Ron DeSantis, James Uthmeier say Florida deserves more House seats and wants them now

Leading Florida Republicans say the state deserves more U.S. House seats — as many as five of them. And Gov. Ron DeSantis and Attorney General James Uthmeier say the state should get them before the 2026 Midterms.

The Republicans made separate pleas to President Donald Trump’s administration to “correct” an unfair awarding of House seats before voters elect a new Congress. That adjustment would happen with a new census, both said, but could also be done by revisiting decisions made after the 2020 census.

Uthmeier, in a letter to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, said several irregularities in the reapportionment of seats in 2020 denied Florida at least one House seat. He argued the federal government can reallocate seats in the House based on data available now.

“We should not have to wait for the next complete, fifty state census hoping that — this time — the bureau will get it right and allocate the congressional seats and federal funding allocations to which they are entitled,” Uthmeier wrote.

“Steps must be taken now to right these wrongs.”

Uthmeier sent the letter days after Trump took the first steps in directing the Commerce Department to conduct a new census, which normally would not occur until the year 2030.

The same day Uthmeier sent his letter, DeSantis said a recent Florida Supreme Court ruling may already justify the drawing of new lines in Florida even if the federal government doesn’t award new seats to the state.

“I think that there’s problems with our current congressional map in terms of violating the Constitution with racial gerrymandering that has to be addressed — not in North Florida, which we did address, but in southern Florida,” DeSantis said.

That’s notable, as DeSantis’ Office drew the current congressional map and pressured the Florida Legislature to pass it in a Special Session in 2022. DeSantis had vetoed a prior map, alleging that a north Florida district previously represented by U.S. Rep. Al Lawson, a Black Democrat, was wrongly drawn with race as a motivating factor. The Florida Supreme Court upheld that map last month.

But DeSantis noted that the map ultimately signed used lines his Office drew in north Florida but left South Florida lines in place. That included several districts drawn with heavily Black and Hispanic populations.

“We are going to have to do a mid-decade redistricting now,” DeSantis said. “I did see President Trump posted that he was going to redo the census. I think that that should be done.”

House Speaker Daniel Perez has already taken steps for the Legislature to review political boundaries, announcing that a Select Committee on Congressional Redistricting will be appointed this month. The Florida Senate has yet to announce any plans itself to draw new cartography.

Both DeSantis and Uthmeier argue that undocumented migrants should not be counted in the official census, as they say it gives too much political influence to states like California, a Democratic stronghold, while denying tough-on-immigration states like Florida the same sway.

A Florida TaxWatch report recently found three Democratic states were awarded one too many seats after the last census, while three Republican-leaning states, including Florida, were given one too few. But that report credited the malapportionment to an undercount of people in those red states.

Uthmeier’s letter, though, takes issue with other matters involving implementation of 2020 census data.

Notably, the last census was taken during Trump’s first term. But due to delays related to the COVID pandemic, much of the data was not released until 2021, after Democratic President Joe Biden’s first term began.

“Indeed, prior to the Biden Administration, Florida was projected to receive two additional Congressional seats,” Uthmeier said. “But when the data was finally published, Florida received only one. And as described below, the Census Bureau has since conceded the undercount failures that resulted in Florida’s loss of a second seat to which it was entitled, as well as the additional electoral votes and federal funding.”

Uthmeier, who was appointed as Attorney General by DeSantis earlier this year, argues the Biden administration’s use of “differential privacy” in analyzing data resulted in 14 states having overcounts or undercounts of the population since acknowledged by the Census Bureau.

He argues that nothing stops the federal government from using data collected after the census to correct the awarding of House seats by states now.

“These problems are serious, but they are not irreversible,” Uthmeier wrote. “We are energized by President Trump’s leadership, and we look forward to hearing from you and working together to resolve these issues.”

But that’s unlikely a reading of the law that other states will welcome, especially any who would expect to lose U.S. House seats to provide Florida with more of them.

Minority advocacy groups who sued Florida over the last congressional map already suggested the Legislature should resist the demands by DeSantis to allow redistricting mid-decade.

“During Session, the Speaker demonstrated that he has the ability to stand up to the Governor, as he did after the emergence of the Hope Florida scandal,” said Equal Ground Executive Director Genesis Robinson. “We hope he finds the same courage to safeguard our democracy and not be complicit in this brazen power grab.”

In DeSantis’ remarks, he also hammered the counting of anyone not in the country legally, but said even if with those individuals counted, Florida unfairly missed out on political influence. “Imagine that, all the errors benefited Democrat states,” he scoffed.

He pointed to the same studies as Uthmeier in asserting that Florida deserves more seats, and should get them soon.

But the Governor for his part also said that based on population growth in the last decade, a new census means Florida should be due for more seats. If the Trump administration conducted a count that left those living in the U.S. illegally out of the tabulation, that would be an even greater boon for the Sunshine State.

“If you actually did a mid-decade census, California would lose five or six seats. I mean, it wouldn’t even be close,” he said. “Florida, we would probably gain four or five seats if they did a mid-decade census. Definitely, we’d grain at least three.”

But some redistricting experts were skeptical of that math. Matt Isbell, a Democratic consultant and election data analyst, said plenty of undocumented individuals were counted in Florida’s population in 2020 as well.

“There is little bases for the Governor’s claim. California, Texas and Florida have large numbers of undocumented and non-citizen residents. A new census would likely see all these states have lower counts,” Isbell told Florida Politics.

“Florida’s undercount in 2020 was due to the lack of investment DeSantis made in pushing the census in 2020. Undercounts were tied to states not investing in their own effort to get a good count. Blue states invested in census counting efforts, red states didn’t. A census held under this modern environment would also likely lead to an increased undercount of Hispanics. With reports of ICE going after green card holders and those with VISAs, anyone with an immigrant in their family is less likely to answer a census taker.”