Redistricting is Heating Up!
The Florida House and Senate have released draft maps as part of the redistricting process, and there are three sets of maps being considered, including new districts for the Florida House, Florida Senate, and United States Congress. The initial feedback to the proposed maps has been more positive for the Senate proposed maps and more critical of the House proposed maps, with most of the controversy relating to the Congressional maps.
The Florida League of Women Voters is currently working with experts to provide a systemic analysis of the data with respect to the impact on voting rights for racial and language minorities in the proposed map alternatives, with a Sunshine request for a release of 2020 data at the precinct level. While we wait for the underlying data that is necessary to determine if voting rights in minority communities are protected, an initial glimpse at the proposed maps and analysis of partisanship, competitiveness and the geographic compactness of districts can be found at the Princeton Gerrymandering Project: https://gerrymander.princeton.edu
The Princeton Gerrymandering Project is a nonpartisan analysis from Princeton University, which is led by Professor Sam Wang, a professor of neuroscience, and others on his team with backgrounds in law, data and elections. The project focuses on the math of redistricting and provides statistical tests of gerrymandering to expose unequal opportunity and unfair outcomes in district maps. In summary, the analysis from Princeton rates the proposed maps with letter grades from A to F, and rates all of the Florida Senate proposed maps with a letter grade of B (as being only slightly partisan), whereas the House proposed Congressional maps received letter grades of F. The House proposed maps for the Florida House districts received better grades, with one A and one C grade.
Senator Ray Rodrigues (R- Fort Myers), chair of the Senate reapportionment committee, has indicated the proposed Senate and Congressional maps will be considered at the January 13 committee meeting. The final maps must pass during the 2022 legislative session, which runs from January 11 to March 11, 2022.
If you have comments on the proposed maps, you can share your feedback with the Florida legislature here: Click for Florida legislature