A final abdication of the Florida Legislature

In a time that now seems as fanciful as a fairy tale, the Florida Legislature earned praise as the most independent in the nation and fourth-best overall.

The well-deserved accolade was awarded in 1971 by the nonprofit, reformminded Citizens Conference on State Legislatures. It noted Florida’s progress in the four years since a reapportionment ordered by the federal judiciary ended rural rule in Tallahassee. The House and Senate no longer depended on the executive branch or lobbyists to tell them what to know and what to do.

“I’m beginning to think we have the most independent legislative branch since Parliament beheaded the king,” Gov. Reubin Askew said.

A half-century later the lobbies have long since regained control, and the Legislature is bending its knee before a new king, Gov. Ron DeSantis.

His coronation ceremony — that is, the Legislature’s capitulation — begins Tuesday, when the Legislature convenes at his command to enact a reactionary, racist and unconstitutional congressional districting plan of his design. None of his predecessors tried to dictate a redistricting result.

With the pretext of eliminating what he calls “a racial gerrymander,” it creates one for the sake of white Republicans, erasing two of Florida’s four Black access districts and slashing Democratic representation in Congress.

Abdicating the Legislature’s constitutional duty to propose its own map, Senate President Wilton Simpson and House Speaker Chris Sprowls have yielded with indecent haste to the Republican governor’s scheme. The Senate’s redistricting chairman has already endorsed this brazenly partisan gerrymander.

Left unanswered are embarrassing but apt questions raised by Rep. Anna Eskamani, D-Orlando: “Whatever happened to the separation of powers? I mean, why are we elected?”

Death watch

The independence of an entire branch of government is on death watch. Democrats don’t have the votes to save it, but they can build a record of fierce debate to expose the sham to the courts.

Barring a most improbable burst of conscience and courage among the Republican legislators whom Simpson and Sprowls control, DeSantis will have his way.

Simpson and Sprowls played into DeSantis’ hands by not sending him the $112 billion state budget once the Legislature passed it March 14. Now he can wait until after the redistricting session to decide which legislators’ projects will survive and which he will veto.

That leaves them all under his thumb. Simpson is doubly vulnerable as he seeks DeSantis’ coveted but elusive endorsement in his race for agriculture commissioner.

DeSantis’ new districting plan resembles what he sent in the regular session before vetoing what passed. It’s designed to increase the imbalance in Florida’s congressional delegation to 20 Republican districts against eight likely to vote Democratic. The present split is 16-11, with a 28th seat added from the new census.

Under DeSantis’ map Republicans would hold 71% of the congressional seats in a state that Donald Trump carried with 51.2% of the vote. Florida’s 3.3 million Blacks, nearly 17% of the population, would elect only 7% of the delegation.

During the regular session the Senate agreed to preserve Rep. Al Lawson’s District 5. The House, under pressure from DeSantis, voted to save a part of it, but even that was too much for Florida’s imperial ruler.

DeSantis’ purge would leave 345,000 Blacks from Jacksonville to Tallahassee, including majority Black Gadsden County, with no opportunity to elect anyone of their choice. They comprise 46.4% of the district’s present population, its largest demographic.

Lawson’s district was created by the Florida Supreme Court during the last redistricting cycle. DeSantis calls it an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. He said he prefers one that is “race neutral.”

Coming from him, that’s Orwellian doublespeak. In today’s Republican lexicon the real meaning of “race neutral” is anti-Black.

The existing plan was drafted to comport with the U.S. Voting Rights Act, which gave courts the authority to require majority-minority districts where there had been systematic discrimination.

DeSantis contends there is a contrary precedent from North Carolina. But the two states’ circumstances are dissimilar.

The Fair Districts guarantee

Moreover, the Fair Districts amendments to Florida’s Constitution, adopted by initiative in 2010, explicitly guarantee “the equal opportunity of racial or language minorities to participate in the political process” and bar any action that would “diminish their ability to elect representatives of their choice.”

DeSantis is betting his scheme on state and federal courts that have lurched to the far right on account of his appointments and Trump’s.

Moreover, he probably wins something right away. With primary elections four months away, there would be little time for the courts to dispose of his map for this year’s elections. The election supervisors say they need a plan by month’s end to be ready.

That means his would prevail at least for this election, sending more Republicans to Congress than the state Senate had provided for in its Fair Districts-compliant plan, possibly tipping control of the entire House to the GOP. That would be a debt to collect when he runs for president, which he is already doing without saying so.

A self-respecting Legislature would call his hand.

First it would try to override his veto. When that failed, it would pass the original Senate map. Then it would adjourn and go home, leaving the outcome to the threejudge federal court in Tallahassee, where Common Cause, Fair Districts Now and other plaintiffs already are asking the court to draw the 28 congressional districts. A trial is set for May 12-13.

The court has told the plaintiffs to file their maps by Monday, just before the Legislature is scheduled to capitulate to DeSantis and reveal its utter worthlessness to the courts, the state and the nation.

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.