Florida already delayed redistricting. Consultants increasingly wonder if it will — or should — still happen at all.

Amid an unprecedented nationwide redistricting war, Gov. Ron DeSantis expressed an eagerness to engage.

But he also maintained Florida’s entry would be constitutionally grounded.

DeSantis predicted for months that the U.S. Supreme Court would effectively dismantle any federal requirements to preserve majority-minority congressional districts. Just this month, he predicted the court would issue a ruling in Louisiana v. Callais and that conservative Justice Samuel Alito would pen the majority opinion.

But during the week, many anticipated that opinion would drop; no ruling came out.

And while all reporting from Washington suggests the court indeed will toss Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, a law in place since 1965, there’s also speculation Chief Justice John Roberts will want to avoid any appearance the Supreme Court wants to influence the Midterms. While the high court has announced it will release at least one more ruling on Wednesday, any decision on Callais may well be delayed until much later in the year.

By Friday, DeSantis had already canceled a Special Session he originally scheduled for Monday so state lawmakers could approve a new map. Now, the Florida Legislature expects to return to Tallahassee on April 28.

But as skepticism grows about whether federal guidance will come anytime soon, more consultants across the political spectrum agree that a map will not achieve the tacit but legally shaky goal of the entire cartography kerfuffle. That would be serving President Donald Trump’s express desire to flip more Democratic seats red in the 2026 Midterms. But Special Election results, including recent votes in Florida, show an anti-GOP political climate so bad that even districts Trump won by double digits appear to be in play.

The biggest question on the table now is whether the redistricting Special Session will take place at all, or if anyone, including the Governor, who days ago predicted a new map “will be done one way or another,” hungers for fresh lines before November.

No mapmaker, no map

The clearest indication that a map may never come is that one hasn’t been made yet. Less than a week before the launch of a Special Session, neither chamber of the Florida Legislature has produced any draft maps. Senate leadership vows it never will.

“The Senate is not drafting or producing a map for introduction during the special session,” reads a memo from Senate President Ben Albritton. “It is our expectation that pursuant to the proclamation issued by the Governor and consistent with the process undertaken during the 2022 Special Session on Congressional Reapportionment, a proposal will be transmitted from the Governor’s Office to the Senate for our consideration.”

The most curious part of that message? It came less than an hour after DeSantis asserted it should be the job of lawmakers to generate a map. “Ultimately, they’re going to have to consider maps,” DeSantis said. “I can pass judgment on it. Obviously, we worked on a map last time; (we) can do it again.”

That surprised plenty in Tallahassee. DeSantis, after all, vetoed the Legislature’s preferred maps in 2022 to enact his own. He also said previously that he wanted Alex Kelly, a former Deputy Chief of Staff who penned the map DeSantis ultimately signed into law, to return to craft new lines. But Kelly currently serves as FloridaCommerce Secretary, and does not appear to have taken any sabbatical from that work.

Also, some note when he voluntarily testified in court challenges, he stressed the importance of compactness with districts, and it may be difficult to create a new map that improves on that score in court.

There’s no evidence that anyone else in DeSantis’ office has drafted any new lines either. DeSantis now has Leda Kelly, who led the House Redistricting staff in 2022, directing his Office of Policy & Budget. But the Governor hasn’t said he has assigned anyone to make a map.

If a new congressional map exists in draft form, it would be protected from public records law until it becomes available in final form. But numerous Republican political consultants say they have not seen a map. Neither has any member of the House Select Redistricting Committee, the only panel specifically and exclusively tasked with consideration of fresh lines.

On that front, Committee Chair Mike Redondo has avoided any public comment on the process. His panel held two meetings in December on the redistricting process, but since then, none have been held.

FloridaRedistricting.gov, the website that allowed public submissions, doesn’t show any maps submitted since 2022, the decennial map redraw. That notably was the portal used by DeSantis to submit the congressional map ultimately enacted after a lengthy back-and-forth with the Legislature.

But that’s also the site where every draft of maps ever presented in the House or Senate first appeared. In contrast to the last redistricting, the state has not even announced what software may be used to create maps, or where they will first appear when ready for public consumption.

Multiple members of the House committee from both sides of the aisle say they have not been privy to any draft maps if such documents do exist. But of note, court battles over the redistricting process in 2022 and 2012 may disincentivize bringing members of the Legislature into the drafting process too quickly.

A source who closely followed the 2012 process, when the Florida Supreme Court ultimately struck down a map approved by the Legislature, noted that the justices ultimately exposed Senate communications to discovery and allowed Senators to be forced to testify about the redistricting process in open court. But when DeSantis’ 2022 map was challenged, the state’s attorneys successfully shielded communications within the Executive Office of the Governor from public release.

