Florida enacted new congressional districts on April 22, 2022, when Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) signed a proposal approved by the legislature into law. Florida was apportioned 28 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives after the 2020 census, one more than it received after the 2010 census. This map will take effect for Florida’s 2022 congressional elections.
On April 20, the Florida Senate passed a map in a 24-15 vote, which the House then approved on April 21 in a 68-34 vote.
This was the second congressional map bill approved that the state legislature approved. DeSantis vetoed the first on March 29. Republican leaders in the legislature said on April 11 that they would wait to receive a map from DeSantis to support. DeSantis submitted a map to the legislature on April 13, which the legislature passed.
Florida Politics’s Jacob Ogles wrote of the enacted map, “The most controversial change DeSantis made in his map, this new CD 4 really stands in as the replacement to the Lawson seat. […] The Black population in Jacksonville gets cleaved in half by the St. Johns River after DeSantis vetoed a map drawn by the Florida House that created a Duval-only Black seat.” When DeSantis vetoed the initial map bill, he wrote in a memo, “Congressional District 5 [Lawson’s district] in both the primary and secondary maps enacted by the Legislature violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution because it assigns voters primarily on the basis of race but is not narrowly tailored to achieve a compelling state interest.”
State Rep. Tracie Davis (D) criticized the enacted map saying, “You hate when we use the word disenfranchisement. You turn your back. You look the other way. But you have to realize that is exactly what this is: Gutting, now-CD 4 … leaves us simply without representation. It simply means that the Black population in Florida that lives north of the I-4 corridor, their voices will be diluted. Their power in this process simply washed away.”
Rep. Kaylee Tuck (R) supported the enacted map saying, “[DeSantis] publicly submitted maps, which is something that anybody can do. He’s allowed to do it. Every single member of the public was allowed to do it. And just because it’s different, doesn’t mean it’s bad. Just because it’s different, doesn’t mean it’s wrong. It’s just different. The process was thorough, it was transparent. It was open. It was complete. It was constitutional. And it was good.”
As of April 25, 40 states have adopted new congressional maps, one state’s maps have been overturned by court action, and three states have not yet adopted congressional redistricting plans after the 2020 census. Six states were apportioned one U.S. House district, so no congressional redistricting is required. As of April 25 in 2012, 42 states had enacted congressional redistricting plans.
States have completed congressional redistricting for 393 of the 435 seats (90.3%) in the U.S. House of Representatives.
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