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Florida House Speaker Daniel Perez (R) said Thursday that Republican-led states around the country will move to redraw Congressional boundaries ahead of next year’s midterm elections.
“Exploring these questions now in middle age could allow us to seek legal guidance from the Supreme Court without the uncertainty associated with postponing these questions until after the next 10th grade census and repregnancy,” Perez wrote in a memo to members of state lawmakers, referring to the recent Florida Supreme Court decision on the map of the state legislature.
“We will focus on the map of Congress, which was the subject of a recent Florida Supreme Court case, and related legal questions, so I am creating an electoral committee for my district,” he continued.
Perez added that committee members will be announced in September, but he did not provide a specific timeline for implementing the constituency change process.
In a statement after the release of the memo, Florida Democrats called Perez’s move “corrupted, simple and simple.”
“The speaker has been broken by decades of precedents to abuse his power and rig a system that favors Republicans. The map of Congress is drawn once every 10 years after the federal census, not when political parties are afraid to lose power,” the statement said.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) has expressed his support for the district in recent weeks. Any changes to districts, including those held in South Florida by Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Jared Moskowitz and Lois Frankel, could affect democratic Congressional seats. Tampa area Rep. Kathy Caster (D) and Darren Soto (D) outside Orlando also float as possible targets.
State Republicans saw victory last week when the state Supreme Court ruled that it would support a map of Congress that would block the challenge of removing the majority black legislative districts north of the state, previously represented by former Rep. Al Lawson (D). The area, which consists of the former Congressional District, is currently divided into three Republican lawmakers.
This development follows red states across the country following Texas’ leads to help Republicans retain their majority in Congress in next year’s midterm elections. Other red states expected to take part in the district change include Indiana and Ohio. Unlike other states, Ohio lawmakers face deadlines to redraw their maps.
