TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Gov. Ron DeSantis on Wednesday announced a special session in April to redraw Florida’s congressional map ahead of the midterm elections, a priority for the president.

The announcement sets the stage for a political battle with DeSantis and Senate President Ben Albritton against House Speaker Daniel Perez — and, if a new map is passed, an almost inevitable legal fight. Perez told the Herald/Times this week he hasn’t spoken to either leader about policies for the upcoming session, and has been repeatedly rebuffed by DeSantis, who by contrast, referred to Albritton as a “friend” on Wednesday.

In his proclamation declaring the 11th-hour special session, DeSantis said the Legislature should wait “as long as is feasible” before redrawing the maps, a process that could help Republicans retain control of the U.S. House of Representatives. The governor said he wanted to allow time for the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Louisiana v. Callais, a case that could redefine how states draw maps under the Voting Rights Act.

“We are going to do it in the later part of April, partially because there is a Supreme Court decision that’s going to affect the validity of some of these districts nationwide, including some of the districts in the state of Florida,” DeSantis said.

The special session — coming just four years after Florida last redrew its congressional districts — is authorized from April 20 to April 24, which is the current deadline for federal candidates to qualify for the ballot. But in the proclamation, DeSantis cited a state law that allows federal qualifying to be pushed back during a redistricting year — something that typically happens once a decade following a new census.

That law says that qualifying needs to start on the 71st day before the primary election and end on the 67th day before, which would be between June 8 and June 12. Voting by mail would begin just weeks later ahead of Florida’s Aug. 18 primary election. On Wednesday, after DeSantis’ proclamation, Secretary of State Cord Byrd moved qualifying back to those dates.

The governor said he believed the Supreme Court would rule that “racial gerrymandering” under the Voting Rights Act is unconstitutional, affecting potentially two districts. He didn’t state which ones he had in mind, but an advocacy group has identified as many as three that could be impacted by a Supreme Court decision shooting down the provision in federal law that ensures minority voters can elect candidates of their choice.

DeSantis’ announcement was decried by state Democrats, including House Democratic Leader Fentrice Driskell.

“Florida’s government should not be rigging elections,” Driskell said Wednesday. “That’s what they do in places like Cuba and Venezuela, not America.”

Democrats say the idea of drawing new maps without a new census count documenting that population change flies in the face of Florida law, and the state Democratic party hired new legal counsel last fall specifically focused on fighting against a mid-decade redistricting effort.

“Instead of fixing policies for the American people, they’re gonna steal an election. And that’s what this redistricting is about,” Florida Democratic Party Chairwoman Nikki Fried told the Herald/Times Wednesday. “ It has nothing to do with population shifts, it has nothing to do with making sure that there’s representation for the people, it’s about retaining power for the Republicans and that is against the Florida Constitution.”

Unlike DeSantis, the House has wanted to deal with redistricting during the regular legislative session. This summer, Perez set up a special committee to handle it, which has so far had two meetings.

“The committee will do its work, come out with a product, the membership will be able to vote on it, and we’ll go from there,” Perez told the Herald/Times on Monday, before DeSantis’ announcement.

Perez said he’d tried repeatedly to reach out to the governor ahead of the session to no avail.

“I’m always going to be here, willing and able to have a conversation with him, because that’s what the people elected us to do,” Perez said.

A spokesperson said the House was made aware of the special session proclamation Wednesday morning.

Last year, committees in the House under Perez’s leadership investigated spending under the DeSantis administration, leading to a state criminal probe in one instance, and such bad blood between the House, governor’s office and Senate that lawmakers were unable to pass a budget during the regular session. They had to return a month later when cooler heads prevailed.

A spokesperson for Albritton did not immediately return a request for comment. But Albritton in December said the Senate was not working on a map at the time, although he was open to the discussion once the Supreme Court ruled.

“I do agree with the premise that when the Supreme Court rules on that case, that it very well could have an impact on the… validity, maybe, as it relates to the law of the districts that are in place today,” Albritton told reporters in December.

Regarding whether a special session was the right place to do a redistricting process, Albritton said: “Well, let’s just wait and see what happens in the court decision.”

Committee Chairman Rep. Mike Redondo, a Miami Republican, said last month that it would be “irresponsible to delay the creation and passage of a new map, especially until after session.”

‘Problems With the Map’

DeSantis started hinting at his plan to redraw Florida’s maps in the summer, just a few weeks after the Florida Supreme Court upheld the Congressional maps that DeSantis’ office created back in 2022.

Despite that court victory and his office’s atypical role in drafting the state’s districts, DeSantis has said there may still be “problems with the map,” pointing out South Florida as an area to look at.

The proposal came as President Donald Trump had urged the leaders of Republican states to redraw their maps in order to keep control of the U.S. House in the midterm elections. Nothing in the U.S. Constitution forbids redistricting more than once a decade, but doing so is rare.

Florida’s Congressional map currently has 20 Republican seats.

Florida’s rules around redistricting are stricter than many other states due to a constitutional amendment voters approved in 2010. That amendment explicitly forbids any redistricting plan being drawn to help or harm one political party’s electoral odds.

DeSantis, Redondo and Perez have all been careful about not citing Trump when talking about the possible redistricting.

Redondo, during a House redistricting committee meeting, said that their work was “not directed by the work of other states and partisan gamesmanship,” which caused attendees in the room to let out an embittered laugh.

‘Almost Certain Defeat’

If the state passes a new map this year in April, it could mean those districts will likely stay in place for the 2026 election, regardless of any legal fight, potentially helping Republicans retain control over the U.S. House.

Currently, they are facing “almost certain defeat” in the House, Republican National Committee chairman Joe Gruters said, pointing to how the incumbent party historically loses midterms.

In 2012, for example, Florida’s Legislature redrew the maps as part of their regular, census-based update. Lawsuits piled up accusing the maps of being unconstitutional.

But it wasn’t until two election cycles passed before the Florida Supreme Court put the issue to bed in 2015, when they ruled the state’s maps were invalid and approved a redrawn proposal.

The governor’s move also comes as Florida has become one of the last states where Republicans could still pick up new seats through the redistricting effort promoted by Trump.

In mid-December, Indiana’s state Senate shot down new maps bolstering the GOP after a heavy pressure campaign to pass the maps by the White House — the latest in a string of hiccups in Republicans’ attempts to redraw maps in their favor.

Florida is unique in that it is one of the only states that bans partisan gerrymandering, thanks to the 2010 Fair Districts Amendment, complicating efforts for Republicans trying to frame the effort as non-politically motivated.

That ban, however, hasn’t stopped national Republican arms from plotting efforts to support a redistricting effort in the state. The Republican political organization Club for Growth told the Herald last year it was setting aside part of its “seven-figure” investment in national redistricting efforts to spend on ads in Florida, after the Legislature releases map drafts.

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