Attorney General James Uthmeier is petitioning the U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Commerce Department — while cc’ing President Donald Trump — for one more congressional seat for Florida.
“We are going to press this issue,” Gov. Ron DeSantis said at a press conference in Lake Worth. “The Attorney General told me he’s going to be willing to go up to Washington and talk to people in the Commerce Department to be able to get this right.”
Joining DeSantis at the podium was Uthmeier, the Governor’s appointed AG, who said he will be “pursuing any remedy necessary to fix this problem.”
“Obviously we’d love to do it before the Midterms next year before voters go and vote,” Uthmeier said. “We otherwise look forward to working with the Trump administration on fixing a larger Midterm census to get it right for the country and our citizens. … So we’ll be fighting the good fight.”
Democrats pushed back, with Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried calling it “yet another manufactured crisis from Ron DeSantis — speculative, corrupt, and a complete waste of taxpayer dollars.”
DeSantis has been vocal about Florida getting an additional seat. That would give the Sunshine State 29 Representatives plus an additional electoral college vote during the Presidential Election.
To add another Representative means redrawing Florida’s districts within the next three to six months, DeSantis outlined.
“Our Primary is a year away, so we have time to be able to digest those changes,” DeSantis said.
To make his case, DeSantis is arguing Florida’s population is booming and needs more representation in Washington.
“The reality is since April of 2020, Florida has been the No. 1 state that people have sought to move to in the entire United States of America,” DeSantis said. “When I got elected Governor, I think we had about 21 million people. Now we’re almost 23.5 million people in the state of Florida, but our current congressional districts are reflective of that reality from 2019, beginning of 2020.”
Other districts vary significantly in the number of votes cast, another reason to redraw up Florida’s districts, DeSantis added.
“This is something that’s kind of stuck in my craw for a number of years,” DeSantis said. “This is something that we are going to have to address as a state. I’ve spoken with some folks in the Florida Legislature and I think that there’s broad acknowledgement that this is something that is going to have to happen.”
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