Florida state senator: DeSantis redistricting map ‘overtly racist’

Black lawmakers in Florida are denouncing Gov. Ron DeSantis’s (R) latest congressional redistricting plan, with one state senator calling it “overtly racist.”

DeSantis’s new plan, submitted Wednesday, could help Republicans pick up four seats in the House this fall, multiple outlets have reported. This would effectively wipe out Democrats’ national redistricting gains so far, which the Cook Political Report places at a net 1.5 seats.

The new plan would do this in part by likely reducing the number of districts where Black voters are a plurality. Rep. Al Lawson (D-Fla.) told the Orlando Sentinel the plan “is a continued scheme by DeSantis to erase minority access districts in Congress in order to create more seats for the Republican party.”

DeSantis has specifically argued that Lawson’s majority Black 5th District, which stretches along the Florida-Georgia border from Tallahassee to Jacksonville, is unconstitutional. DeSantis vetoed a congressional map approved by the GOP-controlled state legislature in March that didn’t eliminate the 5th District.

The new map would break up that district. It would also reduce Black voting power in St. Petersburg and Orlando, according to Dave Wasserman of the Cook Political Report.

“The fact he has the gall to do something like this clearly shows what he thinks of minorities and black voters,” Florida state Sen. Randolph Bracy (D), who represents Orlando and is running for Congress in a district that would lose Black Democratic voters under DeSantis’s proposed map, told the Sentinel. “This is the most overtly racist action that you can do.”

The legislature gave DeSantis the power to draw a new map Monday after months of intraparty feuding to ensure the governor’s approval, allowing him to fulfill his previous demands.

“Our goal during the special session is to pass a new congressional map that will both earn the Governor’s signature and withstand legal scrutiny, if challenged,” Florida state Senate President Wilton Simpson (R) and state House Speaker Chris Sprowls (R) wrote in a memo to fellow lawmakers. 

In March, a federal judge struck down parts of a controversial Florida election law that he said had “the intent to discriminate against Black voters.” The court invalidated certain limits the law placed on ballot boxes, voter registration by third parties and the distributing of water to those in line at the polls.

Republicans might face another battle in court with DeSantis’s new plan. In recent years, the Florida Supreme Court has ruled in favor of a Fair Maps ballot measure that limits the degree of gerrymandering in the redistricting process.