In that sense, confining the process to the executive branch may mean that any legal challenge to a new map passed mid-decade is better protected from judicial scrutiny. And consultants tell Florida Politics, with an admitted dash of cynicism, that it may be strategically wiser, because it looks increasingly challenging to legally justify the creation of a new map when the Florida Constitution doesn’t call for one until after the 2030 census.

Rocky path ahead?

House sources suggest that, despite a legislative term defined largely by friction between House Speaker Daniel Perez and DeSantis, redistricting was one area where the Republican leaders shared a goal. Perez, closely aligned with the White House, wanted to deliver a new map to President Donald Trump. DeSantis wanted a redraw that shed racial restrictions he long argued illegally favored Democrats.

But Perez and DeSantis seemed to be on separate paths in terms of timing. Perez named a Committee in September. He moved with the hope that lawmakers could pass a map before the close of the Regular Legislative Session. But all movement effectively stopped once DeSantis announced a Special Session for April. Now, the Session could run into May.

Some wonder if there’s a legal strategy to the Special Session timing. An established Purcell principle may lead the Supreme Court to put any challenge to new maps on hold until after the elections, even if the challenges appear likely to prevail.

Regardless, DeSantis himself has publicly acknowledged that further delays in redistricting may be impossible, as he has already moved federal qualifying for the Midterms to June, and likely can’t push further without putting dates too close to the August Primary elections.

But of note, DeSantis also expanded the call for the April 28 Special Session to include controversial topics the Legislature failed to reach any agreement on this year, including an AI Bill of Rights and a medical freedom bill. Many have said that if the hope is to put lawmakers in the Senate and House in a more cooperative posture, bringing up topics that chambers openly disagreed about won’t achieve that goal.

Multiple consultants told Florida Politics that the course of action almost begs lawmakers to gavel out on April 28 without taking up any issue, especially as state budget negotiations remain contentious and unresolved.

That doesn’t consider the lack of a legal foundation for new lines. DeSantis has suggested lawmakers should still produce a map anticipating a ruling in the Louisiana case, but while many expect a reinterpretation of the Voting Rights Act, specific details for a landmark Supreme Court decision aren’t as easy to distill.

House sources suggest the ruling may not be critical. Perez argued last year that the Florida Supreme Court’s decision upholding the 2022 map had already reshaped prior guidance on the role race should play in drawing lines.

But one data consultant noted that even if the Legislature decides to try to make a map without race as a factor, lawmakers will still be bound by Florida’s Fair Districts amendment, which prohibits partisan intent behind any patterns. That creates an existential crisis for Session, considering Trump has openly said Florida should draw new lines expressly to increase the number of GOP-held seats.

Florida law contains other constraints. The state may use only 2020 Census data to calculate district populations. That means the Republican-rich growth in the post-pandemic era that has fueled an appetite for new lines will largely be unavailable to mapmakers. But Fair Districts also prohibits cartographers from including party registration in population figures.

Indeed, the only time state cartographers could look at party makeup in 2012 or 2022 was in minority access seats. One consequence of drawing without race in mind, whether based on the state court opinion or the forecast ruling from Washington, is that without minority seats, it won’t be legal in Florida to look at party registration under any circumstance.

Political unease

But even having a seeming advantage for Republicans in many seats meant little when voters in Trump’s own state House district and in a Tampa state Senate district he won both elected Democrats in Special Elections earlier this year. That follows a trend of Democratic overperformance in elections ever since Trump’s return to power.

Of note, both recent elections were sparked because DeSantis appointed Republican lawmakers to other jobs, naming GOP Rep. Mike Caruso as Palm Beach County Clerk and GOP Sen. Jay Collins as Lieutenant Governor.

Why pursue another unforced political error that could lead to Republican losses anyway?

A recent analysis by the Civic Data and Research Institute showed that an aggressive Republican redistricting effort could backfire in Florida, actually putting more GOP incumbents at risk by forcing them into districts where they never ran before. Even a defensive map to shore up the four seats that national Democrats are targeting as battlegrounds may only hurt GOP incumbents.

While a more competitive map may be good news to Florida’s political consulting class, who thrive in environments of political uncertainty, the fear has created agita within Florida’s congressional delegation. GOP U.S. Rep. Dan Webster has been speaking out for most of the year against any redraw, and more recently, other Republican incumbents urged caution.

Still, some hunger for at least a couple of extra seats on a new map, and the White House reportedly has continued to push for fresh cartography. If Virginia passes a Democrat-friendly map in a Special Election this week, it’s like the Republican activist class will push for Florida to counter that effort.

But critics note that the Republican members of the congressional delegation — those who survive a vote this November instead of retiring or going down in defeat — will likely be in office after DeSantis, whose term ends in January, or Trump, who will serve another two years after the Midterms.

Why should state legislators, critics ask, expose themselves to both the legal scrutiny of lawsuits and the political anger of politicians who don’t face term limits?