Senate Releases Amended Redistricting Map

The Senate released an amended map Saturday that leadership believes will meet the constitutional defects found earlier this month by the state Supreme Court.

The districts were redrawn, along with any affected districts, in accordance with constitutional standards as defined by the Supreme Court, stated Senate President-designate Don Gaetz, R-Niceville, the chairman of the Senate Reapportionment Committee, in a release.

The amendment also addresses the courts concerns regarding the city of Lakeland, and Senate professional staff and attorneys conducted the necessary functional analysis described by the Supreme Court.

View the details here.

The amended map must meet guidelines of the 2010 voter-approved Fair Districts amendments' requirements for compactness, districts that follow geographical boundaries where feasible and not done to favor incumbents.

With no returning incumbent in the previously submitted map facing the prospect of a head-to-head match-up with another sitting member, the court ruled eight of the 40 failed to meet the amendment requirements and were criticized by the court for limiting demographics to voting-age population -- instead of also considering registration numbers and past turnout -- to comply with minority requirements.

Further criticism was also given to the Senates renumbering of districts, which the court claimed could have extended the terms of sitting legislators beyond the state term-limit requirements.

The Senate Reapportionment Committee will review the amended map Tuesday, starting at 9 a.m.

New numbers for the districts will be selected on the Senate floor.

A random selection of district numbers will avoid any suggestion that the Legislature assigned district numbers with an intent to favor or disfavor incumbents, Gaetz stated.

The chairmans amendment assigns a temporary number to each district. To achieve a random selection, two random drawings will then be conducted simultaneously. First, one temporary number will be selected at random. Second, a random selection will be made between two values: odd and even. The district whose temporary number was selected in the first drawing will receive an odd or even number, as determined by the second drawing. This process will repeat until 20 odd numbers and 20 even numbers have been assigned on a random, incumbent-neutral basis.

Florida Democratic Party Chairman Rod Smith was quick to claim the amended map still fails to meet the Fair Districts standards.

"As they have since Florida voters passed Amendments 5 and 6, Republican leadership is fighting Fair Districts tooth and nail, resisting at every turn their duty to draw impartial maps that comply with the law and the will of the people, Smith stated in a release.

The map Senator Don Gaetz has proposed brings us no closer to complying with the court's ruling and is nothing more than a thinly veiled attempt by the GOP Senate leadership to stall the implementation of Fair Districts and cling to their gerrymandered power. Not only have they thwarted the will of 63 percent of Florida voters, they are now thumbing their nose at Florida's Supreme Court. It's clear they have no intent to comply with the court's ruling."