Florida Republicans are ready to accept one of the nation’s most aggressive congressional cards, urging a proposal by Gov. Ron DeSantis that is likely to add four congressional districts to the party while eliminating three held by Democrats.
The card, which was approved by the Florida Senate in a party vote of 24 to 15 on Wednesday during a special session of the legislature, was presented by Mr DeSantis after he vetoed a version approved in March by state lawmakers who would add two Republican seats and get one of the Democrats.
The new proposal will create 20 seats in favor of Republicans and only eight in favor of Democrats, meaning the Republican Party is likely to hold 71 percent of the seats. Former President Donald J. Trump bears Florida in 2020 with 51.2 percent of the vote.
The Florida map will erase some of the gains Democrats have made in this year’s national reorientation process. The 2022 map was ready to be balanced between the two major parties for the first time in generations, with almost equal numbers of House districts expected to lean toward Democrats and Republicans for the first time in more than 50 years.
The card will also serve as a high, albeit temporary, victory for Mr DeSantis, who is emerging as one of the leading figures in the Republican Party and does not rule out the possibility of challenging Mr Trump to the party’s presidential nomination in 2024. the house of Florida to accept the card on Thursday, and Mr. DeSantis will certainly sign it.
“I think these are good cards that can be maintained,” said Joe Gruters, a Florida senator who is chairman of the state’s Republican Party.
If passed into law, the Florida map will face legal challenges from Democrats who clashed with Republicans on Tuesday over whether the proposal violates the U.S. Constitution and the Prohibition of Voting Rights Act for racial fraud.
What you need to know about redistribution
“He seems to be politically motivated and doesn’t take hard-working black people into the state,” said Rosalind Osgood, a senator from Broward County, South Florida.
Adam Kincaid, executive director of the National Republican Redistribution Trust, the party’s main card-making organization, said the proposed card was in line with the state constitution, “while remaining true to the U.S. Constitution and the Voting Rights Act.” .
Some Democrats have predicted that the DeSantis card will not pass legal check in the end – although any successful challenge is unlikely to arrive in time for the November election. In addition to the Florida dispute, Democrats are embroiled in a lawsuit over their own political hero in New York, where a judge last month declared invalid Democrat cards.
The map of Florida will end the career of Congressman Al Lawson, a black Democrat from Jacksonville, by separating an area that stretches across North Florida to combine the black neighborhoods of Jacksonville and Tallahassee.
It will also eliminate Orlando County, held by Democrat Val Demings, and bring together black voters from two Tampa and St. Petersburg counties into one, creating a second district that is sure to be won by a Republican. Ms. Demings is stepping down to challenge Republican Sen. Marco Rubio.
Mr Lawson’s district has been held by a black Democrat since 1993, when former MP Corinne Brown first took office.
During a hearing on the Florida Senate committee on Tuesday, Mr. DeSantis’ drawer of maps said he could not draw a compact majority area of blacks based in Jacksonville.
“I have determined that it is not possible to check all these boxes,” he said.
But Democrats argued that the map was an unconstitutional racial hero.
“Governor DeSantis is harassing the legislature to attract Republicans as an illegitimate and illegal guerrilla advantage on the congressional map and doing so at the expense of black voters in Florida,” said Kelly Burton, president of the National Democratic Committee on Redistribution. interview. “This screaming Herrimander will not go unchallenged.”
Democrats’ objections to the DeSantis map focused in part on the state’s constitutional amendment passed by Florida voters in 2010, which set new standards for the redeployment process by requiring compact areas that are not in favor of a single political party. A U.S. court has ordered the entire map of the Florida Congress to be redrawn before the 2016 election.
How US redistribution works
Map 1 of 8
What is redistribution? This is redrawing the boundaries of congressional and state legislative districts. This happens every 10 years after the census to reflect population changes.
How it works? The census dictates how many seats each state will receive in Congress. Map makers then work to ensure that all regions of the country have approximately the same number of residents to ensure equal representation in the House.
Who draws the new cards? Each country has its own process. Eleven states leave mapping on an outer panel. But most – 39 states – have prompted state lawmakers to draw new maps for Congress.
If state legislators can draw their own districts, won’t they be biased? Yes. Guerrilla mapmakers often move the lines of counties – imperceptibly or rudely – to unite voters in a way that progresses toward a political goal. This is called gerrymandering.
Is gerrymandering legal? Yes and no. In 2019, the Supreme Court ruled that federal courts had no role in blocking guerrilla herrimanders. However, the court left intact parts of the Voting Rights Act that prohibit racial or ethnic manipulation.
Ellen Freudin, leader of the Fair Districts Now, a group that has led the amendment since 2010, said Mr DeSantis was ignoring the will of voters in Florida.
“The governor, instead of following the amendment to Fair Districts, decided to instruct his people not to follow the amendment and see if he can get away with it,” Ms Freudin said. “This governor has unilaterally decided to ignore the will of 63 percent of the people who voted in favor of these fair area amendments and simply ignore what is in the Florida Constitution.
Mr Kelly, who is deputy head of the governor’s office, told lawmakers that the current map of Florida is in itself a violation of the 14th amendment, as it identifies specific areas to be represented by black members. of Congress.
Mr Kelly has repeatedly told Democrat senators that he did not take communities of interest, race or political data into account when compiling the congressional districts proposed by the governor. He said he did not know the political outcome of the map he had created.
“I don’t know the black population in constituency 14 with the right to vote,” he said of the proposed constituency to bring together black voters from Tampa and St. Petersburg. “I just painted an area with nice, clean, compact lines.”
Democrats on the Florida Senate Relocation Committee questioned Mr. Kelly’s explanation.
Randolph Bracey, a Democratic senator from Orlando, asked if Mr Kelly was sworn in as he appeared before the committee. The Republican chairman of the commission, Senator Ray Wesley Rodriguez, replied that Mr. Kelly was not. Mr Rodriguez rejected Mr Bracey’s request to swear Mr Kelly.
Mr Bracey said black voters in his constituency would go from being represented in Washington by Ms Demings to being represented by Anthony Sabatini, a deeply conservative Republican who is white.
“You say you have no idea – this is the first time you’ve considered this point?” Mr. Bracey asked.
Mr Kelly replied that he did not know the political implications of the maps he had proposed.
“It would be against the law to approach such an analysis,” he said. “I didn’t draw any area on this map based on race.”
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