Ron DeSantis Publicly Calls Florida's Maps Into Question In Latest Move In Gerrymandering War

Forbes Breaking News

At a press briefing, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) discussed his battles around gerrymandering.

Transcript

00:00there. I have one governor. Um, why is the house speakers? One,

00:09traditional seats without mid decade census isn't that? Um, you'll have to ask him. I don't know

00:16what they're doing. I can tell you, uh, we had the redistricting fight in 2022. A lot of people

00:22remember that. Um, the legislature produced a map that included bizarre racial gerrymandering

00:29that had been imposed by a liberal court, uh, the previous decade. I was like, I'm vetoing

00:34that. I'm not signing it. They pass it. I vetoed it. So then we ended up doing a map that took

00:40away, you know, that the gerrymandering and it was a much better map. Um, but it's interesting.

00:46We had a fight over, you know, most of the map, but then there was part of it that they

00:51insisted that now, and they said, Oh, you know, governor's map isn't going to be constitutional.

00:57Well, the spirit Florida Supreme Court upheld it. And that's what I said at the time would

01:00happen and that's what happened. But if you read that court's opinion, um, I think that

01:05there's, um, problems with our current congressional map, uh, in terms of violating the constitution

01:11with racial gerrymandering that has to be addressed, not in North Florida, which we did address,

01:16but in Southern Florida. And then you just have this situation where, uh, 2020 to now in

01:22Florida, there's been a sea change in demography. I mean, we've never seen a state, um, do what

01:29Florida's done and look, there's positives and negatives. I mean, I always, I am not saying,

01:34Oh, we need more people to move here. I never say that. Uh, because honestly, we've got a lot

01:38and we've got to deal with our, the people we have here, but it's a free country and people are

01:43going to go where they think they can be successful. Um, but we had, because of COVID,

01:47we were open during COVID. We were a law and order when so many of these other places were decaying.

01:53There's a lot of reasons why. So if you look now, uh, we're not well apportioned, um, as a state.

02:00So I said this, uh, when the Florida Supreme Court's decision comes out, came out that, um,

02:05you know, we are going to have to do, um, uh, a mid decade redistricting. Now, I did see the

02:11President Trump posted that he was going to redo the census. Uh, I think that that should be done.

02:17Well, there's two things with the census. First, just how there was the question of,

02:21do you count illegal aliens in the census? And my answer is no, you shouldn't because they're

02:27not authorized to be here in the first place. So why would you be counting?

02:35Why would you be counting in ways that reward sanctuary states like California,

02:40who openly flout federal immigration law? It doesn't make any sense. And I don't think the

02:44founders intended like what, if somebody's vacationing in America for during the census

02:50period, like they just get counted, obviously, you know, you, you want to do people that are lawfully

02:55here. Uh, so, so I think that that that's one thing, but putting that aside, cause that they tried

03:00to do it in the first Trump administration, Justice Roberts basically kicked it for procedural

03:05reasons. So it didn't end up, we didn't get that change that a lot of us wanted to see.

03:10But even if you take the census as was where they are counting, um, illegal aliens, Florida still

03:18should have had another seat, uh, than what we got. And even Biden's administration came out with

03:23analysis a couple of years later, acknowledging that's the case. And so the errors that have been

03:29identified, imagine that all the errors benefited Democrat states. So is that random? Or is that

03:37something that I don't know? But if they just did what the errors were determined to be, that would

03:44give us another seat. Now they actually did a mid decade census then, and they, and they didn't count,

03:51California would lose five or six seats. Um, I mean, it wouldn't even be close. Florida, we would

03:58probably gain four or five seats if they did mid decade, um, census. Uh, definitely we get, we gain

04:04at least three. So if they do do that, I don't know how quick they can do it. I don't know what's,

04:10what's how that is. But if they did do it and say, came up with something, you know, within like the next

04:15six months, which I don't know how, you know, that's the Commerce Department and all that to do.

04:20Uh, and we gained a seat that would require us to re re portion congressional because we have 28 now

04:28we'd have 29 30 31 maybe, who knows? So obviously you'd have to redraw the lines then if they just,

04:36did the changes that even Biden admitted should have happened, then that gives us one more seat.

04:40We'd have to do it there. Short of that, we're in a situation where, you know, we believe there's

04:46defects in the current map. We also believe that the districts are mal apportioned because of the

04:51explosive growth that we've seen in the state of Florida. And so I think even if they don't do a new

04:57census, even if they don't revise the current census, I still think it is appropriate to be doing it.

05:03So, you know, I'm going to be working with folks, um, you know, in the legislature, uh, but it'll be

05:08something that, um, I think you can anticipate. Uh, there'll be, um, you know, good debate over and look,

05:14you know, these guys, I mean, Rob, remember some of these guys who were in THAAD was in,

05:19you know, they draw their state house maps. Governor doesn't have a role in that. Fine.

05:23The state Senate maps governor has on a role congressional maps requires my signature.

05:28And so that's what I tried to tell him four years ago. I was like, look, I'm not going to sign this.

05:32And so you're in a situation where, you know, it's better to just work, get something that that's,

05:38that's good. Uh, that's going to address, I think the, the legal concerns that we have for the,

05:43for the rest of the map, but also address the population disparities, you know, there'll be

05:47congressional races where like one race gets a lot more votes than another race does. I mean,

05:53you can compare some of these and it's like, okay, well, how, how is that fair that your vote counts

05:59a lot less in one district versus the other? So there's a lot of thing going on there. I wasn't

06:03privy to anything that was going on, um, you know, with, with, with the house speakers memo. Um,

06:08but I can tell you that my folks are working on it. All right. Thanks everybody. Appreciate it.

Category

Transcript

Recommended