A hearing on the map and its potential impact on the 2014 election is set for Aug. 20. Fla. GOP fix kicks map back to court

The Florida state Legislature Monday evening approved a new congressional map that slightly modifies seven districts in an effort by the GOP-controlled body to comply with a judge’s order to redraw the lines without taking into account partisan advantage. But plaintiffs in the case who sued to have the old map overturned said the new lines did little to meet the court’s requirements.

The vote was largely along party lines. The Senate passed the map 25-12 and the House passed it by a 71-38 vote. But the new map still needs to be approved by Leon County Circuit Judge Terry Lewis, who ruled last month that the congressional map violated the state constitution and had asked the Legislature to submit a revised map by Aug. 15.


A hearing on the map and its potential impact on the 2014 election is set for Aug. 20 — less than a week before the scheduled primary elections. Early voting in the state is already underway.

Democratic-aligned groups, who took the map to court, are expected to argue that the new map doesn’t make any significant changes and that the lines were once again drawn behind closed doors.

“The Florida Legislature went back to the drawing board and wasted more time coming up with a map that does not address the court’s concerns,” said Brian Smoot of the National Democratic Redistricting Trust, which is largely funding the legal battle and is run by for former Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee staffers.

“We expect that this map will go nowhere,” he added.

Lewis previously ruled that the Republican-controlled Legislature made a “mockery” of Florida’s Fair Districts amendment by taking politics into consideration when drawing two of the state’s 27 congressional districts.

The judge’s decision to toss out the congressional map came after a 12-day trial in May. Top state legislators and Republican consultants testified during the hearings.

Peter Butzin, chairman of Florida’s Common Cause, a plaintiff in the case, said that his group plans to argue before Lewis next week that the new map still doesn’t comply with the Fair Districts amendments, which forbid taking partisan advantage or incumbency into account when drawing the lines.

“The reason it’s unconstitutional is because it basically just tinkers with the problem,” Butzin said. “It doesn’t solve it.”

Republicans made changes to the voided map largely behind closed doors during a three-day special session that began last week. The legislators involved in the process have said their tweaks take care of the two districts — the 5th, which is represented by Democrat Corrine Brown, and 10th, which is represented by Republican Daniel Webster — that Lewis struck down.

“The Legislature has now fully complied with Judge Lewis’ order,” said state Senate President Don Gaetz and House Speaker Will Weatherford in a joint statement. “We look forward to a swift resolution of the outstanding issues before the court so Floridians can have certainty in the Congressional elections that are already underway across Florida.”

Other neighboring areas that are modified in the process are the 6th District, represented by Republican Ron DeSantis; the 7th District, represented by Republican John Mica; the 9th District, represented by Democrat Alan Grayson; the 11th District, represented by Republican Richard Nugent; and the 17th District, represented by Republican Tom Rooney.

The party leaders are also still advocating that the new map not go into effect until the 2016 election cycle.

“We maintain that any delays to the 2014 elections calendar will cause confusion and chaos. We will continue defending the voting rights of our overseas military members, their families, and millions of other voters who have received and cast ballots in this election,” they said in the statement on Monday. “We will not support a postponed or special election that would leave Florida without full representation in Congress for any period of time.”

Although the revised map would affect about 368,000 Florida residents, the actual political impact would be marginal, said Michael McDonald, an associate professor at George Mason University and redistricting consultant.

Based on the vote share in the 2008 presidential race, McDonald calculated that the new districts would only change in either direction by about 2 percentage points .

The district that would become the most competitive based on the new map would be the 7th District, which is currently represented by Mica, McDonald said. Republicans currently hold a 17-10 advantage in the House delegation, despite an overall voter-registration edge for Democrats, who are hoping to pick up some seats after the redraw.

“If this map is approved, the Republican incumbents would likely win their elections in 2014,” McDonald said. “But in 2016 — who knows? Maybe a Republican retires. Circumstances could change.”

One key question that will very likely dominate the hearing on Aug. 20 is whether Brown’s snakelike district was drawn for political purposes or because of the Voting Rights Act, a federal requirement that calls for congressional representatives to reflect the country’s racial and ethnic diversity.

The new map does make the district more compact, but Democrats continue to argue that it packs in African-American voters in one district making neighboring ones less Democratic.

“That’s where we’re going to see the fault lines emerge,” McDonald said. “The judge will have to decide whether the change is sufficient and if it is politics at play here or race?”

If Lewis rejects the map, the next steps are unclear, but they could involve a special master redrawing the lines and further chaos in the 2014 cycle.

“We’re in such uncharted waters,” said Max Steele, spokesman for the Florida Democratic Party. “There’s certainly confusion on the ground. Everybody is sort of in a holding pattern.”

“This is Florida,” Steele added, “and it’s a very complex and arduous process to just have regular elections.”

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