– Florida Governor Ron DeSantis announced Monday he signed into law a new congressional district map for Florida.
This comes after lawmakers returned to Tallahassee for a special session to consider redrawing the state’s U.S. House district lines.
Gov. Ron DeSantis issued the proclamation calling the special session earlier in the year, and offered a proposed map last week, just one day before the session was set to begin.
State lawmakers last redrew district lines in 2022, following the 2020 Census. Reapportionment, the process of redistributing seats in the U.S. House based on population, resulted in Florida’s U.S. House delegation increasing to 28 seats that year.
Currently, 20 seats are held by Republicans, with eight held by Democrats. The new map is expected to give Republicans a greater advantage, widening the margin to 24 to four.
The new map leaves North Florida’s districts untouched, but makes changes in Central and South Florida, with Democrats potentially losing one seat in the Orlando area, one in the Tampa area, and two in the Miami-Ft. Lauderdale-West Palm Beach area.
In response to the enactment of the new map Nikki Fried, Chairwoman of the Florida Democratic Party, issued the following statement:
“Today Ron DeSantis attempted to disenfranchise millions of Black, brown, and Jewish Floridians by stripping them of representation by signing illegal Congressional maps into law. This type of voter suppression is nothing new in Florida–from Jim Crow and the Ocoee massacre, to election police and the enactment of the most extreme voter suppression laws in the country since 2021, unfortunately Florida has always been a testing ground for conservative extremism. Florida Democrats will not back down. Ron DeSantis will pay for breaking the law and defying the will of Florida voters.”
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