Julie Delegal
The Redistricting Case
The League of Women voters won their court challenge to Florida’s congressional map last week. Leon County Circuit Court Judge Terry Lewis agreed with the League that Florida’s latest congressional map was drawn to favor one political party (Republicans) over the other (Democrats.) Lewis invalidated the map as unconstitutional, and called for it to be redrawn. State lawmakers are still deciding whether to appeal the decision. If they do, the electoral-map likely would not be redrawn until the appeal has been decided.
Two Congressional Districts at Issue
Among those opposing the decision is Democratic U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown, whose long, snakelike District 5 was one of the two districts specifically invalidated by Lewis. Brown views her district — as currently drawn — as necessary in order to have effective minority representation, as outlined in both the Florida Constitution and the federal Voting Rights Act.
The judge disagrees. He wrote that the “configuration” of Brown’s district was not necessary to satisfy either provision. In other words, it’s possible to draw a map that still contains effective minority access districts without the long, meandering and distinctly un-compact district boundaries. Republicans drew the snakelike district because it was to their advantage, and not because the VRA demanded it, as they would have us believe. They drew it that way because it worked to their advantage.
The other district invalidated by Lewis touches Brown’s: Congressional District 10, represented by Republican Congressman Daniel Webster. Districts 5 and 10 touch nine other congressional districts. Changing the boundaries of CDs 5 and 10 will require changing the boundaries of other districts.
The art of gerrymandering
Therein lie the crux — and the art — of electoral map-drawing. Every time a line is drawn to include a specific enclave or neighborhood in one district, that same line will draw those same communities out of neighboring districts.
Republican Governors’ Association attorney and redistricting expert Benjamin Ginsberg understood the art well: each boundary that “packs” or includes Democrats into a minority access district also “bleaches” or excludes those voters from the contiguous districts. Ginsberg helped countless state legislatures redraw maps that would enable them to create numerous “safe” GOP districts by carving Democrats out and “packing” them into minority access districts that already had enough voters to elect minority representation.
Florida has seen the results of these boundary shifts since reapportionment occurred in 2000, and again in 2010. When the census is taken and the electoral maps are redrawn every 10 years, those boundary lines can make all the difference in the world. In Florida, an arguably blue state that President Barack Obama carried twice, the congressional delegation comprises only 10 Democrats — a smidge more than a third — out of 27 House seats. This lopsided representation occurs in a state where there are 459,000 more democrats than Republicans.
Voter advocacy organizations fought this distortion of voter intent by putting the Fair Districts Amendments on the ballot in 2010. The measures, calling for more geographically compact electoral districts among other things, are now part of the Florida Constitution.
Why Congresswoman Brown is wrong to fight the court decision
Brown has conflated the survival of her district — as drawn — with the success of the Voting Rights Act. Judging from her statement to the press, hers is a fight about racial justice and minority representation in Congress — something that minority access districts were designed to ensure.
Brown, a crusader for civil rights and voting rights, is understandably skeptical of any decision that tinkers with minority representation in Congress. But the judge’s ruling makes clear that the Voting Rights Act doesn’t prevent lawmakers from re-drawing districts 5 and 10 to be more compact.
There’s no inherent conflict — as Republican lawmakers would have us all believe — between the Fair Districts Amendments’ language in the constitution, and the Voting Rights Act. In fact, the constitutional language incorporates the provisions of the Voting Rights Act. The Big Lie that Republican lawmakers perpetuated during redistricting was that the districts had to be drawn with bizarre, snaky districts to comply with the Voting Rights Act.
Not so, says Judge Lewis.
The League of Women Voters provided the court with maps that preserved minority-access-district integrity and bettersatisfied the geographical compactness requirements.
“Plaintiffs have shown,” Lewis wrote, “that a more two-tier [geographically] compliant district could have been drawn that would not have been [racially] retrogressive.”
Rep. Brown: There’s no need to fight. If we can get that map redrawn more compactly and competitively and preserve the minority-access nature of your district, maybe Florida can elect more Democrats to help you out in the House.
Julie Delegal, a University of Florida alumna, is a contributor for Folio Weekly, Jacksonville’s alternative weekly, and writes for the family business, Delegal Law Offices. She lives in Jacksonville. Column courtesy of Context Florida.
