TALLAHASSEE, Florida \u2014 Florida\u2019s Republican-controlled Legislature on Wednesday passed a new congressional map that could help the GOP pick up four more seats in the state, just hours after the U.S. Supreme Court announced a far-reaching ruling that could reshape redistricting.<\/p>\n
The final vote is a significant win for both Gov. Ron DeSantis and President Donald Trump after Trump kicked off a mid-decade redistricting scramble across the country last year. But the new map is also destined to trigger a messy legal battle that could play out in both state and federal courts.<\/p>\n
Florida Republican legislators muscled through the map given to them by DeSantis just two days earlier,<\/a> even as lawmakers were trying to absorb the Wednesday high court ruling. The state Senate took a brief delay to review the decision, and several senators could be seen reading it on their laptops.<\/p>\n The map was still approved largely along partisan lines, even though a handful of GOP state senators voted no. Democrats maintained the map was illegal because it runs counter to voter-approved, anti-gerrymandering standards in Florida, but some Republicans said they were swayed by a legal argument from DeSantis attorneys that said those requirements no longer needed to be followed.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think we should do gerrymandering on the basis of political partisanship, and I don\u2019t think there\u2019s evidence this map does this,\u201d countered state Sen. Don Gaetz, a Crestview Republican and one of the sponsors.<\/p>\n The House voted 83-28 in favor of the map even as one Democrat \u2014 state Rep. Angie Nixon \u2014 started yelling into a hot pink megaphone at the time of the vote. No House Republicans, other than the map bill sponsor, GOP state Rep. Jenna Persons-Mulicka, defended redistricting on the chamber floor.<\/p>\n \u201cYou are destroying democracy with this vote,\u201d said state Rep. Fentrice Driskell, the House Democratic leader, during floor debate.<\/p>\n Democrats also ripped into the new map as a power grab that was launched only to help the political fortunes of Trump and Republicans.<\/p>\n \u201cThis map is clearly designed to entrench power rather than reflect the will of the people,\u201d said state Sen. Carlos Guillermo Smith, an Orlando Democrat. \u201cThis moment is about more than the lines. It’s about whether we uphold the rule of law. I will not support a map that is illegal, that is rigged in order to appease an authoritarian who believes that he is king of the United States of America.\u201d<\/p>\n The Senate followed a few hours later with a 21-17 vote after a lengthy debate during which multiple Democrats called it a way to \u201ccheat the people.\u201d They criticized the way the map shifted minority communities into new districts and split voters living near Tampa and Orlando while also drawing other districts that stretched across the state.<\/p>\n Among Republicans, only Gaetz and Persons-Mulicka spoke about the new map as their GOP colleagues \u2014 perhaps eager to avoid getting tangled up in the looming legal fight \u2014 remained relatively silent. State Sen. Ileana Garcia, a Miami Republican who was one of five no votes, said that she opposed the map \u201cbecause of common sense and my conscience.\u201d<\/p>\n Republicans already have a 20-8 edge in the state, but the new map could potentially let the GOP push out a handful of Democratic incumbents, including long-serving Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz<\/a>.<\/p>\n The current map was pushed into law by the governor back in 2022, but DeSantis has been calling for newly drawn congressional lines since last summer. He has listed several reasons, including the possibility of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that came out Wednesday.<\/a><\/p>\n The new map was drawn in a \u201crace neutral\u201d fashion, leading the governor\u2019s office to reshape a South Florida district that had been held by Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick until she resigned earlier this month.<\/p>\n