Florida Legislature, Congress reaping the fruits of gerrymandering
As many of us shake our heads at the chaos recently unleashed in Congress, an old maxim comes to mind: “Voters get what we deserve.” In truth, voters are now reaping the fruits of gerrymandering.
Redistricting to gerrymander “safe” seats has ensured Republican majorities in Florida’s state House, state Senate and U.S. House delegation. Too many district lines in Florida have been redrawn to scoop in Republicans while scooping Democrats out.
This practice makes it mathematically impracticable for a Democrat to win, which, in turn, renders the general election in those districts irrelevant. Republicans win their safe seats during the primary, and primary voters tend to be more extreme and ideological than those who vote in general elections.
As a result, elected officials from safe districts need only appease a small subset of voters to be reelected.
Project Ratf*ck, orchestrated by GOP operative Ben Ginsberg in the 1990s, increased Republican U.S. House members from Southern states while limiting Democratic representation to mostly Black districts. During the following decades, Republicans deployed Operation REDMAP.
By rigging the lines on district maps during the redistricting process, Republicans changed blue seats to red seats in state legislatures, as well. Following the 2010 census, the GOP’s software elevated gerrymandering to an art form.
Gov. Ron DeSantis won his first Republicandrawn, safe congressional seat in 2012 by a 14.4% margin. He won the Florida governorship by fourtenths of a percentage point in 2018. As governor, DeSantis signed legislation aimed to suppress Black voters, including a redraw of the congressional map abolishing a minority-access district in North Florida.
Gerrymandering minority access districts right off the map, likely violating the “nondiminishment” provision of Florida’s Fair Districts Amendment, helped his party win the U.S. House of Representatives by the smallest of margins.
Voter groups have challenged Florida’s and other states’ congressional maps in court. Newly elected House Speaker Mike Johnson first won his Republican-drawn, Republican-safe seat in 2016. By 2022, Democrats had tired of trying to win his rigged district and Johnson won without his name appearing on the ballot.
Republicans have now created more opportunities for leadership than it has bona fide talent to fill. Combined with state term limits, gerrymandered safe districts have opened the pipeline for less qualified, more ideological candidates to move up quickly. To stay in office, they need appeal only to primary voters at the farthest right end of the political spectrum.
Our current congressional maps are enabling the election of people who do not believe in pluralism. The current majority in Congress believe their goal – apparently an anti-democratic, Christian Nationalist vision – justifies the chaos they engender. They eschew respect for our democratic institutions, disregard the United States Constitution and seek to curtail the rights of women and minorities via disenfranchisement or other means.
Voters deserve better, but we won’t get it with these maps.