On March 16, a Florida state trial court said evidence can be presented next month on whether the state’s new U.S. House districts violate the Florida Constitution. See this story.
On March 16, a Florida state trial court said evidence can be presented next month on whether the state’s new U.S. House districts violate the Florida Constitution. See this story.
The Florida Constitution has a provision for automatic review of the legislative map by the Florida Supreme Court. This was a provision that was in place before the latest amendments. In the past, the Florida Supreme Court essentially was limited to check that the districts had equal enough population and were contiguous. The review process was to make sure that the legislature was reapportioned at all, rather than to see that it conformed to particularly rigid standards.
But with the new amendments, the review is more substantive, and the SCOFLA recently rejected the Senate map, while accepting the House map. The legislature is now meeting to draw a new Senate map. In doing its review, the court also gave its interpretation of the amendments, which are actually quite subjective. For example, the political gerrymandering standard is the intent to favor or disfavor a political party or incumbent. A map could be favorable to a political party, but not be drawn with that intent, and be constitutional.
The legal standards for legislative and congressional maps are the same (other than a federal standard of requiring inane population equality for congressional districts). But since there is no automatic review, someone has to file suit in state court alleging a constitutional violation. And now that the SCOFLA has interpreted the constitutional standards, the plaintiffs can tailor their arguments to match the court’s interpretation of the constitution.
Conceivably, if the circuit court finds a constitutional violation, it could craft its own remedy – whereas in the case of the legislative map, the legislature gets another try before the SCOFLA takes over.
Rep. Corrine Brown is one of the plaintiffs challenging the use of the initiative to prescribe the manner of electing federal representatives (that has been upheld by the 11th Circuit; and hasn’t been appealed to the US Supreme Court so far). And her district which snakes from Jacksonville to Orlando is one of the districts being challenged now. So she could end up also intervening in the state case – based on whether there is a conflict between a standard of not favoring an incumbent, and not diminishing the ability of minority voters to elect their candidate of choice (or the candidate they have chosen in the past).
The MORON so-called reformers in FL can NOT detect that —
1/2 votes x 1/2 gerrymander districts = 1/4 CONTROL.
P.R. — regardless of ALL math MORONS on Mother Earth or in Outer Space.
See the FL SCT EVIL comments about *natural* gerrymander districts in the FL Legislature case, pp 102-103 — i.e. PACKED Donkey ghetto urban districts — almost like the *natural* packed Jewish ghetto areas before World War II.
Certainly to be used in other later cases by the usual suspect lawyers and party hack gangs.