Florida Republicans Fast-Track Gerrymandered Map After Supreme Court Weakens Voting Rights Act

The Florida House of Representatives swiftly approved a gerrymandered congressional map on Wednesday morning, less than one hour after the U.S. Supreme Court significantly weakened the Voting Rights Act. The legislature voted 83-28 to advance the map, which Republicans claim will secure them four additional seats in Congress.

The proposal now heads to the Florida Senate, where it is expected to pass later the same day before landing on Governor Ron DeSantis’s desk for final approval.

Democratic Opposition and Legal Challenges

Despite the rushed process, Democrats strongly opposed the measure. State Representative and U.S. Senate candidate Angie Nixon disrupted the vote by shouting that the new map was “out of order.” Fellow Democrats argued that the redistricting effort violated the Florida Constitution, which prohibits drawing districts “with the intent to favor or disfavor a political party or an incumbent.”

Florida House Democratic Leader Fentrice Driskell highlighted testimony from Jason Poreda, a DeSantis staffer who drew the map, admitting to using partisan data. “The man who drew this map testified under oath that he used partisan data to draw up every single district,” Driskell stated. “Every single one. And when the governor’s attorney was asked whether Democratic voters were being underrepresented in our congressional delegation, his answer was that ‘this is a normative question.’”

Driskell further criticized the timing of the vote, suggesting it was politically motivated. “Members, if we vote yes on this bill, it’s not just that we’re being misled, we are blessing this mess. The timing tells the rest. The governor announces his intention to redistrict, shortly after the president of the United States asked Republican-led states to do exactly that. There is no neutral explanation for that sequence of events,” she added.

Supreme Court Ruling and Political Fallout

The vote occurred just one hour after the U.S. Supreme Court eliminated a majority-Black district in Louisiana, effectively gutting a key provision of the Voting Rights Act. The Florida House rejected a Democratic proposal to delay the vote by two hours to assess the implications of the Supreme Court’s decision.

On Wednesday morning, DeSantis posted on X (formerly Twitter) that the high court’s ruling supported his decision to redraw Florida’s congressional map. “Called this one months ago,” he wrote. “The decision implicates a district in FL — the legal infirmities of which have been corrected in the newly-drawn (and soon to be enacted) map.”

Political analysts suggest the new map may not guarantee safe Republican seats, despite the party’s polling struggles ahead of the November midterms. Meanwhile, Democratic-led states such as California and Virginia are also pursuing redistricting efforts, leaving the outcome of the upcoming elections uncertain.