The Florida House on Wednesday approved a new congressional map proposed by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis that aims to give Republicans four more seats as the party seeks to maintain control of Congress in the 2026 midterm elections.
The map will now go to the Florida Senate, where the Republicans also have a two-thirds majority. Three Republicans on Florida’s Senate Rules Committee voted against the map on Tuesday, with one GOP state senator in Tuesday’s committee hearing vocally pushing back against the map. But there would need to be seven GOP defectors to sink its passage.
Florida is currently represented by 20 Republicans and seven Democrats, with one Democratic-leaning seat vacant after Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick resigned earlier this month. DeSantis’ proposed map aims to eliminate or shrink Democratic-leaning districts in Tampa, Orlando and parts of the state’s southeast coast.
The vote came hours after the Supreme Court narrows a section of the Voting Rights Act that requires some states to create majority-minority districts. At least one of the districts that DeSantis had redrawn was a majority Hispanic district in central Florida.
In committee hearings on Tuesday, attorney Mohammed Jazil did not answer if the maps complied with that provision. But there were other objections that the proposed map violates a 2010 provision to the Florida Constitution known as the Fair Districts Amendment.