Who Is Daniel Perez?

Daniel Perez is the Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives, representing a Miami-Dade district. He assumed the speakership at the start of the 2025 legislative session and quickly became the principal legislative instrument for Gov. Ron DeSantis’s congressional redistricting ambitions. Perez’s significance in the 2026 Florida redistricting is not primarily as an originator of strategy — it is as a legislative leader who ceded map-drawing authority entirely to the governor while ensuring the legislature would approve whatever DeSantis produced.

The 2026 Florida Redistricting — The 24-4 Map

Florida is among the most consequential redistricting states. With 28 congressional seats (the third-largest state delegation), converting four Democratic seats to Republican would have a massive impact on the national House balance.

Timeline:

• August 7, 2025: Perez announces formation of a “Select Committee on Congressional Redistricting” via memo
• January 7, 2026: DeSantis calls a special session on redistricting for April 2026
• April 27, 2026: DeSantis proposes his 24-4 congressional map (24 Republican seats, 4 Democratic seats)
• April 29, 2026: Florida House and Senate both vote to approve the map
• May 4, 2026: DeSantis signs the map into law

Perez’s explicit deference to DeSantis: In multiple public statements, Perez made clear that the legislature was not independently drawing maps — it was ratifying whatever the governor produced. He stated: “The Governor is the one that asked for [the special session] in order to do redistricting and we expect him to produce a map.”

The Redistricting Foundation lawsuit (filed after the map was signed) documented the legislature’s posture: “The Legislature seemed determined to lend its imprimatur to whatever map the Governor and his team drew. As one state legislator put it, ‘If we get a map from the governor…'” — completing the picture of a rubber-stamp legislative process.

What the 24-4 Map Does

The new map targets four Democratic incumbents:

• Kathy Castor (Tampa, FL-14): A majority-minority district in Tampa — the map dismantles the coalition that elected her
• Darren Soto (Orlando, FL-09): A Hispanic-majority district in the Orlando area
• Lois Frankel (West Palm Beach, FL-22): A Democratic district in South Florida
• Debbie Wasserman Schultz (FL-23): South Florida Democratic seat

Additionally threatened:

• Jared Moskowitz (South Florida): His district could be effectively eliminated
• Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick’s former district (FL-20): A majority-Black South Florida district whose boundaries are significantly altered

If Republicans flip all four targeted Democratic seats, Florida’s congressional delegation shifts from approximately 20-8 Republican to potentially 24-4 Republican — an historic supermajority in one of the largest state delegations.

Context for Non-Florida Readers

Florida’s Fair Districts Amendment: In 2010, Florida voters passed a constitutional amendment — the Fair Districts Amendment — that explicitly prohibits drawing maps to favor a political party or incumbent, or to diminish the ability of minority communities to elect candidates of their choice. The 24-4 map appears to violate all three prohibitions. Florida voters enacted this protection by a 63% supermajority — one of the strongest voter mandates in state history.

Perez and the legislature approved a map that contradicts a direct voter instruction embedded in the Florida Constitution. The Redistricting Foundation and other organizations have filed suit challenging the map under the Fair Districts Amendment.

Florida’s minority districts: Florida has a significant African American and Hispanic population, particularly in South Florida, Tampa, and Orlando. Many of the targeted districts were drawn to provide minority communities with representation aligned with their interests. The new map cracks these communities across multiple Republican-leaning districts.

The governor-draws, legislature-approves model: The Florida redistricting establishes a new institutional model: the executive branch draws the congressional map, and the legislature acts as a ratifying body rather than an independent policymaking chamber. This collapses the separation of powers within state government, with significant implications for how redistricting power is understood nationally.

Impact on Voters

Tampa (Castor district): Tampa’s diverse coalition of Black, Hispanic, progressive white, and working-class voters has consistently elected Castor since 2006. The new map cracks this coalition across districts engineered to prevent that outcome.

Orlando Hispanic community: FL-09’s predominantly Hispanic voters — Puerto Ricans, Central Americans, and other Latino communities — have elected Darren Soto since 2017. The new map dilutes this community’s voting power.

South Florida Black voters: The alterations to FL-20 — Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick’s former district, a majority-Black seat — threaten the continuity of Black congressional representation in South Florida that has existed since 1993 (Alcee Hastings).

