Maxwell: Florida's redistricting scheme goes all-in on gerrymandering

To understand how rigged Florida's new congressional districts are, you don't need a degree in political science. You just need a set of eyes.

Specifically, look at Orlando. It's a mid-sized city with a population of about 350,000, meaning it would easily fit within a single district, each of which contains about 760,000 people.

That's how districts are supposed to be drawn - keeping cities and communities intact.

But Gov. Ron DeSantis didn't want to leave Orlando in one piece for one simple reason: It's heavily Democratic. So, to dilute the impact of Orlando voters, he and his map-makers decided to carve up Orlando into four different parts.

Three of the Orlando districts snake out in various directions encompassing rural counties, so that the Democratic voters from the Orlando region will be outnumbered by Republican voters who live far away.

How far away? Well the new District 9 starts in Orlando but then slithers south through six different counties. To reach the district’s southwestern tip, you’d have to drive more than two hours, passing Lake Okeechobee before ending up closer to Fort Myers.

This district is "compact" in the same way that Jabba the Hutt is svelte.

For that reason, this district, which Republican legislators approved on a largely party-line vote this past week, is unconstitutional. See, the idea that districts should be compact isn't just an aspirational goal. It's written into this state's constitution. It was put there by you, the voters, as part of the Fair Districts amendments in 2010.

The amendment says that, "Unless otherwise required, districts must be compact … and where feasible must make use of existing city, county and geographical boundaries."

So you tell me how splitting a city into four pieces and running the district more than 100 miles away meets that definition.

The amendment also says districts "may not be drawn to favor or disfavor an incumbent or political party." Yet Politico reported that one of DeSantis' map-makers admitted he looked at party affiliation while creating the maps - though he claimed he didn’t consider voter registration "at the exclusion of everything else."

The new maps are designed to give Republicans - who make up only about 41% of the state's voters - advantages in 86% of the House districts. The deck would be stacked 24-to-4, according to the maps DeSantis released to Fox News. Right now, Republicans hold 20 of the seats in districts Republicans previously drew.

The slicing and dicing of Orlando is just one example. The city of Tampa is carved up into three different districts. It takes a lot of map-rigging to ensure Democratic cities don't have many (or, in Tampa’s case, any) districts that might elect Democrats.

The partisan hacks who try to defend Florida’s gerrymandering don't have any legitimate defenses. So they rely on whataboutism. They argue gerrymandering is OK here and now, because politicians in other states have gerrymandered as well or that politicians in Florida have done so before. It's the kind of logic you'd expect from a kindergartener. But immature logic is no match for a constitutional mandate.

Also, the hacks don't seem to get that they're in the minority. Most normal people don't like gerrymandering. Not when Democrats try to rig the system in California or Virginia. And not when Republicans try to do it in Texas or Florida. We know this because two-thirds of this state's voters supported Fair Districts.

Once upon a time, some Florida leaders were willing to put principles over party. One of them was Thom Rumberger, an Orlando attorney and GOP patriarch. The late Rumberger was actually the attorney for state House Republicans back in 1992 when he saw how easy it was to rig the system.

“I learned then that there is absolutely no fairness in this process,” he would later tell me. “And after we finished, I thought it was unfair. I point the finger at the Democrats prior to 1992 and at the Republicans now. It’s motivated by self-interest."

So Rumberger began crusading for what would become the Fair Districts movement - to stop anyone from gerrymandering in the future.

Florida doesn't have many guys like Rumberger left anymore. So Republicans here are rushing through this off-cycle gerrymandering scheme to try to boost their prospects in a cycle when they’re worried about losing seats nationally.

Republican-led Florida Legislature approves DeSantis redistricting map

Gerrymandering not only stinks because it splits up communities, but also because it's a recipe for extremism. When districts are meant to guarantee the election of either a Democrat or Republican, there’s little incentive for candidates to appeal to the moderate middle. Instead, they pander to their base, knowing they only have to win their party's primary to ultimately emerge victorious.

I don't believe in gerrymandering for any reason. I understand the historic rationales used for racial gerrymandering. But districts are either fair or they aren't. Yet in years past, some Black Democrats in Florida actually teamed up with Republicans to keep gerrymandering alive. Former U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown supported a snake-like district full of Democrats that stretched from Jacksonville to Orlando that Republicans also liked, because it meant they had fewer Democrats left for their own districts. It was a system of self-interest that worked well for the entrenched politicians.

Florida legislators lied, cheated and broke redistricting laws last time. And now … ? | Commentary

DeSantis felt emboldened by a court ruling out of Louisiana that said lawmakers couldn't gerrymander districts based on race. But that ruling said nothing about striking down constitutional provisions that require districts to be compact.

After DeSantis unveiled his plans for unabashed gerrymandering, he and U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries traded barbs about "maximum warfare" with each side vowing they could out-gerrymander the other. It was all great sport for the hyper-partisans. Less so for people who actually crave fair and competitive elections.

None of this is complicated. Districts shouldn’t be based on partisanship, but rather common communities and common sense. Residents of Orlando shouldn't be part of a district that borders Lake Okeechobee. Residents of Windermere shouldn't be lumped in with Wildwood.

And the politicians who run this state should honor the will of the people and the constitution they swore to uphold.

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