The congressional district which covers eastern Hillsborough County is set to be in one congressional district, not three, if the Senate has its way with a new congressional map proposal. State lawmakers continued to hammer away at creating a new set of congressional maps on Monday, with several senators putting forth their own amendments to shift the shape of certain districts across the state.
One amendment in particular, from Sen. Tom Lee, R-Brandon, would place eastern Hillsborough County (which includes Brandon) in one congressional district. Base maps have this specific portion of the state’s fourth most-populous county split into three congressional districts.
The former Senate president’s plan also puts the entire city of Tampa back into the 14th Congressional District, which is currently represented by U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor. Sarasota County would also be kept in one congressional district.
“The burden on me and I guess the committee at the end of the day was to try and figure out if there was a way to improve the map as we went about trying to inject ourselves into the priorities of the maps,” said Lee. “We have reduced the number of cities.by two in the map and the compaction scores were improved in the substituted amendment.”
Lee’s amendment was the only one that made it out of the Senate Reapportionment ring Monday. One from Sen. Bill Montford, D-Tallahassee, dealt with Montford’s own area of Leon County, keeping more of Leon County in CD 2, which is currently represented by U.S. Rep. Gwen Graham.
The plan would have also altered U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown’s district, one of the most fiercely contested in the redistricting process so far.
The Florida Supreme Court ordered districts must run east to west, but Montford’s amendment raised concerns with panel members, prompting the Tallahassee senator to withdraw his amendment.
The amendment from Lee, the lone ranger of Monday’s meeting, now heads to the full Senate, where that chamber will vote on it Wednesday.
But despite Lee’s amendment passing the first set of hurdles rather easily, its path moving forward is less certain.
That’s because the full House already voted Monday to keep the original base maps, not Lee’s map. As with any bill, both chambers have to approve it for it to pass.
Sen. Bill Galvano, R-Bradenton, who serves as chair of the Senate Redistricting Committee, said he wouldn’t rule out a conference with the House to work out the differences in the map, but said he would try to work things out with Rep. Jose Oliva, R-Miami Lakes, who chairs the House Redistricting Committee.
Galvano explained legislators needed to be very careful about their conversations and pledged any discussion on the maps would be done in a public setting.
“If we are going to have a conversation about the differences of the maps, it we are going to do it [openly],” he said.
Lee explained lawmakers are in the “middle innings” of working out a new set of congressional maps during the Legislature’s 12-day special session, inching closer and closer to a final product.
The special session on redistricting is set to end Friday.