Florida voters who passed Fair Districts: Every Florida voter who voted for the Fair Districts Amendment in 2010 has their constitutional mandate directly overridden by the legislature’s approval of DeSantis’s map.

National Electoral Implications

Florida’s four targeted seats are the second-largest single-state contribution to the national redistricting campaign:

• +4 potential Republican House seats from Florida alone
• Combined with Texas (+5), Tennessee (+1), North Carolina (+1), Missouri (+1), and Louisiana (+1): 12–14 total potential Republican gains
• These gains, if they materialize, give Republicans a working House majority of 15–20 seats going into the 2026 midterms
• This margin is large enough that even a significant national Democratic wave would not flip the House

Florida’s delegation importance: Florida’s 28-seat delegation is the third largest in the country. A 24-4 Republican supermajority would give Florida Republicans outsized influence over House committee assignments, budget negotiations, and the Republican caucus’s ideological center of gravity.

Legal Status

The Florida redistricting is the subject of at least two major legal challenges:

1. Fair Districts Amendment challenge — the Redistricting Foundation lawsuit argues the map violates Florida’s constitutional prohibition on partisan and incumbent-protection gerrymandering and minority vote dilution
2. Federal civil rights claims — challenges under the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause regarding the targeting of minority-coalition districts

The litigation names Perez as a defendant (Speaker of the Florida House) alongside Albritton (Senate President) and DeSantis.

Truth and Reconciliation Relevance

Daniel Perez’s specific accountability contribution is as an institutional enabler:

• He presided over a legislature that formally surrendered its independent map-drawing authority to the executive branch, establishing a precedent for governor-controlled redistricting
• He ensured a rapid, unobstructed path from DeSantis’s map proposal (April 27) to floor vote approval (April 29) to signature (May 4) — a seven-day process for a decision that will determine representation for potentially a decade
• He approved a map that voters directly prohibited through a constitutional amendment, overriding a democratic mandate embedded in the state constitution

A future TRC examining Florida’s role in the redistricting campaign will find Perez’s speakership noteworthy for the institutional deference it modeled: a legislative leader who understood his role as ratifying executive maps rather than independently protecting voter interests.

For Trump Supporters: Questions Worth Considering

Daniel Perez publicly stated the legislature’s role before the map was drawn: “The Governor is the one that asked for [the special session] in order to do redistricting and we expect him to produce a map.” That statement — the House Speaker announcing the legislature would be receiving a map from the governor, not drawing one — describes a fundamental reversal of the normal constitutional structure where the legislature draws maps. DeSantis released his map on April 27. Perez’s House voted to approve it on April 29 — two days later. Florida voters passed the Fair Districts Amendment in 2010 with 63% to specifically prohibit partisan maps; Perez’s House approved a map challenged as violating it. He is named as a defendant in litigation challenging the map.

Here’s a question worth sitting with: Perez’s role was to preside over a House that received the governor’s map and approved it two days later. He said publicly that the governor would be producing the map before it existed. The legislative process for a redistricting decision that will shape Florida’s congressional delegation for years — affecting millions of voters — took 48 hours. Redistricting is constitutionally a legislative function in most states specifically because legislatures are accountable to voters in a way executives are not. Perez’s House surrendered that function to the governor. If you believe state legislatures should exercise independent judgment on redistricting — rather than acting as rubber stamps for executive maps — does Perez’s role meet that standard?

A second question: Florida voters wrote a rule directly into their state constitution saying maps cannot be drawn to favor a political party or diminish minority representation. Those voters passed it with 63% — a supermajority that almost certainly crossed party lines. The map Perez approved is now being challenged as violating exactly that constitutional rule, specifically the provisions protecting minority communities in Tampa, Orlando, and South Florida. The voters set the rules. The legislature approved a map alleged to break those rules. If the courts ultimately find the map unconstitutional, what accountability standard should apply to the legislators who approved it after a 48-hour review process?

Key Sources

• Ballotpedia: “Redistricting in Florida ahead of the 2026 elections”
• Florida Politics: “Gov. DeSantis releases proposed congressional map for Florida — could cut 4 Democratic seats” (April 27, 2026)
• Wikipedia: “2026 Florida redistricting”
• Redistricting Foundation lawsuit complaint (filed May 2026) — Perez named as defendant
• POLITICO Florida and Florida Phoenix: Legislative vote coverage (April 29, 2026)