The Florida Legislature officially sent a pair of congressional maps to the desk of Gov. Ron DeSantis Friday, but the Governor threw a curveball ahead of the final vote, promising a veto.
The announcement came in the form of a tweet, posted as the Florida House debated its plan on the floor.
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Rep. Evan Jenne (D-Hollywood) was quick to acknowledge the governor had once again thrown a cloud of uncertainty over the process.
“Please understand what we’re working on is a product that has already been claimed as dead on arrival when it hits the governor’s desk,” said Jenne while debating on the House floor.
The first shake-up came back in January, when DeSantis proposed his own map that dismantled Congressional District 5, which runs from Tallahassee to Jacksonville’s urban core.
The House proposed this primary map that closely aligned with the map the governor proposed.
They both dismantle CD 5, currently held by Democrat Al Lawson.
But the House map keeps a Democratic-leaning minority access the district in Duval, while the governor’s likely would result in the county sending two Republicans to Congress.
The House plan also includes this secondary map, which would take effect if the primary map is struck down by the courts.
The secondary map would leave CD 5 more or less in its current form.
The governor had threatened a veto if the map produced by the legislature contained an ”illegal gerrymander.”
He told us Friday morning lawmakers should have seen a veto coming.
“I think we had a lot of legislators who were calling our office saying you know, well, they say it’s a bluff or whatever. I don’t bluff, like I’m just not going to do it,” said DeSantis.
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It had seemed the House attempted to find middle ground between the governor’s map and the Senate’s original map, which had left CD 5 largely unchanged.
When we asked the governor why he disliked the House map, he provided few details.
“You know our legal folks have a lot of concerns about what it was,” said DeSantis.
For lawmakers like State Rep. Angie Nixon (D-Jacksonville), the latest mix-up comes across as a power play.
“If he wanted to run for state rep(resentative) or state senator, that’s what he should have done. He is trying to dictate everything here in the State of Florida,” said Nixon.
Despite the threat of a veto, the Senate adopted the House’s map and sent it to the governor’s desk Friday.
There are already talks of a special session on redistricting if the governor and the legislature don’t come to a final agreement by next Friday, which at this point seems highly unlikely.
That means Duval’s congressional districts will continue to be up in the air, with the primary election just six months away.
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