Redistricting in Florida is broken, and it is time to fix it. Fair Maps Florida proposes that Florida citizens—and not politicians—should draw Florida’s state legislative and congressional districts.
What is redistricting?
Every 10 years, after each census, Florida legislators must redraw state legislative and congressional districts to ensure that the districts are relatively uniform in terms of population.
What is gerrymandering?
Gerrymandering is when legislators redraw districts with the specific goal of benefiting their electoral odds. This comes at the expense of competitive elections and voters’ ability to elect candidates that accurately represent all voters. Common gerrymandering tactics are known as “packing,” or heavily concentrating certain voters in a few districts to limit how many representatives these voters can elect, and “cracking,” or splitting up certain voter groups among multiple districts so that these voters cannot form a majority in any district.
Why do legislators gerrymander?
Self-interest. Legislators gerrymander to ensure that they do not have to worry about being challenged in an election—it means job security for politicians. For the rest of us, gerrymandering means legislators do not have to worry about doing their job well, because districts are drawn in such a way that all but ensures they cannot lose elections.
Is gerrymandering legal in Florida?
No, it is not. Gerrymandering with the intent to favor or disfavor a political party or incumbent is not allowed under the Florida Constitution. However, gerrymandering is not a criminal or civil offense, and it can be very difficult to prove improper intent to gerrymander absent a “smoking gun.”
While partisan gerrymandering is illegal, any legislator engaging in gerrymandering faces no risk of criminal or civil penalties even if he or she participated in an unlawful gerrymander. And, the state legislature can spend almost unlimited tax dollars to pay for a legal defense of any redistricting map it approves—even an unlawfully gerrymandered map. The legal consequence of a redistricting map being shown to be an unlawful gerrymander is the invalidation of all or part of the map…and likely giving the offending legislators another chance at redrawing districts.
Gerrymandering is not legal, but for legislators, there is only a tremendous upside to illegal gerrymandering, and no real downside.
Does gerrymandering happen in Florida?
Yes. How do we know? Courts, election results, and analyses all tell us exactly what we might expect—when politicians are given the opportunity to gerrymander to protect their safe legislative seats, they will.
In the 2012 redistricting round, statewide citizen groups challenged the Legislature’s congressional and state senate district maps in court. Both challenged maps were proven to have been drawn with illegal partisan intent. To add insult to injury, the Legislature spent $8 million in tax dollars to pay legal fees to defend these illegal maps, drawn with secret outside consultants posing as disinterested citizens.
Elections confirm the worst—gerrymandered maps have nearly eliminated competition over seats.
In 2016, the last time all state senate seats were up for election, only 19 of 40 state senate seats were contested in the general election. The average margin of victory was almost 20% in those contested races. Out of 120 state house seats up for election the same year, only 65 were contested in the general election. The average margin of victory was more than 20% in those races. This trend continues. In 2020, only 21 of 120 state house general elections had a margin of victory of less than 10%. Only 4 of 20 state senate seats up for election saw margins of victory of less than 10%. Hardly any politician elected to any state legislative or congressional seat ever faces a real electoral challenge, because districts seats are designed to eliminate almost any competition.
What can we expect for the next 10 years? The independent Princeton University Gerrymandering Project gave a partisan fairness grade of F to all recently enacted Florida redistricting maps—for congressional, state senate, and state house districts.
Under our broken partisan redistricting, Democratic politicians will continue to face no challenges in safe Democratic seats, Republican politicians will continue to face no challenges in safe Republican seats, and all Florida voters—Republicans, Democrats, and independents, will continue to be denied any real choice over who writes our state and federal laws.
How does gerrymandering affect Floridians?
When general elections are not competitive, the only legislative elections that matter are primaries. Because Florida has a closed primary system, that means that Republicans and independents are disenfranchised in safe Democratic districts, and Democrats and independents are disenfranchised in safe Republican districts. When legislators do not have to worry about any real competition in general elections, all Floridians suffer.
How can a Citizens Redistricting Commission in Florida prevent gerrymandering?
Redistricting commissions eliminate gerrymandering because when the people who draw district maps have no incentive to gerrymander, resulting maps are much more fair. States as diverse as Arizona, Michigan, California, and Iowa have redistricting commissions.
Floridians deserve fair maps, and we won’t have them as long as politicians are in charge of redistricting.