TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Gov. Ron DeSantis made good on his promise to veto the GOP Legislature’s congressional redistricting map Tuesday because it doesn’t eliminate a “racially gerrymandered” Black district in North Florida.
DeSantis then called a special session for April 19-22 “for the sole purpose” of working out the issue of the congressional maps, giving lawmakers a seven-page legal analysis arguing that their plan is unconstitutional because it created an unlawful district using race as the sole basis for it.
The Legislature, “in their understandable zeal to conform to try to apply what the Florida Constitution required ... forgot to make sure what they were doing conformed to the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution as well,” DeSantis said at a press conference after the state Cabinet meeting in Tallahassee.
