The Florida Legislature recently ruled that two of Florida’s redrawn districts are illegal.
Judge Terry Lewis ruled that the districts, which are redrawn every 10 years, violate a law about gerrymandering that prohibits drawing a district so that one political party gains an advantage in an election over another party.
The illegal districts are Rep. Corrine Brown’s district, a Democrat whose district stretches from Jacksonville to Orlando and Rep. Daniel Webster’s district, a Republican whose district is in Central Florida. There are 27 districts in Florida.
Keith Lee, a UF political science Ph.D. candidate, said the reason districts are redrawn is to make them more competitive.
But if voters oppose a political candidate’s party in their district, it could discourage them from voting because they think their vote doesn’t matter, he said.
For political candidates, the redrawn districts mean two things.
For incumbents, if the district lines are redrawn, it might not include the candidate’s house, which means they would have to rule in a district that they aren’t familiar with.
For non-incumbents, the redrawn districts could discourage challengers because they aren’t sure who they are going to run against.
“Whoever wins the election,” he said, “is going to be very vocal when it comes to redrawing the map.”
Brown, a UF alumna, said in a statement on July 15 that Judge Lewis’ ruling is seriously flawed.
She said the ruling violates the 1965 Voting Rights Act because it denies African-Americans the opportunity to elect a representative who shares their “ethnic identity.”
“Minority communities do not live in compact, cookie-cutter like neighborhoods,” Brown said.
If the legislature places more of an emphasis on district compactness at the cost of preserving minority access, she said, the districts would fragment minority communities across the state.
Webster did not respond to requests for comment.
The Florida Legislature will not redraw new legislative districts until after the upcoming fall election, and it wasn’t specified who would redraw the maps.
[A version of this story ran on page 8 on 7/24/2014 under the headline "Florida voting districts ruled illegal"]
