Flor­ida is the only state to out­law par­tis­an ger­ry­man­der­ing while leav­ing the re­dis­trict­ing pro­cess in the hands of par­tis­an le­gis­lat­ors rather than cre­at­ing an in­de­pend­ent com­mis­sion. And after three years of lit­ig­a­tion and four months of at­tempts to draw new le­gis­lat­ive and con­gres­sion­al maps, loc­al Re­pub­lic­ans and Demo­crats have reached the con­clu­sion that the state’s unique sys­tem of re­dis­trict­ing can­not go on.

Demo­crat­ic le­gis­lat­ors, in­spired by a June U.S. Su­preme Court rul­ing re­af­firm­ing the leg­al­ity of in­de­pend­ent re­dis­trict­ing com­mis­sions, hope to win Re­pub­lic­an sup­port for an in­de­pend­ent com­mis­sion to re­draw dis­trict bound­ar­ies in Flor­ida. And after months of re­dis­trict­ing chaos, some Re­pub­lic­ans have hin­ted that they could get on board.

Re­pub­lic­ans could also pre­pare for an ef­fort in 2017 to change or undo an amend­ment to the state con­sti­tu­tion, ad­ded in 2010, out­law­ing par­tis­an ger­ry­man­der­ing. Every 20 years, Flor­ida al­lows for a Con­sti­tu­tion­al Re­vi­sion Com­mis­sion, which can choose to put its own con­sti­tu­tion­al amend­ments on the next statewide bal­lot. The com­mis­sion’s next ses­sion is in 2017, and most of its mem­bers are se­lec­ted by the gov­ernor or le­gis­lat­ors. A Re­pub­lic­an-stacked Con­sti­tu­tion­al Re­vi­sion Com­mis­sion could put the ger­ry­man­der­ing ban back on the 2018 bal­lot to see if voters will strike it down.

Ef­forts to pro­mote either path are in their early stages, but both sides are mo­tiv­ated to change the status quo. The ex­ten­ded re­dis­trict­ing battle has cost tax­pay­ers $11 mil­lion, ac­cord­ing to the Miami Her­ald.

“How many spe­cial ses­sions have we had? This is pre­pos­ter­ous, in that this is just a mat­ter of style, not sub­stance,” said Demo­crat­ic state Rep. Dwight Dud­ley, in an in­ter­view with Na­tion­al Journ­al. (The an­swer to his rhet­or­ic­al ques­tion: four spe­cial ses­sions, as of Oc­to­ber.)

Dud­ley has sponsored a bill that would cre­ate an in­de­pend­ent com­mis­sion modeled after Cali­for­nia’s: The state aud­it­or would pick up to 60 po­ten­tial com­mis­sion­ers and then al­low the ma­jor­ity and minor­ity lead­ers in the House and Sen­ate to nar­row the field down us­ing ve­toes. He also co­sponsored an in­de­pend­ent-com­mis­sion bill that he now says doesn’t go far enough in keep­ing the com­mis­sion­ers in­de­pend­ent of the le­gis­lature.

Even though Re­pub­lic­ans con­trol Flor­ida’s House, Sen­ate, and gov­ernor­ship, Dud­ley has high hopes that he can pass le­gis­la­tion cre­at­ing an in­de­pend­ent com­mis­sion with bi­par­tis­an sup­port. As law­makers con­vened for the le­gis­lature’s second spe­cial ses­sion, the Her­ald re­por­ted, Re­pub­lic­an state Sen. Tom Lee ex­claimed in frus­tra­tion, “Bring me a re­dis­trict­ing com­mis­sion or something, for good­ness sakes. Bring me something that works!”

More im­port­antly, Re­pub­lic­an state Rep. Richard Corcor­an, who has been des­ig­nated the speak­er of the House for the 2016-18 ses­sion, told the Her­ald he is “com­pletely open” to con­sid­er­ing le­gis­la­tion cre­at­ing an in­de­pend­ent re­dis­trict­ing com­mis­sion.

(Corcor­an, Lee, and sev­er­al oth­er Re­pub­lic­an le­gis­lat­ors who have ex­pressed at least hes­it­ant sup­port for a com­mis­sion did not re­spond to re­quests for com­ment.)

Dud­ley ac­know­ledged that Re­pub­lic­ans could sup­port some sort of re­dis­trict­ing Tro­jan horse—an os­tens­ibly in­de­pend­ent com­mis­sion that ac­tu­ally gives le­gis­lat­ors some sort of in­flu­ence. In that case, it might be ne­ces­sary to push for a bal­lot meas­ure cre­at­ing the com­mis­sion.

“We don’t want a make-be­lieve in­de­pend­ent com­mis­sion,” he said. “We want the real thing. We want as far in­de­pend­ent as we can pos­sibly design.”

An in­de­pend­ent com­mis­sion, however, is not the only way Flor­ida can es­cape its cur­rent con­vo­luted sys­tem. Re­pub­lic­an con­sult­ant Rick Wilson said the 2017 Con­sti­tu­tion Re­vi­sion Com­mis­sion is at least a “rel­ev­ant” pos­sible solu­tion, al­though Re­pub­lic­ans haven’t yet made plans to undo the 2010 Fair Dis­tricts Amend­ments.

“The oth­er side will lit­ig­ate the hell out of it, of course,” Wilson said. “But there is a way to get home on that to re­place the slanted, D.C.-de­veloped [state con­sti­tu­tion­al amend­ments] 5 and 6 with something more re­flect­ive of the will of the people in Flor­ida.”

It’s not as simple as Re­pub­lic­an le­gis­lat­ors look­ing to pre­serve the party’s power rather than al­low­ing for in­de­pend­ent re­dis­trict­ing, Wilson said. It’s that the cur­rent ban on ger­ry­man­der­ing in Flor­ida puts more power in­to the hands of un­elec­ted judges whom Re­pub­lic­ans con­sider just as par­tis­an. Three of the sev­en justices were ap­poin­ted by former Gov. Law­ton Chiles, a Demo­crat, and four were ap­poin­ted by former Gov. Charlie Crist, a mod­er­ate Re­pub­lic­an who has since be­come a Demo­crat.

“They put their thumb on the par­tis­an scale every single time we come to court,” Wilson said. “We’re go­ing to have to look at this—how you go for­ward on it. I don’t think there’s a so­lid­i­fied strategy to deal with it now. But Re­pub­lic­ans are mind­ful of deal­ing with it.”

Such an ef­fort would face a per­il­ous path, though. Flor­ida voters backed the 2010 bal­lot meas­ure out­law­ing ger­ry­man­der­ing; it’s far from cer­tain they would re­verse them­selves if the Con­sti­tu­tion Re­vi­sion Com­mis­sion sent the amend­ments back to the bal­lot in 2018. In 2010, Re­pub­lic­ans at­tacked the two re­dis­trict­ing amend­ments on the bal­lot as be­ing backed by out-of-state lib­er­als, but voters sup­por­ted them both, 63-37 per­cent.

“I’ve heard some rum­blings, but let ‘em try,” Dud­ley said. “To me, you want to play with fire? You want to really out­rage the pub­lic? Go ahead and play with, tinker with, try to dis­mantle the Fair Dis­tricts amend­ments. That, to me, is as kami­kaze as ever could be.”