The Florida League of Women Voters, Common Cause, the Florida Democratic Party and others who have challenged Florida's re-drawn congressional maps finally get their day in court today in Tallahassee. The groups actually have been in court for the past two years, claiming that the GOP-led House & Senate leaders thwarted the will of the voters in the 2010 Fair District constitutional amendments that were passed by the electorate. The new law required that lawmakers refrain from drawing the maps to benefit incumbents or political parties, and that they be contiguous. After all the legal haggling, Judge Terry Lewis will begin hearing testimony beginning today.
The Fair District amendments were designed to take politics out of re-districting, which frankly is rather impossible. That's why some of us thought the measures didn't go far enough, and that Florida should adopt what California, Arizona and several other states have gone to — an independent commission to draw up the districts (not that those groups wouldn't be accused of being political and biased, too).
Among the districts that will be reviewed by Judge Lewis is Jacksonville area Democrat Corrine Brown's Congressional District 5, which, in order to give minority voters a majority voice, stretches across no fewer than eight counties: Duval, Clay, Putnam, Alachua, Marion, Lake, Seminole, and Orange. The next highest “county split” in Florida is four. If that ain't gerrymandered in violation of the Fair District Amendments, nothing is.
Kathy Castor's CD14 and David Jolly's CD13 congressional seats are just two of the 10 districts being challenged in court. During the redistricting hearings that Senate President Don Gaetz presided over in Tampa a few years ago, both Republicans and Democrats pleaded that Castor's district end at the water's edge of Tampa Bay, and not go into Pinellas, which it does (as well as Manatee County).
Brown and Castor's districts have been drawn up to package as many minority voters as possible, maintaining them as solidly Democratic seats, but also making it easier for Republicans to retain adjoining congressional seats, like Jolly's CD13, which contains much of St. Petersburg, but not the downtown or South areas, areas that definitely skew more Democratic.
The trial is expected to last at least two weeks, and one of the highlights undoubtedly will be when House Speaker Will Weatherford and Senate President Gaetz are called to the stand to testify under oath.
Judge Lewis says he will make a ruling by the end of June.
According to reports, Florida taxpayers are already on the hook for $2.6 million spent by attorneys representing the state Senate and House, incidentally.
In other news….. We'll have more on this soon, but we attended the Florida Libertarian Party convention on Saturday in Tampa. The party's candidates this fall include Lucas Overby, who finished third behind Jolly and Alex Sink in March. With the Democrats officially without a candidate now in the swing district, will they rally behind the Libertarian guy?
And the sniping continues between the Charlie Crist and Rick Scott camps. Some old-line Cuban activists protested Crist's opening of another campaign office over the weekend, this time in Miami's Little Havana. But Crist won the media battle last week after making hay out of the Council of 100's snubbing of him last Tuesday.
This article appears in May 15-21, 2014.