Senate Map Rewrite Pushed to Wednesday

Unable to even decide on how to renumber the districts, the Senate Reapportionment Committee will try Wednesday to complete the state Supreme Court-mandated redrawing of the Senate redistricting map.

The committee spent nearly nine hours attentively working on a new map Tuesday but made little progress.

Senate Reapportionment Committee Chairman Don Gaetz, R-Niceville, who proposed the new map on Saturday, showed some agitation as senators picked over Central and South Florida boundary lines that were recrafted in separate amendments proposed by Sen. Jack Latvala, R-St. Petersburg, and Sen. Miguel Diaz de la Portilla, R-Miami.

Latvala sought to ease an appendage from the Senates original map that allowed Sen. David Simmons, R-Maitland, to avoid landing in the same district with Senate Majority Leader Andy Gardiner, R-Orlando.

Diaz de la Portilla proposed a fourth Hispanic-dominated seat in South Florida, only to face questions that the drawing would require other districts to become noncompact. Sen. Ronda Storms, R-Brandon, compared a district that Diaz de la Portilla ran inland from Broward to Martin County as having the profile of Jay Leno in a baseball cap.

In the end, the amendments were all temporarily postponed, with the sponsors saying they may bring them back up when the map is expected to reach the Senate floor, as senators also couldnt agree on how to the renumber the districts.

After the meeting Gaetz sought to downplay any tension.

The fact that senators want to take their time, be exhaustive, ask questions, make proposals, then determine -- based on questioning -- those proposals might not be ready for prime time and then withdraw them, is something I respect. I dont consider it angst; I consider it a thoughtful, deliberative process.

Weve gone through a very complicated but important topic. Weve done it exhaustively.

The Senate is having to revisit the map because the court ruled that eight of the 40 Senate districts failed to meet standards of the voter-approved Fair Districts amendments and that the renumbering plan devised by the Senate could allow some currently sitting members to exceed the state constitutional term-limit requirements. Legislators are limited to no more than eight consecutive years in their current office, with some exceptions to extend that to 10.

I know this is very important to the senators, but I also think its very important that we do what the Supreme Court said. And that is be objective and be incumbent-neutral, Gaetz said.

Other than the numbering system, which Gaetz said needs some sort of random selection process, Gaetz said he believes the committee is ready to advance the map to the full Senate.