ORLANDO, Fla. — The GOP-controlled Florida House dropped a redistricting bombshell Monday, releasing a draft congressional map that would radically change Democratic U.S. Rep. Stephanie Murphy’s seat in Central Florida and make it much harder for her to win reelection next year.
The proposed map is “just a crazy gerrymander,” said Matt Isbell, an elections expert who runs the MCIMaps website, adding it seemed custom-designed for state Rep. Anthony Sabatini, a Republican running for Congress. “It’s like the Sabatini dream plan.”
But the House’s other draft map released Monday makes only relatively mild changes, matching the four draft maps from the state Senate that would basically keep the status quo.
The only question now is whether the final map approved in the upcoming 2022 legislative session looks more like the first one or the second one — or none of the above. And control of Congress could be on the line.
Murphy, who won convincing victories in a district largely split between Republicans and Democrats, has long been a target of national Republicans. She has come under fire from both the left and right for her stance on the $1.75 trillion Build Back Better bill, which she delayed but ultimately voted for.
The first House draft map targets her seat, which currently includes Seminole County and parts of central Orange County, by splitting it up between a GOP-leaning district to the north and a largely African American district to the west.
The changes would leave Murphy, a Winter Park resident, with no home base and no obvious seat for her to run in.
The map moves all of Seminole over to District 6, currently held by Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Waltz.
It then shifts District 7′s boundaries to encompass all of the largely African American areas of Orlando and western Orange County, along Winter Park and suburban areas east of Orlando.
That new District 7 would largely replace U.S. Rep. Val Demings’ current District 10, a seat designed to give Black voters representation. It was unclear what the new demographics of the proposed seat would be, Isbell said, but it would still probably be largely African American.
Demings is vacating her seat to run for U.S. Senate, and candidates running to succeed her include former Orange/Osceola State Attorney Aramis Ayala, state Sen. Randolph Bracy and civil rights attorney Natalie Jackson, all African Americans.
Murphy’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
The rest of the first draft map would create “musical chairs” among incumbent Republicans in Central and Northeast Florida, Isbell said, many of whom would have to switch over to neighboring districts.
District 10 would shift to include the more rural parts of western Orange County along with parts of Lake, Sumter and Citrus counties, including most of the GOP stronghold The Villages.
It would be very similar to the current District 11, held by U.S. Rep. Dan Webster, R-Winter Garden, Isbell said. “But I don’t know how that would shake out,” he added. “It would include more of Sabatini’s base” in central Lake County.
Sabatini initially filed to run in Webster’s seat before switching to run against Murphy, saying he would not run against an incumbent Republican in a primary. Despite the proposed District 10 being a friendly seat for him, Sabatini said he expected Webster to run for it if it’s implemented.
“It’d be awesome to have that district, but I expect Webster to run again,” Sabatini said. But, he added, “Who knows exactly who’s going to actually run again? Webster might retire.”
The new seat might also attract other GOP candidates. Controversial conservative pundit Laura Loomer had already filed to run against Webster.
There is another potential option for Sabatini, though.
Sabatini expects Waltz to shift over to the new District 5 if the first map is implemented, which includes Waltz’s hometown of St. Augustine Beach. If that happened, the new District 6, which would include Seminole County and most of Volusia County, would be a Republican-leaning open seat.
Sabatini lives in Howey-in-the-Hills, but Congress members don’t have to live in their districts.
“I don’t have anything to do with the process,” Sabatini said. “I’m not on any committees and don’t get any insight into what’s going on. So we’ll see.”
The first draft map would give Republicans an 18-10 advantage over Democrats in Congress, Isbell said, giving them two more seats than they have now.
The second draft map, however, largely echoed the surprisingly tame changes proposed by the state Senate’s draft maps. But it would still give Republicans a 17-11 advantage, a one-seat advantage over the current 16-11 split.
In the second House draft map, Murphy’s seat would stay mostly the same, except for a few areas in southern Volusia. The Tampa area would also stay largely the same.
South Florida would see the biggest changes in the second map, though, including making the open seat formerly held by the late Democratic U.S. Rep. Alcee Hastings entirely in Broward County and not Palm Beach County.
In both maps, as well as all of the Senate’s maps, a new, GOP-leaning 28th district would be carved out of Polk County. Florida is gaining that seat because of its population growth.
Experts were largely surprised by the lack of GOP aggressiveness in the Senate’s maps compared with the aggressive gerrymanders happening in states such as Wisconsin, Texas, North Carolina and elsewhere.
Dave Wasserman, an editor at the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, wrote on Twitter that the Senate maps would barely change the Republicans’ advantage in seats. “Is this a head fake?” he wrote.
Isbell said the new radical House map shows Wasserman may have been right to be skeptical.
“If they end up picking that plan, that indicates all of these nice drafts were almost a diversion,” Isbell said. “‘Oh, look at that [one], but then we’re going to ram this one through.’”
Any major changes to the maps could face lawsuits, as it did 10 years ago. But with Republicans needing just five seats to win back the House, Isbell said they could just decide to worry about legal challenges later.
“You can’t rule anything like that out, and I don’t think the Senate has the appetite for that,” Isbell said. “[But] if they end up taking the crazy map, when you have four Senate drafts and one House draft that aren’t insane, how terrible does that look to the courts? … Do they just push a party-line vote and take their chances with the courts? Do they want to roll those dice?”
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