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ron desantis
DeSantis Joins Trump Map-Rigging Push, Calling Florida Special Session
"This poses another dangerous threat to free and fair elections in this country, and other Democratic states must act now to ultimately protect a fair and representative democracy," said one national expert.
Jan 07, 2026
President Donald Trump's push to rig US congressional maps for Republicans ahead of this year's elections expanded to his home state of Florida on Wednesday, when GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis announced the Legislature will hold a special session in April.
While Trump has openly pressured Republican state leaders to take action—and threatened those who don't—DeSantis tried to frame the plans as an effort to "ensure that Florida's congressional maps accurately reflect the population of our state."
DeSantis also explained during a press conference that he is pushing the session to April 20-24 because of a forthcoming US Supreme Court decision "that's gonna affect the validity of some of these districts nationwide, including some of the districts in the state of Florida."
While the high court's right-wing supermajority last month gave Texas Republicans a green light to use their recently redrawn political map in the midterm elections, DeSantis was referring to the expected ruling on a case about Louisiana's congressional districts that predates Trump's gerrymandering push.
The outcome of Louisiana v. Callais could be "the GOP's best chance of defending its narrow, five-seat majority in the House of Representatives," Bloomberg reported Wednesday. "In oral arguments last fall, the conservative justices appeared poised to significantly limit, if not completely overturn, the provision of the 1965 Voting Rights Act that bars changes in election laws that have the effect of discriminating against racial minorities."
In a statement, the Florida Democratic Party called DeSantis' map-rigging effort "reckless, partisan, and opportunistic."
"This is nothing more than a desperate attempt to rig the system and silence voters before the 2026 election," the party said. "Now, after gutting representation for Black Floridians just three years ago, Ron is hoping the decimation of the Voting Rights Act by Trump's Supreme Court will allow him to further gerrymander and suppress the vote of millions of Floridians."
Florida Senate Minority Leader Lori Berman (D-31) said that "Florida's Fair Districts Amendment strictly prohibits any maps from being drawn for partisan reasons, and regardless of any bluster from the governor's office, the only reason we're having this unprecedented conversation about drawing new maps is because Donald Trump demanded it."
"An overwhelming majority of Floridians voted in favor of the Fair Districts Amendment and their voices must be respected," Berman declared. "The redistricting process is meant to serve the people, not the politicians."
Florida House Minority Leader Fentrice Driskell (D-67) similarly said during a press briefing that "people should pick their politicians. Politicians should not pick their people. Florida's government should not be rigging elections. That's what they do in places like Cuba and Venezuela, not America. This is a cynical swamp-like behavior that makes people hate politics, and Florida doesn't have to do this, period."
The National Democratic Redistricting Committee, founded and chaired by former Attorney General Eric Holder, also condemned the move. The group's president, John Bisognano, said that "the proclamation that the state should wait for 'guidance' from the US Supreme Court is just a thinly veiled call for Florida Republicans to further gerrymander, no matter the court's decision."
"The Sunshine State is already one of the most egregiously gerrymandered states in the country, with a DeSantis-drawn congressional map that robs millions of voters—particularly voters of color—of their rightful representation," Bisognano noted.
"Right now, Florida Republicans are aiming to enact an even more extreme gerrymander on top of an already extreme gerrymander, not because Floridians want this, but because they want to cater to the DC politicians and special interests and dilute Black and Latino voting power," he added. "This poses another dangerous threat to free and fair elections in this country, and other Democratic states must act now to ultimately protect a fair and representative democracy."
In addition to Texas, Republicans have recently redrawn maps to appease Trump in Missouri and North Carolina—while GOP state senators in Indiana joined Democratic lawmakers to block an effort there.
Voters in California responded by approving new congressional districts for their state that favor Democrats, which swiftly drew a lawsuit from the Trump administration. Democratic lawmakers in Maryland may follow the Golden State's lead.
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US Electric Grid Heading Toward 'Crisis' Thanks to AI Data Centers
"No good comes of having an AI data center near you."
Jan 02, 2026
The massive energy needs of artificial intelligence data centers became a major political controversy in 2025, and new reporting suggests that it will grow even further in 2026.
CNBC reported on Thursday that data center projects have become political lightning rods among politicians ranging from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on the left to Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on the right.
However, objections to data centers aren't just coming from politicians but from ordinary citizens who are worried about the impact such projects will have on their local environment and their utility bills.
CNBC noted that data centers' energy needs are so great that PJM Interconnection, the largest US grid operator that serves over 65 million people across 13 states, projects that it will be a full six gigawatts short of its reliability requirements in 2027.
Joe Bowring, president of independent market monitor Monitoring Analytics, told CNBC that he's never seen the grid under such projected strain.
"It’s at a crisis stage right now," Bowring said. "PJM has never been this short."
Rob Gramlich, president of power consulting firm Grid Strategies, told CNBC that he expects the debate over data centers to become even more intense this year once Americans start getting socked with even higher utility bills.
"I don't think we’ve seen the end of the political repercussions,” Gramlich said. “And with a lot more elections in 2026 than 2025, we’ll see a lot of implications. Every politician is going to be saying that they have the answer to affordability and their opponents’ policies would raise rates."
Concerns about data centers' impact on electric grids are rising in both red and blue states.
The Austin American-Statesman reported on Thursday that a new analysis written by the office of Austin City Manager TC Broadnax found that data centers have the potential to overwhelm the city's system given they are projected to need more power than can possibly be delivered with current infrastructure.
"The speed in which AI is trying to be deployed creates tremendous strain on the already tight resources in both design and construction," says the analysis, which noted that some proposed data centers are seeking more than five gigawatts, which is more than the peak load for the entire city.
