Florida’s GOP Congressmen show little appetite for mid-decade redistricting

Congressional Democrats in Florida are already railing against potential redistricting efforts. But Republicans in Florida’s congressional delegation don’t show any more appetite for reshaping their district lines either.

“I’d like to stick with what I got here,” said U.S. Rep. Daniel Webster.

The Clermont Republican told Florida Politics he has no appetite for a mid-decade redistrict, something Gov. Ron DeSantis has strongly suggested could happen before the Midterms. Webster noted that his own district has been redrawn five times since his 2010 election to Congress.

That happened twice due to decennial redistricting that by law must occur after each U.S. Census. But courts found problems with the district makeup at three other points.

Webster attended the Florida Freedom Forum, which this weekend drew a quarter of the Republicans in Florida’s U.S. House delegation to Orlando. While the topic of redistricting came up frequently among party regulars at the event, lawmakers themselves expressed skepticism.

U.S. Rep. Aaron Bean, a Fernandina Beach Republican, largely demurred on the matter. “I’m happy to represent this district,” he said, declining to say whether DeSantis or the Florida Legislature should launch a mid-decade redistricting.

But U.S. Rep. Randy Fine, an Atlantic Coast Republican, questioned whether it was even legal in Florida to consider a redraw when the only pressure for one was out of hopes of retaining a Republican majority. Fine served in 2022 in the Florida House on its Redistricting Committee and said guardrails on that process could put a new draw in immediate legal jeopardy.

“My understanding is we’re not allowed to district considering partisan circumstances,” he said.

The Florida Supreme Court recently upheld a map drawn by DeSantis’ staff in 2022 and ruled that the state’s congressional districts could not be drawn to protect minority voting power because it would violate the U.S. Constitution’s equal protection clause. Fine, for his part, agreed with that ruling.

But Fine noted that it remained silent on partisan motivations, which are still covered in a Fair Districts amendment to the Florida Constitution. He said mapmakers working for Florida weren’t even allowed to know incumbents’ addresses lest they draw districts favoring or disfavoring the ambitions of individual politicians.

That said, Fine said he could support redistricting under one circumstance.

“I would support, assuming it’s legal, a new census, because I don’t believe illegal immigrants should be counted. And so I would support a new census,” he said. “And if we had a new census, then you’d have new information upon which to do redistricting that I would support. But if it’s using the same population numbers from a few years ago, I don’t really understand how you legally justify it.”

DeSantis notably has called for just such a snap census, arguing blue states like California benefited from a push to count noncitizens in its population totals while Florida suffered from an undercount.

But that could complicate mid-decade redistricting efforts already underway in other states. Texas, for example, has already developed maps that could result in significant gains in House seats for the GOP. The Texas Tribune said those maps already cleared one House panel, though the process has been slowed by Democratic lawmakers in the Lone Star State fleeing Texas to deny Republicans a quorum.

Regardless, a new census that had any potential to reapportion the number of House districts in each state would likely be nationwide, sending processes like the one in Texas back to the starting blocks.

In Florida, Democrats like U.S. Rep. Darren Soto, a Kissimmee Democrat already targeted by House Republicans as vulnerable in 2026, have already promised to fight any efforts to redraw Florida’s lines before 2026. He also sees the Fair District amendment as grounds to stop such a ploy.

“We normally just do redistricting right after the census, like other states, so there would be no legal precedent to doing that,” Soto said in a social media video last week. “Florida is also unique in that we have redistricting factors that are in the constitution that have to be followed.”

At the Florida Freedom Forum, the one member of Florida’s delegation who has already said he won’t seek re-election in 2026 declined to firmly state if he wants a redistricting in his home state. U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds, a Naples Republican running for Governor, sat for a “fireside chat” format interview with conservative influencer Benny Johnson.

“You’re not going to like this answer,” Donalds told Johnson, “but as a member of Congress, I do not engage in redistricting conversations. And the reason why, to be blunt, is I don’t want to be in a redistricting lawsuit.”

But he did speak somewhat on the matter as far as how DeSantis or Florida lawmakers should proceed.

“I believe that you should always be looking at the makeup of congressional districts to make sure they’re representative of the people of Florida,” he said. “I will leave it at that.”