Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is brazenly trying to limit the political power of blacks in his state while redrawing its congressional districts to significantly benefit Republicans.
The Florida legislature is meeting this week to consider a proposal by DeSantis that will give Florida Republicans a 20-8 advantage over Democrats in the state congressional delegation. This is an increase of four seats from the 16-11 advantage that Republicans now hold (Florida won an additional seat in Congress due to population growth).
DeSantis’ plan seriously undermines the strength of the voice of black Florida. There are currently four counties in the state where black voters can choose their preferred candidates. His plan would leave only two.
The governor spoke openly about his desire to eliminate the Fifth Congressional District, which stretches from Jacksonville to Tallahassee in North Florida. Forty-six percent of the eligible population is black and is represented by Al Lawson, a black Democrat. DeSantis claims the area is unconstitutional because its unusually stretched shape is painted primarily for race. “We will not have a 200-mile germander who divides people based on the color of their skin. That’s wrong, “he said this month.
His proposed map will divide the fifth district into four new districts, where black voters will make up a much smaller share of the population.
“Sometimes you have to use Occam’s razor, and the simplest explanation is the right one. It’s a deeply racist move aimed at black political power,” said Michael Lee, a redistribution expert at the Brennan Justice Center. “What he’s doing in Florida just seems unreasonable. It looks vicious and really designed to give real power to things. ”
The district was created in 2015, when a Florida judge accepted new congressional districts for the state after the previous ones were deleted as illegal herrimanders. The state’s Supreme Court approved the map, noting that District 5 protects the ability of black voters to choose the candidate of their choice by giving them a political voice in part of Florida, once home to slave-built plantations.
The abolition of Fifth Congressional District will have dire consequences for black voters in the north, said Jasmine Bernie-Clarke, founder of Equal Ground, a civic engagement group that plans to lobby lawmakers to reject the governor’s proposal.
“They will lose access to resources and access to someone who could talk to them within this particular fifth district,” she said. “Not having someone to represent this part of the people of Jacksonville, Tallahassee, means we’re diluting their voice, it means the governor is diluting their voice. And the governor is using their opportunity to be heard through the election process. “
It is unclear whether Republicans in the legislature will approve the DeSantis plan. Earlier this year, they rejected the governor’s efforts to draw his own map by dismantling the fifth district. But in an unusual move last week, they said the governor would take the initiative in submitting a proposal.
When DeSantis initially expressed skepticism about the sprawling Fifth Congressional District, Republicans in the Florida legislature proposed a compromise. They approved a proposal that would attract a more compact neighborhood around Jacksonville to keep black voters together.
Although the new constituency would be about 35% black, it would present itself as a constituency where black voters can choose the candidate of their choice, Lee said. Black voters would make up the vast majority of the Democratic Party’s primary electorate, he said, allowing them to choose the Democratic nominee in a county that would still prefer Democrats in a general election.
But DeSantis rejected the more compact area, offering a confusing rationale. A lawyer from his office said lawmakers overestimated race when they drew the map, violating the US constitution. But he also said the county was not black enough, saying the reduced share of black voters would make it harder for them to choose the candidate of their choice, violating the anti-Gerimander language in Florida’s constitution. “It’s like, well, what is it? Is it a black neighborhood or not? Lee said.
DeSantis also rejected a second proposal that would keep the fifth district largely the same. This proposal, he said, was considered too much by the race.
Instead, the DeSantis proposal divided Jacksonville into two districts, uniting black voters in Jacksonville with white, Republican districts elsewhere.
“If you object to the compact Jacksonville neighborhood, your real motive is really clear,” Lee said. “You are left with the idea that the real problem is that there is still an area where blacks have power. And that’s the problem Governor DeSantis has.
Two maps of the proposed boundaries for the Fourth and Fifth Congressional Districts of Florida.
The DeSantis card creates two highly consistent legal redirection battles. The governor appears to be pushing for the repeal of amendments approved by an overwhelming majority of voters in 2010, which seek to curb party disgrace and make it illegal to reduce the ability of minority voters to choose their chosen candidate. Republicans have a solid majority in the Florida Supreme Court.
DeSantis is also pushing for a battle at the federal level. The U.S. Supreme Court has recently signaled that it is increasingly skeptical about considering a race to draw county lines, and the Florida map may offer them another chance to justify its use. If courts approve the DeSantis map, it will make it easier. legislators to draw discriminatory regional lines in the future.
“The traditional understanding of the Supreme Court is that you can think of race, you just can’t put voters in constituencies just because of race,” Lee said. “Governor DeSantis is essentially of the position that if you even think about trying to draw a county that is black or Latin American, the mere thought of thinking about race means it’s unconstitutional. That’s really aggressive. ”
Add Comment