It wasn't long ago that I complimented the Republicans in the Florida Legislature for drawing reasonably fair maps and abiding by both the Florida Fair District Amendments and the Voting Rights Act. Well, looks like I have to take that back. After DeSantis vetoed the maps, they decided to hand the entire process over to him. Now, we have his map that they'll almost certainly rubber stamp. Unsurprisingly, it is brazenly partisan and overtly racist. It clearly violates the Fair Districts Amendments and the Voting Rights Act. But DeSantis is counting on the Republican partisans on the Florida Supreme Court to refuse to enforce the will of the people of Florida and for the Republican partisans on the Supreme Court to gut the VRA even further. And he's probably right to do so. Most of our justices are nothing more than politicians in robes at this point. Discussion of his map: "FWIW, the 20R-8D DeSantis gerrymander would dilute the votes of Black communities in St. Petersburg, Orlando and North FL to benefit Rs in ways that previous courts have struck down. We’ll see what the new, more conservative FL Supreme Court (and possibly SCOTUS) say." Picture of the map with partisan breakdown: Despite North Florida including part of the Black Belt and having the two Florida cities with the highest Black populations (Jacksonville and Tallahassee), Black North Floridians will have zero representation. More discussion: DeSantis redistricting map is ‘overtly racist,’ Black lawmaker Bracy says DeSantis draws congressional map that would dramatically expand GOP’s edge in Florida
It’s in violation of Florida law so despite being heavily Republican in nature, I don’t see how the Florida Supreme Court will allow this map.
They absolutely will. DeSantis is currently all three branches of government. James Madison’s rolling in his grave.
Florida - The Atlas Of Redistricting The map drawn by 538 using compact and following county lines looks similar to the map in the OP.
Actually, it is much more similar to this map, which is their Republican gerrymander map: Florida - The Atlas Of Redistricting Look at Tampa, for example. The map you linked contained 2 Democratic leaning competitive districts (a Tampa-based district and a St. Pete based district), 1 Republican leaning competitive district (a Northern Pinellas/Hillsborough district), and a safe Republican district (south of the Bay). The Republican Gerrymander map contains 3 Republican districts (non-St. Pete Pinellas, Northern Hillsborough, and south of the Bay) and a Democratic vote sink (St. Pete and Tampa). What does Desantis' map contain? 3 Republican districts and a Democratic vote sink.
I was talking more about the shape of the districts, not the party breakdown. I like compact districts that don't look like Corrine Brown's district looked years ago.
Again, your concern here is that you prefer cracking as a tool of gerrymandering to packing. This map is, with the exception of the Tampa vote sink, mostly a product of cracking (e.g., let's divide the Orlando majority black district into two to make sure that there isn't a majority black district in Orlando). But both are gerrymandering. Which is why his map doesn't match the partisan breakdowns of the map you provided, because that was made without regard to partisan breakdown, whereas this map was entirely about partisan breakdown.
Serious question, if there was no data involved in the formulation of the districts other than population, how could it violate the law. Racial data was not used by the computer to draw the map.
SECTION 21. Standards for establishing legislative district boundaries.—In establishing legislative district boundaries: (a) No apportionment plan or district shall be drawn with the intent to favor or disfavor a political party or an incumbent; and districts shall not be drawn with the intent or result of denying or abridging the equal opportunity of racial or language minorities to participate in the political process or to diminish their ability to elect representatives of their choice; and districts shall consist of contiguous territory. (b) Unless compliance with the standards in this subsection conflicts with the standards in subsection 1(a) or with federal law, districts shall be as nearly equal in population as is practicable; districts shall be compact; and districts shall, where feasible, utilize existing political and geographical boundaries. (c) The order in which the standards within subsections 1(a) and (b) of this section are set forth shall not be read to establish any priority of one standard over the other within that subsection.
Can someone provide a Cliff's Notes version of how gerrymandering works? I'm sure this has been explained, but I'm not up to snuff on this. Thanks
Well, maybe he wrote his own Wikipedia entry but this seems like good record. In 2020 and 2021, on behalf of the Biden campaign and the Democratic National Committee, Elias oversaw the state-by-state response to lawsuits filed by the Trump campaign contesting the 2020 presidential election results. Of the 64 cases, he won all but one minor case, which was later overturned in his favor.[4][5][6]
Almost all of the Republicans on the Ohio Supreme Court tried to claim their constitutional amendment (passed by 71% of the vote in the state) banning partisan gerrymandering was unenforceable. Luckily, it was a 4-3 R court, and one Republican had the integrity to cross the aisle. I don't trust the Republican politicians on the Florida Supreme Court to truly enforce our amendments.
It describes how the politicians draw the maps. If it's partisan gerrymandering, they drew the maps in a way to favor their side rather than represent the partisan lean of the state (ex. Republicans get 65% of the congressional seats in a state they won only 50% of the vote). And when I use racist gerrymandering, I am saying that the politicians drew the maps in a way to diminish minority representation. That's illegal under the Voting Rights Act (one of the few parts of that country-changing statute still standing after the Roberts Court's attacks on it). But Republican SCOTUS will likely rewrite the statute to do away with that too. For example, in a year when Democrats won over 50% of the votes in Wisconsin, the Republicans won over 66% of the seats in the state legislature. How? They drew the maps in a way that made it basically impossible for them to lose their supermajority. Alternatively, if my post didn't explain it well enough, you can read this: Gerrymandering Explained
