Jimmy Patronis points to partisan gerrymandering as only reason he doesn’t live in CD 1

Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis said he doesn’t live in Florida’s 1st Congressional District because of partisan gerrymandering. But that insinuation upset Joel Rudman, a former state lawmaker who faces Patronis in a Special Election to represent the district in Congress.

Patronis made the remark at a debate for candidates running in the Special Election to succeed former U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz in Congress. The Panama City Republican has faced criticism from opponents because he does not live in the Pensacola-centered district, but Patronis said his residency should not be an issue, as he has long roots in the Panhandle.

“Let me give you a little civics lesson. Do you know why District 1 is where it is?” Patronis said at the Niceville debate. “It’s because a Republican Legislature is in charge right now, and this is what we’ve done since Daniel Webster was Speaker of the House as a Republican. We try to create as many Republican congressional seats as possible, okay? So what happens is you get gerrymandered lines.”

Webster, now a U.S. Representative for Florida’s 11th Congressional District, became the first Republican Speaker of the Florida House in modern times in 1996. The same year, courts ordered the Florida Legislature to redraw a congressional map that was approved by Democratic Gov. Lawton Chiles. Until the implementation of that map, parts of Panama City were in CD 1, but the map moved the district’s lines slightly to the west, putting Panama City just inside the borders for Florida’s 2nd Congressional District.

By 2002, Webster won election to the Florida Senate, where he chaired the Senate Reapportionment Committee during the once-a-decade redistricting process. That marked the first time Republicans completely controlled the drawing of political boundaries for U.S. House lines in Florida.

A map approved by lawmakers and signed by Republican Gov. Jeb Bush was put in place for the 2002 elections, when Florida voters elected 18 Republicans and seven Democrats to the U.S. House just two years after an infamously close Presidential Election.

That map also left all of Panama City in CD 2, where it has remained ever since.

But notably, the Republican Legislature in the early 2000s wasn’t bound by the Fair District Amendment, which was passed by Florida voters in 2010. That amendment prohibits the drawing of congressional lines to advantage or disadvantage any political party.

The constitutional amendment resulted in the Florida Supreme Court tossing a map the Legislature approved in 2012, and remains a fundamental part of an ongoing legal challenge to a map approved by state lawmakers in 2022. A lawsuit was argued before the Florida Supreme Court last year, and a ruling has yet to be issued.

With that court battle underway, Patronis’ comments upset Rudman, who just left the Legislature in order to run in the CD 1 Special Election.

Rudman, a Navarre Republican, issued a statement noting that the insinuation of partisan gerrymandering carries “severely negative connotations.”

“I resent the accusation that Republican leadership would embark on anything unethical or unconstitutional when creating district lines, when in fact, the most gerrymandered district in history (CD-5) that stretched across the Georgia state line from Tallahassee to Jacksonville, was actually Democrat,” Rudman said. “The fact remains that, for his entire political career, Mr. Patronis has been synonymous with Panama City, which is squarely in Congressional District 2.”

Rudman referenced the old configuration of Florida’s 5th Congressional District, which was represented by former U.S. Rep. Al Lawson, a Tallahassee Democrat, from 2016 to 2022. That version of the district was implemented by the Florida Supreme Court in 2015 after the map created by the GOP-controlled Florida Legislature was tossed.

For what it’s worth, even some Democrats were aghast at Patronis’ assertion gerrymandering kept Panama City in CD 2.

“I’m glad Jimmy Patronis agrees that the current congressional map is gerrymandered,” said Matt Isbell, of MCI Maps. “However, CD 1 is the least gerrymandered district in the state. It simply cannot include Panama City because then the district would have too many people. Any effort to put Panama City into CD 1 would itself be a gerrymander. The fact is Panama City has not been in CD 1 for decades thanks to population growth in west Florida — not a fictionalized version of redistricting.”

Meanwhile, Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried pounced on comments as a confession from a top Republican that his party has stacked the deck against Democrats.

“Jimmy was willing to throw his entire party under the bus to cover for the fact that he’s running to represent an area where he’s never lived — Panama City hasn’t been part of CD 1 in nearly 30 years,” Fried said. “Floridians should be outraged that Republicans have taken away their voices for political gain, and the people of CD 1 should see that Jimmy Patronis is a clueless outsider who has neither the skill nor the knowledge to represent them in Congress.”

Of note, the Legislature initially intended to preserve that district when it conducted the once-a-decade redistricting process in 2022, but Gov. Ron DeSantis criticized Lawson’s district specifically. DeSantis ultimately vetoed the Legislature’s cartography. The Governor’s Office instead submitted a map approved by the Legislature, the one in use since 2022 and under court review now.

But of note, neither the map signed by DeSantis nor the one created by the Legislature that was vetoed placed Panama City inside CD 1.

“I am disappointed that the candidate would blame others for his lack of residency in our district,” Rudman said. “I vehemently denounce those comments accusing Republicans of gerrymandering and respectfully ask the candidate to apologize for that statement casting aspersions on our Republican leadership.”

Rudman was elected to the Florida House in 2022, after the map was approved by the Legislature.

Patronis’ campaign batted away Rudman’s accusations. Asked to comment, the campaign pointed to a social media post from President-elect Donald Trump endorsing Patronis.