New York Democrats redrew their congressional maps in 2022 and got every single one of those maps thrown out by their own courts.
Now Florida just did the same thing – except Republicans are the ones holding the pen.
And a Democrat grabbed a bullhorn on the House floor to scream about it, and it changed absolutely nothing.
Democrats Wrote the Redistricting Playbook
In 2022, New York Democrats drew maps so aggressively gerrymandered that their own state's Court of Appeals threw them out.
After a court-drawn replacement gave Republicans 11 of New York's 26 House seats, Democrats went back to the drawing board – and in 2024, managed to flip the delegation to 19 Democrats and just 7 Republicans.
That's the same party now calling Florida's redistricting an assault on democracy.
Florida Democrat state Rep. Angie Nixon – who is also running for the U.S. Senate – grabbed a bullhorn on the House floor Wednesday and shouted that the new maps were "an assault on our democracy" and "a violation of the constitution."
https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/2049540211139547583?s=20
She admitted she was out of order.
The Florida House passed the maps anyway, 83-28.
The Supreme Court Just Changed the Rules
The timing of Florida's vote was no accident.
The U.S. Supreme Court handed down a 6-3 ruling Wednesday in Louisiana v. Callais, striking down Louisiana's majority-Black congressional district as an unconstitutional racial gerrymander.
Justice Samuel Alito, writing for the conservative majority, ruled that states can almost never consider race when drawing districts – even when doing so to comply with Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.
That ruling alone puts roughly 70 Democrat-held congressional districts up for challenge across the country.
The White House called it a "complete and total victory" for voters.
"The color of one's skin should not dictate which congressional district you belong in," said White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson.
Florida's DeSantis administration had been citing the expected ruling for months as justification for the new maps – arguing that once the Supreme Court ruled race-based redistricting unconstitutional, Florida's existing Fair Districts Amendment constraints no longer applied.
https://twitter.com/FBSaunders/status/2049524785596498381?s=20
Florida Republicans refused Democrat requests to delay the vote and let lawmakers read the ruling first.
They voted.
DeSantis Did This Before and Won
This isn't the first time DeSantis has driven a redistricting fight that Democrats called illegal.
In 2022, DeSantis vetoed the legislature's initial congressional map and submitted his own – the first Florida governor in modern history to do so.
Democrats sued.
DeSantis won.
The Florida Supreme Court – six of whose seven members are DeSantis appointees – upheld his 2022 map last year and struck down the race-protection provision of the Fair Districts Amendment that voters approved in 2010.
That ruling gave DeSantis the opening he needed for 2026.
His legal team argued the Fair Districts Amendment couldn't survive in pieces – voters approved it as a single package, and once the court gutted the racial section, the gerrymandering ban went with it.
The Florida legislature agreed, 83-28.
What This Means for the House
Florida currently sends 20 Republicans and 8 Democrats to Congress.
https://twitter.com/AttorneyCrump/status/2049589984714182959?s=20
DeSantis' new map targets Democrat Reps. Kathy Castor in Tampa and Darren Soto in Orlando, among others.
Analysts project Republicans could gain up to four additional seats from Florida alone.
Combined with the downstream effects of the SCOTUS Louisiana ruling, Republicans could be looking at a net gain of a dozen or more House seats heading into the 2026 midterms.
Trump touched off this nationwide redistricting competition last year.
He called Wednesday's Supreme Court ruling "the kind of ruling I like."
Democrats are responding with bullhorns and lawsuits.
They'll get the lawsuits into court eventually – Florida's legal fights will drag through a state judiciary that DeSantis has spent years stacking in his favor.
The bullhorn moment already ended.
Sources:
- Harold Hutchison, "Democrats Are So Mad About Ron DeSantis' Redistricting Play, They're Blowing Bullhorns Over It," Daily Caller, April 29, 2026.
- "Florida Legislature passes DeSantis' congressional redistricting map," Florida Phoenix, April 29, 2026.
- "Counsel for DeSantis tells lawmakers they can ignore Fair Districts Amendments," Florida Phoenix, April 28, 2026.
- Supreme Court of the United States, Louisiana v. Callais, No. 24-109, decided April 29, 2026.
- Abigail Jackson, White House Statement on Louisiana v. Callais, April 29, 2026.
