The Florida House and Senate could vote on a proposal as soon as Wednesday that would expand Florida Republicans\u2019 advantage in Congress.<\/p>\n
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. \u2014 After 46 days away from the Capitol, Florida lawmakers are back in a special session focused on redrawing the state\u2019s congressional map ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.<\/p>\n
The session began Tuesday at the state\u2019s capitol and could run until Friday, but some lawmakers suggested a vote could happen as quickly as Wednesday.<\/p>\n
At the center of the debate is a proposal from Gov. Ron DeSantis that Republicans say could flip four Democratic-held seats and expand the GOP\u2019s advantage in Florida\u2019s congressional delegation to 24-4.<\/p>\n
The newly released map, dropped by the governor\u2019s office Monday, targets four districts currently represented by Democrats: two in South Florida in the Miami-area, one in the Orlando area and one in the Tampa Bay region, currently held by Rep. Kathy Castor.<\/p>\n
Republicans argue the mid-decade redraw is necessary to reflect population growth and aims to eliminate what they describe as \u201crace-based districts.\u201d<\/p>\n
Critics of the effort, including those who protested outside the capitol Tuesday morning, call it illegal, pointing to the Fair Districts Amendment of Florida\u2019s constitution that prohibits redistricting \u201cwith the intent to favor or disfavor a political party.\u201d The amendment also prohibits redistricting from undercutting minority voting groups.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey want to rig maps so that they can pick their voters instead of voters picking their politicians,\u201d said Genesis Robinson of Equal Ground during the protest Tuesday.<\/p>\n
An attorney representing Gov. Ron DeSantis\u2019 office responded to those claims today, arguing the Fair Districts Act doesn\u2019t need to be followed and violates the U.S. Constitution itself.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy legal analysis that I laid out is that you do not need to take it into account,\u201d said attorney Mo Jazil, who was speaking on behalf of the governor Tuesday. \u201cThe governor\u2019s position on the issue is this: we should not use race at all when drawing districts. \u2026 The rest of Article 3 Section 20 cannot be saved. That is because the provisions are inseparable from one another.\u201d<\/p>\n
House Speaker Daniel Perez also pushed back on accusations of partisanship, despite the map being released in a color-coded format by party.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know that would be the easy headline\u2026 that is not the position that we\u2019re in,\u201d Perez said.<\/p>\n
Perez said the House plans to debate and vote on the map Wednesday morning after a House committee advanced the proposal Tuesday. He also added that the other two issues \u2014 AI safeguards and vaccine mandates \u2014 that were supposed to be discussed alongside redistricting won\u2019t be taken up by the House this special session, effectively killing them in his opening statements.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A Senate committee also passed the map, though a timeline for a full Senate vote remains unclear.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Florida House and Senate could vote on a proposal as soon as Wednesday that would expand Florida…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":250569,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-250568","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250568","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=250568"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250568\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/250569"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=250568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=250568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=250568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}