{"id":251276,"date":"2026-04-29T17:05:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-29T17:05:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/251276\/"},"modified":"2026-04-29T17:05:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T17:05:09","slug":"governor-florida-gop-say-callais-decision-compels-approval-of-congressional-map-proposal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/251276\/","title":{"rendered":"Governor, Florida GOP say Callais decision compels approval of congressional map proposal"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gov.\u00a0Ron DeSantis<\/a> and the Republican Party of Florida<\/a> are celebrating a U.S. Supreme Court<\/a> decision they say affirms the constitutionality of a proposed new congressional map.<\/p>\n

After the 6-3 decision in the long awaited Louisiana v. Callais<\/a> case, DeSantis General Counsel David Axelman\u00a0wrote legislators to \u201ccontinue to urge (them) to enact the proposed congressional map\u201d in light of a novel interpretation of the Voting Rights Act (VRA), which has been long held as a justification for minority-access districts as Florida had for decades.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Court concluded that Louisiana\u2019s creation of an additional majority-minority district to comply with a federal court\u2019s construction of Section 2 of the VRA was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. Notwithstanding that the district was created for the purpose of complying with a court order, the Supreme Court held that the enactment \u2018triggered strict scrutiny because the State\u2019s underlying goal was racial.’\u201d Axelman writes.<\/p>\n

DeSantis\u2019 lawyer adds that much \u201clike Louisiana\u2019s \u2018intentional compliance with the court\u2019s demands constituted an express acknowledgment that race played a role in the drawing of district lines,\u2019 Florida\u2019s intentional compliance with the FDA (Fair Districts amendment) would constitute such an acknowledgment and therefore would require Florida \u2018to satisfy the extraordinarily onerous standard of proving that its use of race was narrowly tailored to further a compelling governmental interest.’\u201d<\/p>\n

He reiterates his previous argument that Florida cannot do that.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Also on board: Florida GOP Chair\u00a0Evan Power, who is running for his party\u2019s nomination in Florida\u2019s 2nd Congressional District.<\/p>\n

\u201cGone are the days of snake-shaped districts. Our maps are drawn fairly and reflect the makeup of our state. The truth is, Republicans hold a more than 1.4 million voter registration advantage in Florida,\u201d he said of the maps that could give Republicans more than 80% of the seats.<\/p>\n

\u201cDeSantis and our Legislature have put forward a map that fairly represents Florida\u2019s voters and communities. We encourage the Legislature to move forward and pass the new congressional map without delay.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Florida House<\/a>, which has battled with DeSantis for the last two Legislative Sessions, has already passed the map, albeit without benefit of these arguments in its favor. Republicans would not defend the product or the process that produced it. DeSantis\u2019 Office was credited on television with having released a map with partisan coloring to Fox News before sending it to the Legislature on Monday morning.<\/p>\n

The House passed the map despite objections, most notably from House Democratic Leader Fentrice Driskell<\/a>, that the SCOTUS ruling \u201csaid the Governor and his counsel are wrong\u201d in their assertion that \u201ccompliance with Section 2 as properly construed can provide such a reason\u201d to provide minority-access districts.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The Senate, as of Wednesday afternoon, continues to debate the map. The path appears to be rockier there, with three Republicans voting against the map in Rules on Tuesday, leading to a 14-9 Committee vote. Questions asked before that vote included why the map focused on splitting Tampa and Orlando and altering the Miami-Dade area while not addressing population changes north of Interstate 4.<\/p>\n

But given a Republican supermajority in the Senate at large, a number of members will have to buck their Governor and their party for this map not to become law.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gov.\u00a0Ron DeSantis and the Republican Party of Florida are celebrating a U.S. Supreme Court decision they say affirms…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":251277,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[39199,109006,28,30,29,56183,412],"class_list":["post-251276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-congressional-redistricting","tag-david-axelman","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-louisiana-v-callais","tag-ron-desantis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251276","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=251276"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251276\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/251277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}