/p>\n
If lawmakers approve DeSantis\u2019 map, a legal fight is all but inevitable.<\/p>\n
U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries on Monday said Florida\u2019s map was a blatant violation of Florida\u2019s constitution and the U.S. Constitution, saying it targets minority communities.<\/p>\n
\u201cSee you in Court,\u201d Jeffries said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Christopher Kenny, the co-founder of the Algorithm-Assisted Redistricting Methodology Project, said districts that split up communities are sure to be targets of lawsuits moving forward.<\/p>\n
Florida\u2019s constitution says that districts shall \u201cwhere feasible, utilize existing political and geographical boundaries.\u201d Kenny said plaintiffs may try to show that Florida unnecessarily split up communities where it didn\u2019t have to.<\/p>\n
But such a legal battle could take years to play out, meaning DeSantis\u2019 map may be in place for the 2026 midterm elections regardless.<\/p>\n
Herald\/Times reporter Lawrence Mower and Tampa Bay Times data editor Langston Taylor contributed to this report.<\/p>\n
This story was originally published April 27, 2026 at 11:12 AM.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Florida Governor Ron DeSantis delivers his State of the State address during the first day of the legislative…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":249306,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[123,125,124],"class_list":["post-249305","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-miami","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249305","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=249305"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249305\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/249306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=249305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=249305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=249305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}