Florida State Trial Court Strikes Down U.S. House Districting Plan

Posted on by September 2, 2023

On Saturday afternoon, September 2, a state court in Florida issued an opinion striking down the state’s U.S. House districting plan. The basis is the Florida Constitution, which says in Article III, section 20, “No plan shall be drawn with the intent to favor or disfavor a political party or an incumbant; and districts shall not be drawn with the intent or result of denying or abridging the equal opportunity of racial or language minorities to participate in the political process…”.

Here is the decision in Black Voters Matter v Byrd, Leon County, 2022-CA-666. Thanks to ElectionLawBlog for the link.

Comments

Florida State Trial Court Strikes Down U.S. House Districting Plan — 34 Comments

  2. Hopefully to be overturned on appeal. Why is the federal court interpreting a state constitution?

  3. https://www.yahoo.com/news/desantis-redistricting-map-florida-unconstitutional-220915163.html

    AP STORY

    WITH ABOUT 760,000 POP PER USA REP DISTRICT-

    IT IS VERY EASY TO PACK/CRACK THE RIGGED DISTRICTS BASED ON PRIOR PRECINCT ELECTION RESULTS.

    SOMEWHAT AMAZING THAT THERE ARE A-N-Y MARGINAL DISTS – EXCEPT IN THE 1 REP — AT LARGE STATES.

    THUS — THE MANY SUPER-EXTREMIST COMMIE/FASCIST ROBOT HACKS WINNING PRIMARIES AND THEN AUTOMATIC WINS IN GENL ELECTIONS – ESP BY OVER 5 PCT MARGINS – OFTEN 5-20 PLUS PCT MARGINS.
    —
    PR — PART OF P-A-T

  5. @Pat
    Ah no, this is the 2nd judicial circuit of Florida, not the US court of appeals. That’s in the New York area.

    The law is backwards. Compactness / following geographic boundaries should be first priority, not political / racial balance. THis backwardsness is how “Benchmark CD-5” which is skinnier and finger-ier than the pandhandle itself, and puts Tallahassee (only part of it???) and Jacksonville in the same district, was mandated by the courts in 2015, because racial balance got priority over compactness.

    Florida can’t do multi-member districts because the law says:
    “…districts shall be as nearly equal in population as is practicable…”
    This should be amended.

  7. PR = TOTAL VOTES / TOTAL MEMBERS = EQUAL VOTES TO ELECT EACH MEMBER.

    CANDIDATE/INCUMBENT REPLACEMENT LISTS = NO SPECIAL ELECTIONS.

  10. AZ hates elections! He just admitted it! He prefers dictators like Stalin and Hitler and Biden.

  12. AZ loves the fake news websites. Hey AZ Pat doesn’t like them. Might want to give up fake news to have any chance with her.

  14. I’m sure he’s probably smoked at least an ounce of marijuana a day since the 1960s if not earlier, but you’re right. That’s not nearly enough to explain his level of derp.

  17. Adam Cerini: “Florida can’t do multi-member districts because the law says:
    ‘…districts shall be as nearly equal in population as is practicable…’
    This should be amended.”

    Agreed that this is a horrible law. I think multi-member districts for legislatures where the seats are awarded in proportion to the votes won (i.e., ProRep) would solve a lot of the political dysfunction with this country.

  18. Congress doesn’t really represent anyone anymore, other than ultrawealthy donors, well organised special interest groups, big time lobbyists, manipulated establishment media, big government contractors, government employees unions, globalist shadow players…Everyone else being pawns in their intentionally ocercomplicated and crooked games.

    When the US was founded it had 2-3 million people, with maybe a million if that property owning White men over age 21 spread across 13 states. Each representative had a district of about 30,000 people, of whom maybe 10,000 were eligible to vote. Senators were elected by legislators, with the average legislator having probably less than a thousand voting constituents.

    That was a much more rational system than the behemoth monstrosity now. Max plan is extreme, but it’s the right set of directions to start moving in. Dissolving the union would be one good place to start. Our chances of reining state legislatures and governors aren’t all that inspiring, but far better than with the federal government.

  19. “Congress doesn’t really represent anyone anymore, other than ultrawealthy donors, well organised special interest groups, big time lobbyists, manipulated establishment media, big government contractors, government employees unions, globalist shadow players”

    I have a simpler and less radical plan with far more grassroots support.

    Implement ProRep. With only two parties, it’s far too cheap and easy for donors and special interests to capture both parties, and its members are pretty much stuck with bad choices: 1) living with it 2) joining the party that they hate 3) becoming politically irrelevant.

    That becomes nigh impossible in a multi-party system where barrier to entry for parties is low. Any party captured by donors and special interests will see its members simply leave to form a new party clean of such corrupting influence. With ProRep, they will know that they can still win seats with only a minority of the vote.

