MIAMI – Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) knows what it’s like to fight districts with his hands.
Desantis will rebrew Congressional lines after the 2020 census, when his state won a seat in the legislature – claiming that the maps disappointed minority voters and defeated the enemy in a trial challenging the map.
Now, as a rezoned battle in Texas is taking place and attracting the nation’s attention, Florida has been able to try and repaint Congressional boundaries once again and try to bolster its efforts to keep President Trump and the GOP’s efforts a majority in Washington.
“We were in the Institute here in Florida,” said Fernando Amandy, a Miami-based Democratic strategist. “[DeSantis] It was possible to do that and not only escaped with it, it also showed the ultimate success of the approach. ”
Assessing the situation, Amandy was not optimistic about his party.
“I think we can expect the worst,” he said.
Last week, DeSantis approached a repetition of his previous fights, expressing support for the recent Florida Supreme Court decision that upheld his map after the 2020 census.
The governor of Florida also insisted on rezoning his further efforts in the state.
“Looking at the Florida Supreme Court analysis, I think there may be more flaws needed to be fixed apart from what we have already done,” DeSantis told reporters at a press conference last week. “I think the way population has changed around Florida since the 2020 census was also disproportionate.”
“So I think it would be appropriate to rezone here in the middle of this year,” he concluded.
As political debate heats up in the rezoning, Republicans say DeSantis is simply trying to show off his strength.
“You don’t need to win, you don’t need to land a punch, you just need to show your willingness to fight,” Republican strategist Doug Haye said of DeSantis’ latest claim.
Gregory Coger, a professor of political science at the University of Miami, said it would be difficult for DeSantis to make another rezoning effort to revise the state’s fair district.
But the provision intended to prevent partisans and racial gerrymandering would not be enough to stop the governor if he chose to move forward, Koger added.
“I think he’s still trying. He has a law degree from Harvard, but he hasn’t been inclined to refrain from legally questionable behavior in a variety of ways,” Coger said.
“Governor DeSantis’ political strategy is to either catch up or go ahead with what’s going on in other Republican states,” he said. “If Texas moves forward, I think it will raise his interest in aligning Texas’ actions on behalf of the Republicans.”
But Democrats say off-cycle district changes won’t come without DeSantis’ risk that 2028 hopes should be heavier.
“If you redeem too aggressively, it increases the chances of losing less, but it significantly increases the chances of a wave of loss. So, if DeSantis becomes the person who became the head of the Florida Republican in 2026, he doesn’t look very smart,” the nation.
“As someone who’s looking to 2028, people look at it and say, ‘Wait a minute. Are you really the one who wants to entrust our political future?
DeSantis’ new efforts come as Democrat governors of California, Illinois and New York respond to rezoning efforts in Texas by threatening to redraw the state’s legislative boundaries to support Democrats.
Some political observers are concerned about the implications of out-of-cycle constituency changes, whether they are Republicans or democratic states.
Grantley Herr, director of the Campbell Public Affairs Institute at Syracuse University, said: “What both parties are doing is generally bad for the political system, the state legislature and legislature, the citizens. And that’s not a wise appearance of either party politically.”
“The American political system is already the most complex and fragmented in the Western world. “This is just making that problem worse already.”
But political observers say Republican constituency plays are far from problematic as DeSantis is sending out the latest iteration of his strategy in Florida.
“Many people praise the Republican majority… certainly again what DeSantis can do in 2022 and in 2024,” Amandy said. “So it was DeSantis who rejected his own parliament and came up with a set of his own lines that he thought would be better.
Amandy said DeSantis has opened the door to “a brave new world that America’s representative democracy means.”
“No one knows where this is ultimately heading because this is unprecedented,” he added.
