The mapmaker for Gov. Ron DeSantis’ proposed congressional map acknowledged he considered partisan performance while crafting cartography. And an attorney for the Governor’s Office could not say if the new map is constitutional.
Still, the Senate Rules Committee advanced a map to the floor, likely teeing up its passage on Tuesday. That came hours after the House Redistricting Committee also signed off on the redistricting plan on a party-line vote.
Jason Poreda, a senior government analyst in DeSantis’ Office, said he was the sole person in the Governor’s Office to have a hand in drawing lines, but he repeatedly declined to say who else consulted on the project.
But he did, when asked by Senators, acknowledge partisan data was considered.
“Partisan or electoral performance data was considered, but certainly not at the exclusion of all of the other standards,” Poreda said.
Democrats on the Committee said the map clearly violates Florida’s Constitution, which prohibits partisan intent. Using partisan data at all would appear to be a direct violation of the Fair Districts amendment passed by Florida voters in 2010.
“The map drawer just said himself that they did use partisan data to draw the map. So nobody up here can say that this is not politically motivated, because it just would not be true,” said Sen. Shevrin Jones, a Miami Gardens Democrat.
The result of the work regardless was a map where a majority of voters in 24 of 28 districts supported Republican Donald Trump for President in 2024. That’s four more seats than Republicans control now. It’s a map Poreda said he didn’t start working on until two weeks ago, and that he only finished “over the weekend.”
Senate Democratic Leader Lori Berman pressed Poreda on why analysis of partisan data occurred — and why a draft of the map with districts colored in red and blue was released to Fox News before members of the Legislature received an official copy.
“Would you agree that the maps were drawn with partisan intent?” Berman asked.
“My intent was not to draw a partisan map in any way,” Poreda insisted, “but it was considered in certain circumstances, generally, when the entire district was nearly complete, using all of the other balancing of all of the other standards.”
Regardless, Mohammad Jazil, an attorney for the Governor’s Office, said violating Fair Districts was fine, because the state government should act on the presumption the courts will imminently throw out the Fair Districts Amendment and invalidate requirements in the federal Voting Rights Act to protect minority majority seats.
No ruling exists yet, though, as Jazil acknowledged. He did say the state Supreme Court ruling had undercut a non-diminishment prohibiting any compromise of minority communities’ ability to elect a U.S. Representative of their choice. And he argued there’s no way to rule that language unconstitutional without tossing the entire Fair Districts amendment.
Sen. Tracie Davis, a Jacksonville Democrat, asked Jazil if he said Fair Districts had ever been ruled unconstitutional. He acknowledged that the state court ruling did not go that far, but said the inevitable outcome of past U.S. Supreme Court rulings on the Voting Rights amendment, coupled with last year’s state ruling, mean the courts will inevitably say race can never be used in redistricting.
Poreda said the map he drew was completely “race neutral.” Indeed, he said, he went out of his way to make sure that was so. He suggested the only district on the current congressional map absolutely protected by the Voting Rights Amendment’s majority-minority rules was Florida’s 20th Congressional District, which was most recently represented by former U.S. Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick.
Davis asked if that means the current map is unconstitutional. No, Jazil said, not yet.
Sen. Jason Pizzo, a Miami-Dade independent, suggested the map wrongly would produce a map where nearly 86% of districts were held by Republicans, even though only 41% of voters in the state are registered Republican.
Jones asked why the state would ignore Fair Districts before challenging it in court, but Jail said passing the map was necessary to force the issue in front of judges.
Unlike in the House meeting, some Republican Senators expressed some concerns about the map. Sen. Jennifer Bradley, a Fleming Island Republican, questioned why the state would pass maps in anticipation of the Louisiana court case on majority minority seats. She said the state appeared to be based on “two ifs,” the decision on the Voting Rights Act and another tossing the entire Fair Districts amendment.
She ultimately cast a vote against the map.
“We are operating on a signal from the Supreme Court,” she said. “As to the current state of the law, that (map) is unconstitutional. And on top of that, it also rests on a legal theory that the Supreme Court has not even heard that the Fair Districts amendment would be entirely voided.”
Republican Sens. Ileana Garcia and Erin Grall also joined her in voting against the bill.
But Sen. Don Gaetz, a Crestview Republican who carried the map as a Senate bill, said while philosophies may differ on the map, it should be sent to the floor.
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