Gov. DeSantis says Legislature should drive redistricting, acknowledges potential delays in mapmaking

Gov. Ron DeSantis says his Office will not drive a congressional redistricting process in Florida, and he confirmed that it may take a matter of weeks to draw a new map despite a Special Session scheduled to begin next week.

He said the Legislature ultimately should lead the process of drafting new cartography.

“Ultimately, they’re going to have to consider maps. I can pass judgment on it,” he said. “Obviously, we worked on a map last time, can do it again.”

That was a much-abridged account of the 2022 decennial redistricting process, when DeSantis objected to, and ultimately vetoed, maps that were approved by the Legislature. He then convened a Special Session where the Legislature approved a map designed by his Office instead. DeSantis signed off on that map on April 22 of that year.

He acknowledged there isn’t the same time to haggle over political boundaries to put a map in place in time for the 2026 Midterms, at least one any different from the one he already approved in 2022. But he said if lawmakers need more time, they can ask.

“I have heard people say, you know, they still haven’t done a budget. There’s this, there’s this, there’s that. Could you do a little bit different timing?” DeSantis said.

“The answer is, I haven’t made any decisions on that. But there, it’s possible you could do a little tweak, but you can’t really push it very far. You’ve got to get it done probably within the next couple of weeks.”

The qualifying week for federal offices was supposed to take place next week. But DeSantis already moved that deadline to noon on June 12 in order to accommodate redistricting.

DeSantis rebuffed reporting that suggested he wants to know the outcome of a Virginia election, where voters may approve a redrawn congressional map that heavily favors Democrats.

“I saw some reports that somehow Virginia is doing such and such. I have no idea where that came from,” he said. “I have no idea what the relevance of Virginia is to anything we’re doing.”

Rather, the Governor has insisted a new map should be motivated by court rulings that have reset legal expectations as far as drawing minority representative districts. A U.S. Supreme Court ruling could come out on Friday on the topic, one DeSantis believes will be crafted by conservative Justice Samuel Alito and that could end decades of precedent regarding the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Of note, three members of the Legislature close to the process had expected the body to defer to the Governor on mapmaking, despite two years of antipathy between DeSantis and lawmakers, particularly in the House.

Senate President Ben Albritton’s Office made clear his chamber has taken no steps toward redistricting and expected DeSantis to lead the process. Albritton won’t even appoint a select redistricting Committee, something Speaker Daniel Perez did last year.

“The Senate is not drafting a map for introduction during the Special Session. We are awaiting a communication from the Governor,” a spokesperson for Albritton wrote in an email to Florida Politics.

“The President has not had any communications with the Governor regarding redistricting. The President also stated previously several times that he was not planning to appoint Senators to the Senate’s standing Committee on Reapportionment, but would handle midterm redistricting via Ethics and Elections or Rules.”