The Florida Supreme Court will have the final say, but the decision by Lewis is expected to carry weight since he has been involved with the legal battle from the beginning.
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The case will ultimately be decided by the Florida Supreme Court, which ruled in July that maps drawn by the Legislature in 2012 unconstitutionally favored Republicans. The court gave specific guidelines for redrawing eight districts and ordered Lewis to review their work and make a recommendation by October 17.
Lawyers for the House and Senate pointed out in court that the groups only wrote a letter objecting to the way Ros-Lehtinen and Curbelo’s districts were arranged and didn’t submit alternative maps during the special session. He conducted a three-day hearing. Their 2012 maps “made a mockery” of anti-gerrymandering provisions in the state’s constitution, he said.
“Court’s ruling declares different standard of intent for the legislature than they do themselves. Justice depends on consistent standards”. Lewis also went along with a proposal that would make it harder for South Florida Republican U.S. Rep. Carlos Curbelo to get re-elected.
Lewis’ ruling also imperils other incumbents.
The court considered that a gerrymander, as it made all the surrounding districts more Republican.
In Tampa Bay, the map merges most of Pinellas County into Congressional District 13, which includes former Gov. Charlie Crist’s home.
Judge Terry Lewis ruled that a proposed map of 27 congressional districts drawn by the League of Women Voters and Common Cause, groups that filed the suit, were more compliant than maps proposed by Republicans in the state House and Senate. A seat being vacated by Republican Congressman David Jolly, who is running for U.S. Senate, and the one held by Webster are likely to fall into Democratic hands. “We look forward to favorable action by the Florida Supreme Court”.
“But when the plaintiffs tried to participate by pointing out what anyone in the Legislature could also have determined – that the new districts were more Republican leaning than before – they are accused of trying to improperly insert political performance into the equations….”
Asked Thursday night, before Friday’s ruling, about prospects that he might switch districts rather than try to seek re-election in his current one, Webster said plenty of court rulings are yet to come, and he would have to see the final results before deciding what to do. Webster, who is campaigning to become speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, has said he will challenge the configuration if it becomes final. The new District 5 is only 45 percent African-American, and it runs west-east along the border with Georgia, from Jacksonville to Tallahassee. It also differs from the Legislature’s maps by not splitting six cities in districts 20 and 21, held by Reps.
“I understand the dilemma faced by the Legislature in that situation”, Lewis wrote. “I’m waiting for the Circuit Court, the Supreme Court, the three-judge federal panel”.
Then, in a stinging ruling in July, the Florida Supreme Court said Republican operatives had “tainted” previous mapping efforts, and ordered eight districts redrawn.
The House and Senate argued only way to avoid reducing the ability of Hispanics to elect their own candidate is to leave the district more Republican-leaning as they proposed.
He also rejected Florida global University Professor Dario Moreno’s testimony that the district as proposed by the challengers will “lock out” Hispanic voters. That is, he focused his analysis on the compactness measurements of the different proposals. The changes turn Webster’s District 10 seat from a 4-percentage-point advantage for Republicans over Democrats among registered voters to an 18 percentage-point Democratic advantage.
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“The map drawers and their bosses seemed uninterested in exploring other possible configurations to see if these districts could be drawn more compact and reduce county and city splits”, he wrote. “And so until that’s all done, I think it would just be speculation”. Members of the group believe Webster, as a former speaker of the Florida House, already has leadership experience – and would manage the House from the bottom up instead of top down.
