Senate President Says Florida Should Wait For U.S. Supreme Court Ruling Before Redistricting

By Mitch Perry, Florida Phoenix

December 9, 2025

Florida Senate President Ben Albritton said Monday that he would prefer to wait to decide about a mid-decade congressional redistricting until after the U.S. Supreme Court rules in a Voting Rights Act case sometime next year.

That would contradict the timetable for congressional redistricting set last week by a select committee in the Florida House and put the upper chamber in synch with Gov. Ron DeSantis, who said last week that he wants the Legislature to act during a special legislative session sometime after the regular session ends next year on March 13.

“What the governor has suggested is that we wait until the spring to redistrict,” Albritton said in a sit-down meeting with reporters who cover the Capitol. “He has his various reasons why we wait until the spring. I don’t have any issue with that. If you’ve seen anything out of the Senate, we move pretty slowly, anyhow. But our goal is just to be methodical and measured.”

DeSantis has said for months that he wants Florida to join a growing list of both red and blue states that have engaged in unprecedented mid-decade congressional redistricting ever since President Donald Trump called on Texas legislators to do so to help Republicans maintain their majority in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Democrats and voting rights advocates say Florida would be in violation of the Fair District Amendments passed by state voters in 2010 that insist no reapportionment plan or individual district can be drawn “with the intent to favor or disfavor a political party or incumbent.”

DeSantis has denied that is what would be taking place, saying last week that lawmakers are “not allowed to use partisan data” and that they would be “forced to” redistrict its 28 congressional seats once the Supreme Court rules on the case involving Louisiana’s congressional map.

House Speaker Daniel Perez announced in August that the House would convene the select committee to create a new congressional map in time for the 2026 elections. (That committee held its first meeting last week).

However, Albritton had not commented at all about where his chamber stood until last week, when he released a statement acknowledging the governor’s “desire” to redistrict the state’s congressional seats but that there was “no ongoing work” to that end in the Senate.

Albritton doubled down Monday, saying the Senate is not drawing any proposed maps right now and that he doesn’t see any need to do so until after the legal picture becomes clearer.

During arguments in the Louisiana case in October, justices seemed amenable to limiting the consideration of race in the redistricting process, a move that would undermine a key portion of the 1965 U.S. Voting Rights Act.

By agreeing with DeSantis, Albritton puts Senate at odds with the House on timing. The chairman of the House congressional redistricting committee said last week that it would be “irresponsible” to delay, specifically because the deadline for candidates to qualify for federal races next year is April 20.

Albritton bristled at the notion Monday that his chamber isn’t acting independently, just because it agrees with DeSantis and not the House on timing.

“The Florida Senate has a very special role in all of this,” he said. “And that role is we are an independent body the same way the Florida House is and the same way that the executive office of the governor is. The same way that the courts are. If we happen to agree with the governor on something, it doesn’t mean anything other than, ‘Well, we happen to agree.’

“If we disagree with the governor on something, no, I’m not going to make a spectacle of it. But the fact is that we do disagree on things. And that’s the way the system’s supposed to work. So, I just push back on the notion that just because, you know, we happen to agree with waiting on redistricting because it makes sense to me in my mind to wait and garner all the information we can on it, sure.”

Asked what he would do if the House passes a congressional map during the regular session and then sends it to the Senate, Albritton was noncommittal.

“We’ll see what happens,” he said.

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