Florida next week is set to be the latest of several states to redraw their maps ahead of the midterm elections.
The processes in other states have been explicitly political: each state looking to give their dominant party a leg-up heading into a consequential election season.
But the state’s top Republicans say Florida’s redistricting is not prompted by politics.
Governor Ron DeSantis told the press earlier this month the planned redraw is happening for non-partisan reasons.
“Florida has experienced 10 years’ worth of population growth in like three and so if you look, our districts are not fairly apportioned,” he said.
He also pointed to another reason he says the state needs new maps: the pending Supreme Court case that is reevaluating whether drawing maps to ensure minority groups get representation is unconstitutional.
“I'm very confident, if there's a map that is consistent with what that opinion will eventually say, that that's going to be a map that is going to be upheld going forward.”
That’s a far cry from months ago, when the Republican Party of Florida Chairman Evan Power said his party could gain up to 5 more seats under a redraw.
But Florida’s constitution prohibits political gerrymandering. That’s because of the 2010 Fair Districts Amendment to the state’s constitution.
FSU Election Law Center Director Michael Morley said that sets Florida apart from other states that have redistricted.
“Unlike states that lack these state constitutional prohibitions on partisan gerrymandering, the Florida Legislature has to be able to point to these politically neutral factors, politically neutral considerations,” he said.
With that legal situation present, DeSantis and other Republicans pivotal to this process like Senate President Ben Albritton have refrained from using partisan language. But that hasn’t convinced everyone. Democrats and advocacy groups that frequently clash with Florida’s legislature have been calling the effort politically motivated since it was first floated last year.
Abdelilah Skhir, the ACLU of Florida’s senior policy strategist, thinks the effort is clearly partisan.
“This attempt to rig voting maps to favor one party over another is inherently illegal and unconstitutional,” he said.
He said the motivation for this is the same partisan politics that is occurring in other states and is based in the jockeying before the midterms. He thinks every state that has done it has harmed the democratic representation of their residents.
“They really opened a Pandora's box. When you get down to it, voters should choose their representatives, not the other way around. And unfortunately, where we are now is that Florida is looking to respond to what's happened in Texas and Missouri and North Carolina and Virginia,” he said.
When asked whether the ACLU of Florida will sue over any maps approved next week, Skhir said they do not comment on potential or hypothetical litigation.
But if they or another group does sue alleging partisan gerrymandering, Morley said its likely too late for them to have the maps redrawn in court due to the Purcell principle.
That prevents lower courts from overturning election laws too close to an election to prevent confusion.
“You have to have the primary. You have to have the ballots printed. You have to know what candidates have qualified for the ballots. They have to have time to get signatures. Everybody needs to know what the districts actually are well in advance of both the primary and the general elections in order for those elections to be able to happen,” he said.
And a redraw may not even play out in the Republican Party’s favor. An analysis from the Civic Data & Research Institute, which is run by a long-time Republican political consultant, thinks a redraw would at most give Republicans one more performing seat, while making them more vulnerable in other areas.
It’s still unclear what the maps will look like, but drafts will likely be revealed when the Florida legislature starts its special session Tuesday.