Florida Supreme Court Gives Voter Groups Complete Victory on Congressional Redistricting

The Florida Supreme Court, in a precedent-setting ruling last week, instructed the GOP-controlled state legislature to trash its unconstitutional Congressional Districts map and ordered it to draw a new one that adheres to the state Constitution.

Voters groups, including CWA and the League of Women Voters of Florida, had challenged the congressional map. Last year, Judge Terry Lewis ruled that the Congressional Districts were invalid because they violated the Fair District rules approved by voters in 2010.

The Supreme Court ruling is available here.

Ellen Freidin, chairwoman of Fair Districts Now, the organization that championed the 2010 redistricting amendments, thanked the Supreme Court for finally holding the legislature to account.

"Today is a great day," Freidin said. "By its opinion, the Court makes it clear that Florida will no longer tolerate the Legislature's shenanigans in drawing district lines intended to favor a political party or incumbent."

Longtime CWA District 3 Legislative-political Coordinator Donald LaRotonda also applauded the ruling.

"This is a huge victory for us," LaRotonda said. "Registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans in the state, yet we are outnumbered two to one in statewide office holders. We are just trying to make the Congressional Districts competitive. That's what this fight is all about in the first place."

For instance, two of Florida's 27 congressional districts, seats held by U.S. Reps. Corrine Brown, a Democrat from Jacksonville, and Dan Webster, a Republican from Winter Garden, were drawn to benefit Republicans, Judge Lewis wrote. Brown ended up with a serpentine district stretching from Jacksonville to Orlando, which benefitted Republicans by packing African American voters along that stretch into one district. It gave Brown a safe seat in Congress but made several other seats in the state safe for Republican candidates.

Judge Lewis wrote that the districts could have been drawn to protect minority voters without dividing whole communities and packing Republicans into adjoining districts. The Supreme Court, in upholding Judge Lewis' findings, ordered a new map with eight districts redrawn in time for the 2016 election. In the 5-2 ruling, the court provided specific direction to the Legislature.

Redrawing district lines no matter how bizarrely in order to create safe seats is not limited to Florida. In Pennsylvania, for instance, there are 1 million+ more registered Democrats than Republican – 4.1 million Democrats to 3 million Republicans – but Democrats have only five out of the state's 18 Congressional seats. Many believe that gerrymandering of districts to create safe seats has contributed to the discord and inability of Congress to function.