Want voters to trust the redistricting process? Then listen to them
The once-a-decade process of drawing new boundaries for legislative and congressional seats has started in Tallahassee. It’s mired in legalese, frustrating to follow, wildly partisan, takes forever — and is incredibly important.
Where district boundaries are drawn determines who can vote for which representative. Those decisions can make the difference in which party wins a seat, which communities are represented and, ultimately, who controls the Legislature and — in some cases — Congress. In other words, redistricting is about power.
And it is Florida legislators themselves who draw up those new voting maps, creating an inherent conflict. (The phrase “fox guarding the hen house” might spring to mind.)
If ever there were a process that should be laid out carefully for voters for their input and scrutiny — especially in a postTrump world — this is it. Yet there are worrying questions about how committed the Republican-run Florida Legislature is to making that happen.
As Michael McDonald, a University of Florida professor who studies redistricting told the Editorial Board, “In these highly polarized times, it matters quite a bit.”
The two Republicans leading the redistricting work — Rep. Tom Leek from Ormond Beach and Sen. Ray Rodrigues from Estero — have said they are not certain they will have public hearings to collect input on how communities want to see the maps modified, as reported by the Miami Herald Sept. 24.
MEETINGS NOT ‘FEASIBLE?’
Pandemic delays have put the complicated process behind schedule. But when Democratic Rep. Joe Geller of Aventura, the ranking Democrat on the House Redistricting Committee, suggested that lawmakers hold virtual meetings to hear from voters, he got little traction with Leek. According to the Herald story, Leek said it wouldn’t be “feasible” to hold such an event in every community and therefore would give an advantage to more densely population areas, aka urban areas.
Leek missed the memo, apparently: Virtual meetings can be accessed on computers, regardless of location. Even if the schedule is very tight, surely some virtual meetings could be arranged to ensure voters are heard.
Meetings, whether virtual or in person, aren’t the only way for the public to keep track of what’s going on. RepresentUS, a nonpartisan group, has teamed up with the Princeton Gerrymandering Project to create the Redistricting Report Card. The site evaluates states’ proposed voting maps and flags gerrymandering — when districts are drawn specifically to tilt political power in favor of one party — as it’s happening. That could provide a valuable oversight on legislative decisions
The House and Senate redistricting committees also have a website, Floridaredistricting.gov, with map-drawing software for the public to use to suggest where district boundaries should be placed. Geller suggested that legislative staff members could present a summary of the maps submitted by the public so that the process is not just driven by legislators. We like that idea.
But we’re still not convinced that the public will have enough of a voice in this process.
While we hear Florida Republicans loudly asserting they’ll follow strict guidelines for transparency, hard experience has made us highly skeptical. That goes back to the last round of redistricting a decade ago, which — after years in court — revealed a scheme by the GOP to undermine the process so completely that the maps for state Senate and Congress were tossed and had to be redrawn.
Here’s how bad it was: GOP political operatives drew their own maps and then submitted them under fake names through a portal set up to receive public input. Meanwhile, real citizens attended meetings across the state in good faith — meetings set up by Florida House and Senate leaders who were supposedly trying to find ways to fairly represent communities.
That resulted in tainted maps that, nonetheless, were used in the 2012 and 2014 elections before the courts threw them out.
Republicans treated the public like chumps by creating a shadow redistricting process, as the Herald wrote back then. That’s pretty hard to forgive, let alone forget.
Remember also that, in 2010, Floridians approved the Fair Districts amendments, constitutional measures designed to stop that kind of abuse. The amendments are supposed to serve as a check on legislative power by prohibiting lawmakers from drawing maps to benefit incumbents or political parties, among other requirements. And yet in the very first test of those amendments, GOP lawmakers failed utterly — and betrayed the electorate.
PROMISES, PROMISES
This time around, Rodrigues — who has questioned, astonishingly, whether public hearings “makes sense in Florida” — is swearing that he is clear on what will pass legal muster. House and Senate leaders have ordered legislators to record and preserve all communication related to drawing maps. The House will only allow staff and legislators — not political consultants — to draw maps. Both chambers said they will use political data as a way to help them determine if they are preserving minority districts, as required by the Florida Constitution. There are other rules as well.
That’s a fine start, but it’s still a long way from rebuilding trust with voters.
Redistricting happens every 10 years, yes, but this time feels different. After a one-term Trump presidency, claims of a stolen election and a violent mob’s attempt to seize the U.S. Capitol, political divides have become chasms. Layer the politically-fraught process of redistricting on top of that, add in the enormous betrayal of voters by the GOP in the last redistricting cycle, and even the smallest decisions about redrawing districts loom large.
Rodrigues insists that the redistricting process is starting out with a “blank slate.” We don’t see it that way. We think the Republicans, with their tainted record, are starting with a huge deficit. Want voters to trust the process? Try listening to them.