With his new congressional maps heavily favoring Republicans, Gov. Ron DeSantis is unilaterally declaring unconstitutional the 2010 "Fair Districts" amendment that state voters overwhelmingly approved, say statewide and national Democrats, along with the Miami attorney who got the amendment on the ballot.
Nearly 63% of voters in Florida passed the 2010 Fair Districts amendment in 2010.
" What Gov. DeSantis is doing here is exactly why the people of Florida passed the Fair Districting amendments," said Ellen Frieden, who spearheaded the 2010 amendment effort.
The proposed map could move Florida from having 20 Republican-held districts and 8 Democrat-held districts to a potential 24 Republican-held to 4 Democratic-held split.
In a memo to the Florida Legislature the Governor's office spelled out why it believes the 2010 constitutional amendment is unconstitutional, saying that the office expects the U.S. Supreme Court to soon make a ruling that could allow it to do so.
But Frieden pointed out to WLRN that the U.S. Supreme Court has cited the state's 2010 Fair Districts amendment in an approving fashion.
In a 2018 opinion written by Chief Justice John Roberts on racial gerrymandering, the U.S. Supreme Court cited the FDA as a positive example of how states can address gerrymandering without the action of Congress or the U.S. Supreme Court. The court wrote: "There is no 'Fair Districts Amendment' to the Federal Constitution."
In a note explaining why Florida should redraw its congressional maps mid-decade, David Axelman, the general counsel of DeSantis' office, wrote that the U.S. Supreme Court has "signaled" that using race in drawing congressional maps is unconstitutional, and that he is using that signaling as a basis for declaring unconstitutional the 2010 ballot amendment.
The 2010 amendment said that districts "shall not be drawn to deny racial or language minorities the equal opportunity to participate in the political process and elect representatives of their choice," and also forbids Florida from drawing lines to "favor or disfavor" a specific political party.
"The race-based requirements of the FDA also cannot be severed from the other requirements of the FDA. The FDA was sold to the voters as a package. There was no severability provision included in the FDA when it was presented to the voters. And because one part is unconstitutional, there's limited reason to think that voters would have approved the remaining parts by themselves," wrote Axelman.
READ MORE: Florida's DeSantis unveils a voting map that could add to Trump's GOP redistricting
The effect: The entire 2010 amendment has been deemed unconstitutional by the governor's office — court decision or no court decision.
Declaring the 2010 ballot amendment as effectively null and void would have far-reaching impacts on Florida politics for generations to come.
Frieden said she has "never heard" of making a legal decision based on a nonexistent court ruling.
"The amendments haven't been held unconstitutional. They haven't been even held partially unconstitutional, but yet he has decided that he wants to call these amendments unconstitutional. It makes no sense," said Frieden.
"He's got a bunch of imaginary reasons why he thinks that the Fair Districting Amendments are unconstitutional, none of which has been even presented to a court, much less decided by a court and. His goal here is to be able to rig districts for political purposes."
"Shame on Governor DeSantis — that he is actually willing to publicly state that he's making a move that impacts every voter in the state of Florida when no court has ever given him authorization to do something like that," she said.
'Maps cannot be drawn to favor a political party'
Other Democratic critics joined in slamming DeSantis' move to update congressional maps and the accompanying justification, even while pointing at the 2010 amendment that the governor considers null and void.
"The Florida Constitution is explicit: maps cannot be drawn to favor a political party," said Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried in a statement on Monday after the governor presented the new congressional map to the Florida Legislature that gives the GOP up to four seats.
"DeSantis is not just breaking the law — he's ignoring his own constituents to do it," she said.
In a post on X, House Democrat Leader Hakeem Jeffries, of New York, said the DeSantis proposal "blatantly violates Florida's Fair Districts Amendment banning partisan gerrymandering."
"It also violates the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution by nakedly targeting communities of color," Jeffries wrote. "See you in Court."
The idea of drawing districts in a way to "elect representatives of their choice" goes back to the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that required some states to draw district lines to allow African-Americans to vote as a block and not have their voices be diluted among other non-minority areas.
Florida has long been forced to draw these lines for certain districts in order to comply with federal law. Since Black voters overwhelmingly vote for Democrats as a bloc, this provision has long angered many Florida Republicans, since it effectively created court-ordered Democratic districts.
DeSantis's office expects the Supreme Court to declare that section of the Voting Rights Act unconstitutional, which in the future would allow for this kind of move to be made.
Nationwide tit-for-tat redistricting battle
The current redistricting battle takes place on a national stage where states have been locked in a tit-for-tat escalating battle to redraw congressional districts mic-decade. The fight started when President Donald Trump asked Texas to redraw lines to benefit Republicans ahead of the midterm elections in November.
In responding to Texas' move, California chose to punch back and draw lines to benefit Democrats to even the stakes. But to do so, California voters first had to amend their state constitution — which provides for an independent body to draw congressional lines — before going ahead with redrawing maps.
In Florida's case, DeSantis simply declared the existing constitution is illegal so it can charge ahead with redistricting to benefit Republicans.
The Florida Democratic Party's Fried accused the governor of drawing up "this illegal, hyper-partisan new map" that "was drawn explicitly at the request of Donald Trump."
If the Florida Legislature moves forward with approving the heavily gerrymandered maps, the attorney Frieden warned that it would be subjected to extended litigation. The new maps would add uncertainty mere months before primary elections are set to take place in August.
" Ron DeSantis is trying to protect the power, the political power of his political party, at the expense of the voters of the State of Florida. He's rigging this. He is rigging districts to try and help Republicans, and that's illegal and unconstitutional under the Fair District's Amendment," said Frieden.
The note to the Florida Legislature from Axelman said the proposed new districts were drawn in a way that did "take race into consideration at all," and the move was immediately praised by the Florida Republican Party, even as many have voiced their skepticism about the wisdom of redrawing maps in this fashion.
"Republicans now hold a more than 1.5 million voter registration advantage in Florida. And our congressional map should reflect the will of the voters who are shaping the future of this state," Florida GOP chairman Evan Power said in a statement. "The Republican Party of Florida strongly supports this new map and thanks Governor Ron DeSantis for his leadership for bringing it forward. It is fair, it is justified, and it is long overdue."
Copyright 2026 WLRN
