Political lines must reflect ever-changing Broward

A wave of demographic change swept across Broward in recent years and by law, the county must realign the boundaries of its nine county commission districts to reflect those changes. The process will culminate in the coming weeks with votes at two important hearings in Fort Lauderdale.

Political power and representation in Broward lags far behind demographic reality. One glance at county leadership reveals an uncomfortable truth: The governing body of one of the most diverse places in America looks not much different than it did in the 1980s, and it no longer reflects the Broward of today. The redrawing of boundaries, known as reapportionment or redistricting, is supposed to address those inequities every decade.

Broward is a majority-minority county where 31% of the population is Hispanic, 30% is Black and 33% is white, yet seven of the nine county commissioners are white. Two are Black and none is Hispanic in a county where the Hispanic population has grown 39% since 2010, making Hispanics the largest minority in

Broward.

But you’d never know it to look at a county commission whose members have names such as Fisher, Geller, Ryan and Rich. A Democratic data consultant, Matthew Isbell, who has Broward roots, calls the current district map “horrible” and drew a new map with only one majority white district.

The new districts will be used in the 2022 election and through 2030 and cannot favor or disfavor any political party or incumbents. Voters in 2018 adopted amendments to the Broward charter that required the county to adhere to the Fair Districts standards in the state Constitution and to hire a college or university to draw maps.

Four options

Broward hired Florida International University, which held seven public hearings and has proposed a range of options in four maps — A, B, C and D — that will be considered at a hearing Dec. 7, with final adoption set for Dec. 14. The draft maps are on the county’s website.

“There’s no perfect map,” says FIU political scientist Dario Moreno. “Everybody views redistricting with a great deal of suspicion.”

As they should. The new maps rearrange power, and despite the Fair Districts standards, political self-preservation is a matter of instinct. Most politicians resist change that puts them at risk. The fact that commissioners themselves approve the final map is an inherent conflict, just as state legislators vote on their districts.

By law, districts must allow legally protected racial minorities to elect candidates of their choice, subject to detailed statistical analysis. Districts must be of equal size and be compact and contiguous and, where possible, follow boundaries such as roads and waterways.

FIU created two majority-Black commission seats in central Broward where many Black voters live, with one seat drawn for African-Americans and one further west for Caribbean-Americans, a Hispanic majority seat in southwest Broward and a Hispanic plurality seat in south Broward. That doesn’t necessarily mean Hispanic candidates could win either seat because while Blacks overwhelmingly vote for Democrats, Hispanics are much more likely to vote Republican. FIU said 41% of Broward Hispanics voted for Donald Trump in 2020, compared to 26% in 2016.

Increasing numbers of Hispanics live in areas now represented by Commissioner Nan Rich of Weston. Elected as a commissioner in 2016 after a long career in Tallahassee, Rich is a consistent advocate for children, seniors, health care and housing. However, she is not Hispanic, and she represents areas experiencing Hispanic growth.

The lack of a Hispanic voice in county government takes on new urgency now that Gov. Ron DeSantis has appointed Jared Moskowitz to the commission in place of Barbara Sharief, who resigned to run for Congress. Sharief is Black and lives in Miramar, a city with a rapidly growing Hispanic voter base. Moskowitz is white and lives in Parkland, as does county Mayor Michael Udine, giving that small city two commission members.

Some things won’t change. All nine districts will remain solidly Democratic. Every map makes it all but impossible for Republicans to elect a commissioner because the 269,000 GOP voters are scattered all over the county and cannot be geographically harnessed into one district without illegal gerrymandering. The district most competitive for the GOP is a northeast Broward seat, held by Lamar Fisher of Pompano Beach.

The numbers matter

To complicate matters, FIU’s maps renumber commission districts in a way that some Hispanics say would hurt them politically.

Here’s how. All four even-numbered districts are up for election in 2022, and the five odd-numbered seats are not up until 2024. Sharief is in District 8, but the new maps move much of her district to Moskowitz’s renumbered District 7, while District 8 becomes a majority-Black seat in central Broward. Under those district numbers, Hispanics would have to wait till 2024 to try to win a seat.

“There’s no clear-cut reason to move the numbers around. That idea was never presented to us or discussed,” complains Alexandra Davis, a Miramar commissioner and Jamaican-American who’s running for the District 8 seat.

Inexplicably, and over the Sun Sentinel Editorial Board’s objections, the county refused to preserve audio or video recordings of any of the seven redistricting hearings, even though the county charter requires the process to be “open and transparent.” That could become a legal issue if the final map is challenged in court. Commissioner Steve Geller, who was mayor at the time, added a seventh hearing on Oct. 30, but like the others, it was not recorded.

The Sun Sentinel requested sign-in sheets of speakers, but no verbatim record of the hearings exists. The county has said it wanted speakers to feel “uninhibited.” Considering the many legal implications of redistricting, that decision was unwise.

After decades of powerlessness and discrimination at the hands of white politicians, Black residents of Broward made historic advances at the ballot box in 2020. In a watershed election, Black candidates swept to victories in five key county-wide positions: sheriff, state attorney, public defender, supervisor of elections and clerk of courts.

The same cannot be said for Hispanics, even though they now represent a larger share of the county’s population. Redistricting can help right that wrong, if the lines are drawn properly.

The Sun Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Editorial Page Editor Steve Bousquet, Deputy Editorial Page Editor Dan Sweeney, and Editor-in-Chief Julie Anderson. Editorials are the opinion of the Board and written by one of its members or a designee. To contact us, email at letters@sun-sentinel.com.