State legislatures, including Florida, usually draft a bill that the governor approves or rejects. DeSantis vetoed the proposed GOP-controlled congressional districts on March 29, after proposing his own charter that would increase the GOP’s number of seats while eliminating two constituencies represented by Black Democrats. Legislature leaders said Monday they would not try to draft a new plan before the special session next week, but instead expected DeSantis, a possible candidate for the 2024 presidency, to submit his own plan. “We are waiting for communication from the Governor’s Office with a map that will support. “Our intention is to provide the Governor’s Office with opportunities to present this information to the Parliamentary and Senate restructuring committees,” the legislative leaders said in a memo on Monday. The legislature approved a bill earlier this year that would give Republicans an 18-10 advantage in the state delegation. DeSantis’ proposal would give Republicans a 20-8 advantage. DeSantis seems to be focusing on eliminating two areas of Congress with large non-white populations. One of them is the 5th district of the Florida Congress, which stretches from Jacksonville to Tallahassee, is 46% black and is represented by Al Lawson, a Black Democrat. He has also targeted the 10th state congress, which is predominantly non-white and represented by Val Demings, another Black Democrat. “The Florida Legislature is backing down from DeSantis intimidation and its desire to create additional Republican seats in Congress by eliminating minority-accessible districts,” Lawson said in a statement. “Again, I’m not surprised, but I’m disappointed with the legislature ‘s inability to fulfill its constitutional duties as elected officials without political intervention by DeSantis.” Mac Stipanovich, a longtime Republican general in Florida who has since left the party, told the Washington Post that Republicans were “worshiping” the governor. “All it has to do is retain and gain power and retain office,” he told the Post. “What we’re seeing is a mile on the road to one-man rule in Florida, at least for now.” The Florida Legislature approved two versions of the 5th Congressional District earlier this year to try to please the governor, but DeSantis rejected both. His office claimed that lawmakers had illegally classified voters on the basis of race. One version also reduced the proportion of black voters, and DeSantis’s office said they had violated a provision in the state constitution that says the state can not make it difficult for minority voters who meet certain criteria to elect their candidate. This reasoning is “inconsistent” and “inconsistent,” wrote Michael Lee, a redistribution expert at the Brennan Center for Justice, on Twitter. The governor’s office effectively argued that the maps violated the U.S. Constitution taking into account race too much and the Florida Constitution on racial valuation too little. So to summarize: According to Governor DeSantis, the compact (primary) version of the FL-5 ** violates the US Constitution because it was designed to maintain minority power, and the Florida Constitution because it reduces minority power. power. 10 / pic.twitter.com/zEXAPK0doG – Michael Li (@mcpli) March 29, 2022 As for the “backup” version of the FL-5, Governor DeSantis claims that he complied with the Florida Constitution (maintaining similar black percentages) but violates the US Constitution because to keep black percentages the same, you had to pay too much. attention to race. 🤷🏻♂️ 11 / pic.twitter.com/yXY11LVDuW – Michael Li (@mcpli) March 29, 2022 At the federal level, however, DeSantis’s reasoning echoes what the U.S. Supreme Court recently signaled about voting rights law. Conservative judges on the court have repeatedly expressed skepticism about the use of race in redistribution and make it more difficult for parties to show that it is necessary to take race into account when drawing the boundaries of the district. DeSantis, a former member of Congress, is ready for a litigation over the Florida maps, NBC News reported. It also aims for a 2010 amendment to the Florida Constitution, which was approved by an overwhelming majority of voters, which puts protective railings in the redistribution process. Part of this amendment states that regions can not be curtailed “equal opportunities for racial or linguistic minorities to participate in the political process or to reduce their ability to elect representatives of their choice”. “I think our disagreement may very well lead us to say that the Florida redistribution amendments do not comply with the Equal Protection Clause in Amendment 14,” DeSantis said in March. Republicans have a 6-1 majority in the Florida Supreme Court. The legislature is due to convene on April 19-21 for a special meeting on redistribution. Florida, Missouri and New Hampshire are the last three states to complete the congressional district. So far, there are 181 Democratic-backed seats, 182 Republican-backed seats and 34 highly competitive seats among the 435 seats in the US House of Representatives, according to FiveThirtyEight.
