Jim Rosica
The chairmen of the Florida Legislature’s redistricting panels agreed to draw multiple “base maps” and record all meetings of map-drawers as they prepare for next month’s Special Session to redraw Florida’s state Senate districts.
The agreement was spelled out in letters between state Sen. Bill Galvano, a Bradenton Republican, and state Rep. Jose Oliva, a Miami Lakes Republican, that were released Friday.
The letters, dated Sept. 17, 18 and 21, show that the two lawmakers wanted to “move past the discord that has impaired the relationship between our two chambers.”
“I am confident we can, in a spirit of cooperation, accomplish what I believe to be our mutual goal of passing a constitutional Senate redistricting map,” Galvano wrote to Oliva in one letter.
Lawmakers will meet in an Oct. 19 to Nov. 6 Special Session – the third of the year – to redraw the Senate district boundaries after a settlement in a lawsuit claiming some of those districts were gerrymandered.
The 3-year-old case, brought by the League of Women Voters of Florida and Common Cause, was brought to an end by the Senate’s admission that its members knew their map was drawn to protect incumbents and favor Republicans. Both chambers will work on a fix.
Galvano suggested “that we direct our professional staff to draw multiple base maps using different methodologies.”
“I believe such an approach will provide members with a contrast that will illuminate how the Senate districts might be drawn while providing the members with options for consideration and improvement,” he said.
For the recent Special Session that dealt with congressional redistricting, only one base map was produced, intended as a starting point.
Galvano also asked “that all meetings of the map drawers and their work on the base map, including meetings where they are advised by counsel, be recorded.”
He noted court rulings that “strongly encouraged the Legislature to record all non-public meetings where decisions on the map are made for preservation.”
Although he said he has “the utmost trust that our professional staff will draw a set of constitutional maps,” he could not “dismiss the fact that a great deal of discretion and decision-making is vested in them when they do so.”
“While it is the intent of the Legislature and our decision to accept a map that ultimately matters, I also recognize the safest course is to record such meetings to protect against the circumstance where the Court might see it differently,” Galvano wrote.
Oliva agreed, though he asked that legislative lawyers first present the professional map-drawers “with methodologies on which both sides can agree,” first coming up with a joint memo on the mutually acceptable guidelines.
He also asked for a “sterile” process, saying that the Senate provide a central room that is accessible only to the map-drawers and the lawyers.
Oliva agreed that all meetings in that room be “recorded,” though it wasn’t immediately clear whether that also included, for example, live televising by The Florida Channel.