In New York, local station News 10 reported last year that the New York Independent System Operator is estimating that the state's grid could be 1.6 gigawatts short of reliability requirements by 2030 thanks in large part to data centers.
Anger over proposed data centers has even spread to President Donald Trump's primary residential home of Palm Beach County, Florida, where local residents successfully postponed the construction of a proposed 200-acre data center complex.
According to public news station WLRN, locals opposed to the project cited "expected noise from cooling towers, servers, and diesel generators, along with heavy water use, pollution concerns, and higher utility costs" when petitioning Palm Beach County commissioners to scrap the proposal.
Corey Kanterman, a local opponent of the proposed data center, told WLRN that his goal is to shut the project down entirely.
"No good comes of having an AI data center near you," Kanterman said. "Put them in the location of least impact to the environment and people. This location is not it."
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'A Human Rights Disaster': Report Details Torture and Chaos at 'Alligator Alcatraz'
Conditions at Florida detention facilities "represent a deliberate system of cruelty designed to punish people seeking to build a new life in the US,” said an official at Amnesty International.
Dec 04, 2025
Two immigration detention centers in Florida have gained notoriety for inhumane conditions since Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, in close alignment with President Donald Trump's anti-immigrant agenda, has rapidly scaled up mass detention in the state, and a report released Thursday detailed how human rights violations at the two facilities amount to torture in some cases.
Amnesty International published the report, Torture and Enforced Disappearances in the Sunshine State, with a focus on Krome North Service Processing Center and the Everglades Detention Facility, also known by its nickname, "Alligator Alcatraz."
As Common Dreams has reported, many of the people detained at the facilities have been arbitrarily rounded up by immigration agents, with a majority of the roughly 1,000 people being held at Alligator Alcatraz having been convicted of no criminal offense as of July.
Amnesty's report described unsanitary conditions, with fecal matter overflowing from toilets in detainees' sleeping areas, authorities granting only limited access to showers, and poor quality food and water.
Some of the treatment amounts to torture, the report says, including Alligator Alcatraz's use of "the box"—a 2x2 foot "cage-like structure people are put in as punishment—which inmates have been placed in for hours at a time with their hands and feet attached to restraints on the ground.
“These despicable and nauseating conditions at Alligator Alcatraz reflect a pattern of deliberate neglect designed to dehumanize and punish those detained there,” said Amy Fischer, director of refugee and migrant rights with Amnesty International USA. “This is unreal—where’s the oversight?”
At Krome, detainees have been arbitrarily placed in prolonged solitary confinement—defined as lasting longer than 15 days—which is prohibited under international law.
"The use of prolonged solitary confinement at Krome and the use of the ‘box’ at 'Alligator Alcatraz' amount to torture or other ill-treatment," said Amnesty.
The report elevates concerns raised in September by immigrant rights advocates regarding the lack of federal oversight at Alligator Alcatraz, with nearly 1,000 men detained at the prison having been "administratively disappeared"—their names absent from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement's detainee locator system.
"The absence of registration or tracking mechanisms for those detained at Alligator Alcatraz facilitates incommunicado detention and constitutes enforced disappearances when the whereabouts of a person being detained there is denied to their family, and they are not allowed to contact their lawyer," said Amnesty.
The state of Florida has not publicly confirmed the number of people detained at Alligator Alcatraz.
One man told Amnesty, "My lawyers tried to visit me, but they weren’t let in. They were told that they had to fill out a form, which they did, but nothing happened. I was never able to speak with them confidentially.”
At Krome, detainees described overcrowding, medical neglect, and abuse by guards when Amnesty researchers visited in September. ICE has constructed tents and other semi-permanent structures to hold more people than the facility is designed to detain.
The Amnesty researchers were given a tour of relatively extensive medical facilities at Krome, including a dialysis clinic, dental clinic, and a "state-of-the-art" mental health facility—but despite these resources, detainees described officials' failure to provide medical treatment and delays in health assessments. Four people—Ramesh Amechand, Genry Ruiz Guillen, Maksym Chernyak, and Isidro Pérez—have died this year while detained at Krome.
"It’s a disaster if you want to see the doctor," one man told Amnesty. "I once asked to see the doctor, and it took two weeks for me to finally see him. It’s very slow.”
Researchers with the organization witnessed "a guard violently slam a metal flap of a door to a solitary confinement room against a man’s injured hand," and people reported being "hit and punched" by officials at Krome.
In line with the Trump administration, DeSantis and Republican state lawmakers have sought to make Florida "a testing ground for abusive immigration enforcement policies," said Amnesty, with the state deputizing local law enforcement to make immigration arrests and issuing 34 no-bid contracts totaling more than $360 million for the operation of Alligator Alcatraz—while slashing spending on healthcare, food assistance, and disaster relief. Florida has increased the number of people in immigration detention by more than 50% since Trump took office in January.
The organization called on Florida to redirect detention funding toward healthcare, housing, and other public spending, and to ban "shackling, solitary confinement, and punitive outdoor confinement" in line with international standards.
"At the federal level, the US government must end its cruel mass immigration detention machine, stop the criminalization of migration, and bar the use of state-owned facilities for federal immigration custody," said Amnesty.
Fischer emphasized that the chaotic and abusive conditions Amnesty observed at Alligator Alcatraz and Krome "are not isolated."
"They represent a deliberate system of cruelty designed to punish people seeking to build a new life in the US,” said Fischer. “We must stop detaining our immigrant community members and people seeking safety and instead work toward humane, rights-respecting migration policies.”
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