Republican Illegal Gerrymander Throws Florida Congressional Politics Into Chaos

John Mica, the other Republican most likely to lose his House seat besides Taliban Dan Webster

Yesterday, the Florida Supreme Court recommended that Tallahassee Judge Judith Hawkins be removed from the bench because she has exhibited a "disdain for the rule of the law." She was found guilty of running a side business, Gaza Road Ministries, from her judicial chambers, something about Ethiopian eunuchs in the courthouse. I don't expect the Supreme Court to respond the same way to Terry Lewis, the judge of Florida’s Second Judicial Circuit, who issued a confusing ruling on Florida's gerrymandered congressional districts. His ruling-- which gives the state legislature 2 weeks to redraw the congressional map-- has many in Florida politics wishing the Court would do just that.

He says the legislature should have the new map ready by August 15 and he wants to see a proposal for a special election as well. He's looking at how this could impact the November elections. Would the special election be after the new term begins? What a drag that would be! And is it possible to just fix the problems with grotesquely gerrymandered FL-05 (Corrine Brown) and FL-10 (Daniel Webster) without impacting the rest of the state? Maybe but, at the very least, FL-06 (Ron DeSantis), FL-07 (John Mica), FL-09 (Alan Grayson), FL-11 (Richard Nugent), FL-15 (Dennis Ross) and FL-03 (Ted Yoho) may have to be rejiggered as well. "Until we have a map in place," wrote Judge Lewis, "and we know what districts are affected, it is difficult, if not impossible to evaluate whether an election with altered district lines in those affected districts is feasible prior to the new Congress taking office in January 2015… Time is of the essence."

The ruling is actually pretty narrow. The judge wants downtown Orlando taken out of Webster's district and he wants the Sanford area taken out of Brown's area. If that's all the legislature does-- plus balance out the population shifts-- the biggest change would probably be to make Mica's R+4 district an R+2 or R+3 district and perhaps, give some of eastern Polk County (a Democratic area) to Webster to make up for his loss of downtown Orlando, which would likely go to Grayson. In the end, none of this would be too dramatic, although Webster, who nearly lost in an R+6 district in 2012 against a weak candidate, would really be in trouble in an R+4 or +5 district against a strong candidate like Orange County tax collector Scott Randolph.

The Republicans in the state legislature, who clearly broke the law by gerrymandering districts to award the GOP 17 seats of the 27 seat degation--despite the fact that the state has 4,781,973 registered Democrats (40.1%) and 4,245,991 registered Republicans (35.6%)-- warned that the November elections could be thrown into chaos. Maybe they should be thrown into jail.

Obama won the state in 2008 (by over 200,000 votes) and again in 2012, albeit by a smaller margin. In 2012 the Florida Democratic senate candidate, Bill Nelson beat the Republican candidate, Connie Mack, 4,521,534 (55%) to 3,457,254 (42%). All else being equal, an ungerryamndered map would probably yield 14 or 15 Democratic seats and 12 or 13 Republican seats. The judge was clearly disinclined to cut the crooked legislator any slack.

In his ruling, Judge Lewis wrote that waiting until 2016 meant that voters would be “deprived of the equal right of having a say in who represents their interests in Congress for two years.”

Lawyers for the coalition that had filed the suit, however, urged the judge at a hearing in late July to redraw the congressional map immediately and delay the Aug. 26 primary-- or risk having the voting invalidated. But Judge Lewis said at the time that he was “extremely skeptical” that he could delay elections this fall despite the illegally drawn districts.

In his ruling, the judge found that Republican operatives covertly manipulated the process by using “proxies” who appeared as concerned citizens at public redistricting forums and submitted proposed maps. But while assuring the public that the rules were being followed, senior legislative staff members and political consultants were emailing one another. In one case, a legislative staff member slipped a Republican official a flash drive loaded with maps before they were released to the public.

The judge also found that lawmakers and political consultants had deleted “almost all” of their emails and other documents related to redistricting, knowing a lawsuit was likely. The machinations continued. One map was submitted under the name of a Republican college student who said he never saw it.

Lawmakers also told the court that they had met in secret with political operatives and staff members. A Republican consultant, Pat Bainter, was permitted by the Florida Supreme Court to testify out of view of the public and the news media.

The Republican officials who helped draw the districts, Judge Lewis wrote, “did, in fact, conspire to manipulate and influence the redistricting process,” and “went to great lengths to conceal from the public their plan and their participation in it.”

While Judge Lewis found only two districts unconstitutional, redrawing their boundaries will have ripple effects on neighboring districts in Central Florida.