Florida Republicans could have the opportunity to completely redraw the congressional maps in their favor beginning in 2022, including potentially two new seats.
New Census data showing big population increases in largely Democratic areas, including Central Florida, could tie their hands on any possible gerrymandering. But unlike the last redistricting a decade ago, conservative majorities on the Florida and U.S. Supreme courts might be more accepting of maps coming out of the GOP-controlled Legislature.
Nationally, a slim margin in the U.S. House means that Florida Republicans through redistricting alone could get their party two or three of the five seats it needs to take back control from Democrats.
“The greater Orlando area is going to serve as a quote-unquote ‘sandbox’ during the redistricting process, and that is exactly the terminology that was used by the Republican mapmakers back in 2011 and ’12,” said Daniel A. Smith, the political science chair at the University of Florida and an expert on Sunshine State elections.
“They effectively went across the state and figured out the districts that they wanted to shore up for either Republican support or concede to Democrats,” Smith said. “They created all these beautifully drawn districts that had the right population. The whole swath of the I-4 Corridor was open for manipulation. And I would be shocked if they don’t think about it the same way [this year].
Every 10 years, states use the latest Census data to redraw state and congressional districts. But last time around, the process was tied up in court for years.
The Congressional districts in place in Florida today were drawn not by the Legislature, but by the League of Women Voters and other groups who challenged the districts drawn by lawmakers in court.
The original congressional lines included one district that awkwardly reached out from heavily Republican Lake County to take in GOP-leaning suburbs of Orlando.
Another, Democratic U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown’s, stretched from Jacksonville to Orlando to take in every majority African American community along the way, including parts of Gainesville, Eatonville and Sanford, which left the surrounding districts more Republican-leaning.
The Florida Supreme Court found that GOP consultants submitted maps with the intent to produce more Republican seats in Congress, in violation of the two Fair Districts amendments passed by 63% of voters in 2010.
The decision required the Legislature to redraw the maps, but the House and Senate were unable to agree. So the courts turned to the plaintiffs in the lawsuit to create the new, fairer maps.
With those in place, Democrats gained one seat in Florida’s congressional delegation in 2016, when U.S. Rep. Stephanie Murphy defeated Republican incumbent John Mica in a district that became more favorable to Democrats once all of Seminole County, including Sanford, was made part of it and a portion of southern Volusia was replaced with central Orange County.
But things have changed since then.
A liberal-leaning court threw out the Legislature’s maps, but four of those liberal justices have had to retire and were replaced by conservatives.
In his dissent in the case, Charles Canady, now Florida’s chief justice, wrote that the decision “causes serious damage to our constitutional structure” because the court violated the separation of powers by redrawing the map itself.
In addition, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2019 that gerrymandering for partisan reasons — though not along racial or ethnic lines — was not explicitly banned by the Constitution. So while states’ hands are tied when it comes to ensuring minorities have fair representation, the door was opened to openly partisan mapmaking.
The Orange ‘dilemma’
Florida is expected to gain two seats once the final Census numbers come in, but that won’t be known until the end of September.
But in the meantime, the first Census data released this month show that the Central Florida region gained 100 new Census tracts across Orange, Seminole, Osceola and Lake counties. Tracts can vary wildly in population, but it strongly correlates with estimates showing the region gaining nearly 500,000 more residents since 2010.
Combined with surrounding areas, it’s enough for Central Florida to likely get one of the possible two new seats. The average congressional district has about 700,000 residents.
But the area is also heavily Democratic, with Orange County voters going heavily for President Biden and Seminole County swinging Democratic in a presidential election for the first time in decades.
And the other two Democratic seats besides Murphy’s, U.S. Rep. Val Demings’ in western Orange County and U.S. Rep. Darren Soto’s in Orange, Osceola and Polk counties, have large numbers of minority voters protected from being diluted under the Voting Rights Act.
“For the Republicans, their dilemma is they have to deal with Orange in one way or another,” said Matt Isbell, an election analyst who runs the MCI Maps website. “It might be easier for them to just go ahead and consolidate [the three Democratic-held seats].”
But the Legislature could instead decide to make Soto’s district majority Hispanic, maintain Demings’ district as favoring African Americans, and then target Murphy’s seat by adding more conservative areas of Volusia County, Isbell said.
“But the problem is, when you do that, then you still have a ton of population in Orange that you can’t fit in [the other two districts],” he said. “It’s easier to keep them with Murphy … and focus on making sure the other two [new] districts they draw are more in their favor.”
Keeping the status quo while creating two new Republican-leaning seats would give the GOP an 18-11 advantage in Florida, Isbell said, without delving into legally questionable methods.
‘Competitive’ districts
While Isbell believed the GOP-controlled Legislature wouldn’t try to draw the “crazy, ridiculous-looking districts” their predecessors did in 2012, Smith said they might not be necessary to gain an advantage.
The Legislature could argue they’re following the spirit of the Fair Districts laws by trying to make competitive seats. But their options would be limited.
“You basically can’t draw competitive districts in the [GOP-dominated] Panhandle,” Smith said. “You can’t draw competitive districts on the southwest coast from basically Sarasota on down. You can’t draw competitive districts and in the [heavily Democratic] Palm Beach and Broward area. They’re pretty sweet Democratic districts. So it leaves only a couple of areas.”
One of those could be the African American communities stretching from Jacksonville to Orlando, which was once Brown’s district but was instead shifted to stretch from Jacksonville to Tallahassee.
Districts designed to provide Black voters with representation under the Voting Rights Act are allowed to have more creative lines, and the Legislature could decide to shift it south once again and pull more Democratic voters out of Murphy’s or Demings’ domains.
Other areas in Central Florida, he said, could be drawn to give Republicans a slimmer but still safe margin. One possibility is U.S. Rep. Bill Posey’s district, based in Brevard County but which includes parts of eastern Orange County, and which Posey won by almost 18,000 votes.
Attempts to reach former Senate President Bill Galvano, who chaired the Senate redistricting committee during the special session in 2015, weren’t successful. A spokeswoman for Senate President Wilton Simpson said it was too early in the process to answer specific questions about redistricting.
‘Dirty tricks’
The new district maps could also determine whether Murphy and Demings continue to seek reelection to the House or try for higher office. Demings has left the door open for a potential run for Senate or governor in 2022, and Murphy has also been talked about as a potential challenger to U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio.
Asked about redistricting, Demings said she opposed any attempts to make the maps less fair.
“Gerrymandering, plus the attacks on the Census, have been frequently misused to deny a fair voice to Americans in choosing their representatives,” Demings said in an email. “I continue to support reforms that would make this process fair, unbiased, and nonpartisan.”
Murphy, meanwhile, had a stronger message for Republicans through her campaign.
“Congresswoman Murphy has never lost an election, and she will continue to win tough elections in the future — no matter what kind of dirty tricks Tallahassee Republicans attempt,” Murphy campaign spokeswoman Lauren Calmet said.
slemongello@orlandosentinel.com; grohrer@orlandosentinel.com; achen@orlandosentinel.com
