Is anyone actually paying attention to county redistricting?
The focus this week is on Tallahassee as state legislators attend the first week of committee meetings and redistricting for congressional, state Senate and state House seats.
But there is another redistricting process that has begun: drawing districts for the nine Broward County Commission seats.
We have been disappointed that there has been no mention in the newspaper about this process — no article and no public notice. And yet the first public meeting was scheduled for Thursday.
After the decennial census, every political district must be redrawn to reflect any population changes. This includes Broward County.
As presented to the county commission by Florida International University, the county population increase between 2010 and 2020 was 11.2%. It is now 39.9% White, 31.3% Hispanic or Latino, 27.4% Black or African-American and 1.4% other.
While this is not the first time new district maps have been drawn in Broward County, this is the first time district maps in this county will be drawn based on the “Fair District Standards” amendment.
In 2018, Broward County voters approved an amendment to the Broward County Charter, which requires that fair district standards be used for drawing county commission districts. These standards are also part of the Florida Constitution approved overwhelmingly by Florida voters in 2010, which are supposed to be used by state legislators as they draw new maps.
However, the legislature did not do this in 2012, and the League of Women Voters of Florida was one of the plaintiffs that sued the Legislature to correct the maps. It took until 2015 for the Florida Supreme Court to approve a new congressional district map drawn by the League and coalition partners.
That same year, a circuit court approved a new state Senate map, again drawn by the League and coalition partners. The League watches redistricting closely.
Fair district standards require districts
to not be drawn to favor or disfavor any political party or incumbent, should protect minority racial or language populations, be contiguous, as compact as possible, respect existing geographic and community boundaries as much as possible, and be as equal in population as practicable.
Broward County voters also approved in 2018 that a Florida college or university would be used to draw the commission district maps. The Broward County Commission has contracted with FIU, which has been asked to draw four maps to present to the commission by Nov. 15. Then the commission will choose one in December.
FIU would like public input as it begins this process. This is where you, the voter, can participate in the process.
There are five in-person meetings planned and one virtual meeting. All but one meeting will occur between Sept. 23 and Sept. 30 at 7 p.m., with the last in-person meeting Oct. 16 at 10 a.m.
Dates, times and locations for meetings and background material about the process can be found at broward.org/redistricting/ Pages/default.aspx.
If you cannot participate in a meeting, you can send comments to redistricting@ broward.org. You can even submit a map of your own, using software created by FIU. Redistricting is important to our future. The process should not be ignored, at any level.
Carol Smith is redistricting chair of the League of Women Voters of Broward County, and Monica Elliott is the organization’s president.