The battle for control of Congress in the midterms might be over before voting starts.
It all has to do with the political war that is ongoing concerning redistricting. Florida is closely watching the battle in Texas, and many assume it will follow the Lone Star State’s lead.
Florida House Speaker Daniel Perez is creating a committee to look at drawing up new districts.
So, what you have now is Florida joining this political donnybrook sweeping the nation from New York to Texas to Indiana to California.
But Republicans in Florida have to deal with the Fair Districts Amendments, provisions that the majority of voters added to the Florida Constitution in 2010 to prevent gerrymandering.
And it’s really all up to the states to sort it out.
In 2019, the Supreme Court ruled that claims of unconstitutional partisan gerrymandering are not subject to federal court review and left these disputes up to state legislatures and the U.S. Congress.
Now, if a new district map potentially violates the Voting Rights Act that protects minority representation, there will almost definitely be a move to block it.
Adding to the fray, Gov. Ron DeSantis called the last census flawed and said he wants a new one done that would not count anyone who is in the country illegally.
President Donald Trump wants the same thing.
But they would need a constitutional change to make that happen, not to mention hiring census workers. Plus, it’s a lengthy process.
In the meantime, Florida doesn’t seem to be waiting for a new census to possibly redraw its districts.
This is not how things used to be.
The redrawing of congressional districts every 10 years used to be one of those important-but-boring procedures that state legislators had to do.
Now people are asking whether we’ve gotten to a point where things are becoming so politically rigged that the only thing that matters is incumbent protection and partisan favoritism.
Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried called the entire scenario that’s playing out: “corruption, plain and simple.”
What’s really at stake here is that a wave of mid-decade redistricting could determine whether Trump will be empowered to bring us more and more MAGA in the last two years of his term or if his legislative plans will be stymied by Democrats, who would chair committees investigating stuff Trump wants to keep quiet.
Does the American public understand that or even care?
Political analyst Daniel Cronrath joins me to break down these redistricting issues and their implications on this week’s “Politics & Power.”
Watch at 7 p.m. or 9 p.m. Tuesday on News4JAX+ or catch it any time on demand at News4JAX+, News4JAX.com or our YouTube channel.