TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — While his obedience to President Donald Trump by delivering new seats to help Republicans hold the House angers Florida voters and could well be blocked in court, Gov. Ron DeSantis’ creation of a new congressional map could help him with a different group of voters: those picking the next GOP presidential nominee.
Democratic leaders in California and Virginia went to the trouble of winning voter approval to permit aggressive gerrymanders in response to Trump. DeSantis, in contrast, took a much simpler route to dealing with Florida’s ban against the practice. He simply ignored it.
“We released the map on Monday, the Legislature passed it on Wednesday, and that is that,” he told Fox News on Friday.
DeSantis never addressed the Florida Fair Districts Amendments as he began offering up a potpourri of justifications for redrawing Florida’s existing map, which was already a partisan 20-8 gerrymander that he pushed through four years ago. This week, when his staffer who drew the new 24-4 map and the outside lawyer defending it finally appeared briefly before lawmakers, they explained that, yes, partisan voting performance had been used in creating the map but the constitutional prohibition was, in DeSantis’ view, null and void.