    The other thing we’d need to address is campaign finance, where it’s too easy for ultrawealthy donors and special interests to buy influence. As I see it, public campaign financing is the only reform that addresses this that respects First Amendment rights, and Democracy Vouchers in particular looks very promising as a very similar approach to school choice.

    Those two things should go a long way towards addressing these ills, and they already have US organizations behind them such as FairVote, Fix Our House, the Democracy Policy Network, not to mention state/local organization such as ProRep Coalition (which the LPCA just joined). Fix Our House is the main national organization to support:

    https://www.fixourhouse.org/

    Our country’s enemies are the ones who want to split it apart or burn it to the ground. True patriots seek to build and improve upon the greatness we’ve already achieved.

  20. It’s not simpler. Max plan is way simpler. Dissolving the union is even simpler still.

    And you might get one or two third party US house seats in California if it passed in your state, which is too expensive to pass something like that in. Most states would continue to have none because they lack enough third party support for even one of their seats. Whereas 2% is enough in California, in most states you have to get a lot more to qualify for even one seat. PR doesn’t solve the problem with Congress.

    Government campaign finance is a terrible idea, and does not respect free speech rights. The problem with campaign finance is that there’s too much government, thus too many resources fighting over it.

    America’s founders split a country apart. Splitting it again is following in their footsteps. There’s not one of their complaints against King George that can’t be applied to the DC regime now,perhaps slightly updated.

    LPCA supports public financing? Disappointing and shameful if true.

  21. PR doesn’t fix the scale problem of government, or the size and scope problem. Government financing of elections is an even worse idea.

  22. The barrier to entry for new parties in California is high, with or without Proportional Representation. They need something like a million signatures, or tens of thousands of voters to register with their party. The idea that a minority faction can just walk out and start their own party is highly misleading.

  23. Best place to start fixing what’s wrong? How about kick California out of the US?

  25. The main reason parties get so few votes is because winner-take-all elections creates incentives for voters to tactically desert smaller parties.

    No, the LPCA doesn’t support public financing, but I do because I believe people generally respond to incentives, and that means politicians respond to the desire of wealthy donors. If you know of a better way to break that link besides public campaign financing, I would be very interested to hear it. I don’t believe in campaign finance limits because money tends to flow around them and because they have First Amendment implications.

  26. Make government way smaller. That’s the only way to get big money and special interests out of politics. Government financing of elections strengthens the hand of media, incumbents, and unions, etc. It’s also been used as an excuse to cut third parties out, like in NY State. As long as government is in charge of so much, big money and organized interests will find ways to control politics, openly or in more convoluted ways, and legally or illegally. To really get money out of politics you have to get politics out of money.

  27. Corvette Kitchen Fire: “Make government way smaller.”

    I generally agree, which is why I’m a registered Libertarian. The reason that LP is shut out of representation because of winner-take-all elections.

    However, our government used to be very small and has grown over time. Note that our tax code is riddled with all sorts of favors and handouts to special interests. More often than not, the way those special interests bought those favors is via campaign contributions.

    If you don’t get money out of politics, politics will inevitably find its way back into money.

  30. That seems like a bizarre characterization, unless you meant in ways where those countries are actually better, like patriarchy.

  31. Yes, one thing that makes America great is women participation in civic life and in our labor force.

    Indeed, in their efforts to climb out of abject poverty, India is trying to follow in the footsteps of the US, as well as Japan, South Korea, China, and Bangladesh.

    https://www.wsj.com/world/india/india-economy-women-work-labor-46bfb0f0?st=8mnq7nz2kxydxxs&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

    “Many countries have followed a similar economic trajectory: As they develop, women increasingly enter the workforce, further fueling the country’s upward climb.

    It happened in China, Japan and South Korea in the latter half of the 20th century. The U.S. saw its female labor-force participation rate—the percentage of women age 15 and up who are working or actively looking for work—grow from 32% in 1948 to 59% by 2000.

    India, which overtook the U.K. last year as the world’s fifth largest economy, hasn’t followed that path. Since 1990, its female labor-force participation rate has hit a peak of only 31% in 2000, according to data from the World Bank. Last year, it was 24%.

    That rate is among the 12 lowest in the world, a list including Afghanistan and Somalia. Saudi Arabia has a higher percentage of women working or looking for a job.
    ..
    Economists blame India’s low figures on two main factors: weak job creation, which has led to intense competition for the available opportunities, and a deeply conservative culture that emphasizes a woman’s place is at home.”

    And as the Taliban has been experiencing lately, it’s far easier to keep people subjugated when they have no idea of the freedoms and rights that they are missing out on. Once people taste what it feels like to be treated like a human being, they will fight hard to hold onto their freedoms and rights.

  34. They’re right. They just need to ditch false prophet Mohammed and give their lives to Christ so they don’t go to hell.

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