Senators from across the state revolted Thursday after leadership pitched a district map drawn in the house. This is the second time this year the state Legislature has ended a special session without agreeing on a map.
On the Senate floor Thursday afternoon, lawmakers dismantled the new district map brought before the chamber by Sen. Bill Galvano (R-Bradenton).
“Everybody in my community is talking about this—and they’re like who drew that map?” Sen. Nancy Detert (R-Venice) said. “I don’t really know. So if the Supreme Court wants to draw the map at least I’ll know who drew it.”
“Folks will argue—no, no, we’re not diminishing the right of Hispanics to vote,” Sen. Rene Garcia (R-Miami) said, “we’re not diminishing the right of Hispanics to have a seat for them, but let me tell you, the truth is, they don’t know Dade County.”
“Mr. President, I don’t really want to vote against the map,” Sen. Greg Evers (R-Baker) said, “but I don’t have an option today, because I’ve got to go home—hopefully in the next hour—I’ve got strawberries I need to plant.”
“Members I cannot understand how it is our legislative job,” Sen. Anitere Flores (R-Miami) said, “how we are fulfilling our job by passing a map that doesn’t have input by anybody whose job it was elected to do that.”
And they’re just the Republicans.
After creating a set of six base maps, the House and Senate had tacked on differing amendments, shifting lines throughout the state. The map Galvano and his House counterpart settled on came from the lower chamber. And while the criticism was stiff, Galvano did have his supporters.
Sen. Aaron Bean (R-Jacksonville) was effusive—inciting his colleagues to re-think their no vote. He called back to Detert’s criticism of the process—she compares redistricting to handcuffing Galvano, throwing him in the water and expecting him to swim the English channel.
“We’ve already given the analogy that we’ve tied his hands and thrown him in the English channel,” Bean said, “but let me tell you what a swimmer bill Galvano is.”
And he answered Evers’ complaint about how the map splits his hometown as well.
“How blessed they are they’re going to have two senators—how about that?” Bean said. “The little town to have two senators—look for big libraries and a new council on aging whatever town that is”
But some supporters, like Sen. Don Gaetz (R-Niceville) were a bit more restrained.
“I would agree with those who have criticized this map,” Gaetz said. “It is not only not perfect it has many, many, many flaws.”
“I’m certainly not nearly as good a vote counter as Sen. Latvala (R-Clearwater), who I think is the best one in the Senate, but I can tell that this conference report is in trouble,” Gaetz said.
Despite reading the writing on the wall he tried to appeal to the assembly’s sense of duty.
“I can’t abrogate my responsibility, leave the field and put this into the hands of those who wanted this kind of situation to develop in the first place,” Gaetz said. “I think that’s the wrong thing to do.”
But in the end his gut was right, and the measure went down 23-16. Opponents leveled a number of critiques but no one spoke as forcefully as Sen. Anitere Flores (R-Miami).
“When you look around the room today this room today looks different than the Legislature in 2002, different than the Legislature looks like in 1992, why is that? Because our state looks different,” Flores said.
Flores first condemned the process—handing off much of the work to legislative staffers. But she saved her harshest words for the finished product.
She argues the map would disenfranchise minorities.
“What I think will be very telling is that, more likely than not, every minority in this chamber will vote against this map,” Flores said.
With the House and Senate failing to come to terms on a set of district lines, Circuit Judge George Reynolds will be left to decide between the remnants of the Legislature’s second failed session, and the maps put forward by the coalition plaintiffs.
