Florida House puts congressional mapmaking on hold

There will be no new congressional maps published by the House this week.

The House canceled a Congressional Redistricting Subcommittee hearing after Gov. Ron DeSantis asked the Florida Supreme Court to look at the constitutionality of Florida’s 5th Congressional District. Mapmaking policy is also on hold.

“Today, Gov. DeSantis filed a request for an advisory opinion from the Florida Supreme Court related to the congressional map,” wrote Rep. Tyler Sirois, subcommittee chair. “Consequently, I am canceling our meeting that was scheduled for Friday while we wait to see if the court issues any guidance that would be applicable to our decisions.”

Democrats were incensed by the delay. At a Tuesday news conference, Rep. Kelly Skidmore, ranking Democrat on the subcommittee, expressed anger at the Governor while suggesting Sirois had no grip on the process anymore.

“This is the second meeting in a row we had canceled because of the Governor’s interference,” she said. She noted the only two congressional maps produced by House staff were categorized as drafts not to be taken even as products on the way to becoming final maps.

“We still don’t have congressional maps in the congressional redistricting committee,” she said. “I don’t know when they are coming. The chair doesn’t know either because that’s all conducted from a different level of this building.”

DeSantis asked the Florida Supreme Court to weigh in on whether the Tallahassee-to-Jacksonville district, enacted by that very court in a 2015 decision, complies with state law.

“Once presented with a congressional redistricting bill, I must decide whether to approve or veto it,” DeSantis wrote.

The district, represented now by Democratic Rep. Al Lawson, has been called an “unconstitutional gerrymander” by DeSantis’ staff.

But mapmakers in both the Florida House and Senate have included a district analogous to the CD 5 in every published draft to date. The Senate already passed a map with a similar district, and said anything already cleared by the courts should be considered constitutional to begin with.

The House has yet to produce a final draft. Based on the scheduling of a Friday subcommittee hearing, most expected House staff on Wednesday to release a draft and send it to lawmakers potentially to pass on to the full House Redistricting Committee for consideration.

But with questions now raised by the Governor about the legality of drafts, House leadership put the process on hold.

“Speaker (Chris) Sprowls, (House Redistricting Committee) Chair (Tom) Leek, and I have repeatedly maintained the importance of complying with the law in this process,” Sirois wrote in his memo, “and it is not in our interest to proceed until such a time that the court indicates whether it will provide additional guidance.”