Like previous maps submitted by DeSantis’s office, the latest bid would likely reduce the number of black voters in pluralism and make it harder for Democrats to win anywhere north of Orlando or outside major cities. The charter is almost certain to be approved by the Republican-controlled legislature when state lawmakers meet next week in a special session to complete the task of redistributing the state Congress once a decade. Although the state constitution places lawmakers responsible for the restructuring, GOP lawmakers announced this week that they will hand over these tasks to DeSantis, ending the power struggle between the two branches of government that has been going on for months. DeSantis had asked lawmakers to disband the 5th Florida Congressional District, now represented by Democrat Al Lawson, which connects black communities from Tallahassee to Jacksonville. He claimed it was racist harassment and on Tuesday promised to replace it with a “neutral tribal” area. “I mean, we’re not going to have a 200 mile seed that separates people based on their skin color,” DeSantis said. “This is wrong. This is not the way we governed the state of Florida.” DeSantis’s new map will achieve this by splitting Jacksonville, the state with the largest African-American population in the state, into two Republican neighborhoods. It would also shift the 10th Congressional District of Florida – a seat in the Orlando area represented by Val Demings, a black Democrat now running for the U.S. Senate – east to the whiter communities. Republican lawmakers in Florida had previously warned that reducing the power of black voters would violate a voter-approved constitutional amendment to the state known as Fair Districts, which requires lawmakers to give minority communities the opportunity to “vote for” their”. However, DeSantis welcomed a legal challenge, suggesting that the state’s conservative Supreme Court could reveal the Fair Districts amendment. He vowed to veto any map that did not dissolve the 5th District – and he did so last month. Republicans could have worked with Democratic lawmakers to circumvent the governor’s veto. Or they could have left the courts to decide. But they were reluctant to continue the confrontation with their party’s most popular elected leader and eventually withdrew. The map would also push sections of St. Petersburg into a Tampa-based area, making it possible for two Democrat-held seats in Tampa Bay to become one. Matthew Isbell, the Democrats’ top charter adviser, predicted that the latest DeSantis map has 20 constituencies that would vote for then-President Donald Trump in 2020 and eight that would vote for current President Joe Biden. If these results are predictive of how voters in those constituencies will vote this November, it would mean Republicans would win four more seats in Congress and Democrats would lose three. The Republicans currently have a 16-11 advantage in the US House of Representatives delegation in Florida. The state added a 28th district after the 2020 U.S. census.
