Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has proposed a redistricting map to try to pick up four more Republican House seats. It’s the latest state to join the major parties’ redistricting battle.
JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is pushing his state to join the nationwide redistricting battle that President Trump started last year. DeSantis has laid out a new congressional map that could dent Republicans up to four more seats in Congress. Here to tell us about it is NPR political correspondent Ashley Lopez. Hey.
ASHLEY LOPEZ, BYLINE: Hey there.
SUMMERS: So, Ashley, what do we know so far about Florida’s proposed map?
LOPEZ: Yeah. So this was a map that was first given to Fox News, and if it passes, it looks like it would be 24 congressional districts favoring Republicans to four favoring Democrats. The current makeup is 20 to 8, so this could get Republicans about four more seats in Congress. But to do that, lawmakers would be making some pretty safe seats much less safe heading into a potentially bruising midterm for Republicans. So a gain of four could be optimistic.
SUMMERS: But hasn’t the state of Florida been trending Republican in recent years?
LOPEZ: Yeah. That’s true, but if you look at how special elections have been going so far, the landscape is not looking good for Republicans. Even in Florida, the party just recently lost some seats in the state legislature, actually, including one district that encompasses Mar-a-Lago. So as you can imagine, there are some Republicans in the state that are, like, nervous about carving up some safe seats.
SUMMERS: OK. So given the risks for Republicans here, is there a chance this just doesn’t go through, it doesn’t happen?
LOPEZ: Yeah, there is. And experts I have talked to say this is a fairly risky proposition for Republicans. Rob Mellen Jr. is a professor of government at the University of South Florida, and he told me he thinks it’s 50-50 whether this gets approved.
ROB MELLEN JR: From the legislators that I’ve looked at – their comments and the things that they’ve said there – they’re a bit wary about this because they know that this could come back to bite them.
LOPEZ: And I should note that this was all prompted by the governor, not the legislature. And Ron DeSantis is term limited, so his political capital is sort of waning right now, and that’s important because lawmakers may feel less pressure to pass this than they would have maybe a few years ago.
SUMMERS: OK. So let’s assume that Republican lawmakers go along with this map, and then it’s enacted, which party would be ahead in the national redistricting picture?
LOPEZ: So with Virginia’s ballot measure passing last week, this – assuming Republicans pick up four seats in Florida – would leave things very close. There would be maybe a slight edge for Republicans. One of the few wildcards here, though, is that the Virginia Supreme Court is currently considering a legal challenge to the states’ effort, so it’s possible those new districts won’t go into effect.
SUMMERS: The effort in Virginia was approved by voters there. That’s not the case in Florida, right?
LOPEZ: Yeah. That’s right. Only Virginia and California, the two Democratic-led states, have gotten voters’ approval first, mostly because they have redistricting commissions in their constitutions, whereas all these Republican states like Texas, Missouri, North Carolina and Ohio, didn’t have to get voters’ input first. So though Florida lawmakers will decide on their own, I should say, Florida has a ban on partisan redistricting in its constitution. Voters in 2010 overwhelmingly approved a ballot measure that prohibits gerrymandering and favors – that favors one party or disadvantages an incumbent. But Governor DeSantis has been getting around this by saying this isn’t about partisan gain. He says it’s an effort to address demographic shifts in Florida lately.
SUMMERS: How quickly could lawmakers make a decision on these new maps?
LOPEZ: Well, this could happen really quickly. The governor called a special session that starts tomorrow and ends at the end of the week. I mentioned there are a few wildcards, and one of them is that the Supreme Court could soon issue its decision on the Voting Rights Act, which could set off a bunch of redistricting efforts, mostly in the South. But the closer we get to primary elections, the less likely it is that states will redraw before the midterms.
SUMMERS: NPR’s Ashley Lopez. Thank you.
LOPEZ: Thank you.
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