Constitutional Opinion No. 2026-0862
Case Information
- Content Scored
- DeSantis Post — 2022 Florida Congressional Map Upheld ("Always the Constitutionally Correct Map")
- Source
- Office of the Governor of Florida (official government social media)
- Author
- Gov. Ron DeSantis, quoting commentator Eric Daugherty
- Publication Date
- 2025-07-17
- Content Type
- Media / Government-Source Commentary
- Opinion Issued
- 2026-07-22
- AFCS Version
- 1.0
Holding
This post presents the Standard with the sharpest content-not-team test of the commentary series, and the Standard resolves it by doing exactly what it exists to do: crediting a genuine constitutional principle while refusing to credit the partisan advantage the post celebrates around it. There is a real constitutional principle here, and the Standard credits it. DeSantis's 2022 map was a race-neutral map, drawn on the premise that guaranteeing a district a particular racial outcome is itself a form of racial gerrymandering the Constitution forbids — and that premise is squarely the Standard's own commitment to equal protection equally applied, the treatment of citizens as individuals rather than as members of racial blocs to be sorted (Article III). And the map was upheld through the ordinary process of judicial review by both federal courts and the Florida Supreme Court, a vindication by the rule of law rather than by fiat (Articles XVII, XVIII). On the principle — colorblind districting, ratified by courts — this is aligned. But the Standard must be candid about what the post is actually celebrating, and here its integrity is tested. The content it amplifies leads not with the constitutional principle but with the partisan scoreboard: a map that added 4 Republican seats and caused Dems to lose 3 seats. That is a celebration of partisan power, and a Standard that scores the constitutional principle, not the team, cannot count seats-for-my-side as a virtue — to do so would be to become the very team-scoring instrument the Standard rejects. The colorblind-districting principle earns credit on its own terms; the partisan-advantage framing earns none. Two further honesty notes hold the score down. The claim that this was always the constitutionally correct map is a self-serving absolute about what was, until the courts ruled, a genuinely contested question — the map dismantled a longstanding minority-opportunity district and drew serious legal challenge, and always correct glosses a real dispute the courts resolved only after the fact (Rule 8). And the post is one-sided, amplifying a partisan commentator's framing without acknowledging the contest. The constitutional principle is creditable; the partisan celebration and the self-serving certainty are what hold this at the low edge of the aligned band. Tier 1 nets to 66; under the commentary weighting the result is 66 — Mostly America First.
It is the judgment of this Court that Opinion No. 2026-0862 is hereby entered into the record, in accordance with the America First Constitutional Standard. The score stands. The reasoning is published. The record is public.