The question of what to do with Florida’s Senate map is now in a judge’s hands. Arguments wrapped up Thursday in an ongoing dispute over district boundaries.
An odd tableau played out in a Leon County courtroom as Circuit Judge George Reynolds asked that pre-trial depositions be read aloud into the record—like a troupe of actors wandering stiffly through the worst dramatic reading in history.
Attorneys for the Legislature and a coalition of voting rights groups spent the week attacking each other’s maps.
No, you’re not hearing a broken record. And no, this isn’t the end of the road.
After Judge Reynolds rules on the issue it’s headed for the state Supreme Court. The central point of contention is minority access. Section Two of the Voting Rights Act says districts can’t be drawn to diminish the access of a minority group. University of Utah political scientist Baodong Liu, an expert witness for the Senate, says that means African American access seats need voting age populations, or VAP, above fifty percent to reliably allow African American voters to elect a candidate of choice.
“Sometimes, coalition districts may provide opportunity for African Americans to win,” Liu warns, “but that kind of opportunity is much less than the majority status districts.”
But American University political historian Allan Lichtman says pushing African American populations to an outright majority is often unnecessary, because they so often vote for Democrats.
“Because of the phenomena we talked about, of African Americans being more Democratic than other groups,” Lichtman says of a left-leaning Broward County district, “even at 47 percent BVAP they are a majority of democratic primary elections, and not just a slight majority.”
If African American voters dominate the primary they can push their preferred candidate into the general election where he or she is likely to win.
When it comes to Hispanic access districts, Liu says actual turn out is much lower than the voting age population meanings those areas need an HVAP that’s much higher.
“The question for you is when Hispanics can achieve majority status,” Liu says, referencing a chart before the court room, “well, then you look at the vertical line, that is where zero point five is, on the vertical dimension, and that’s roughly from this chart between 75 to 80, in that range.”
Liu says this higher mark—a Hispanic voting age population of 75 to 80 percent—is also due to Hispanic voters splitting between Democrats and Republicans.
But elevating population that high has consequences. Lichtman says reducing the figures slightly could create an additional Hispanic seat, and he worries following Liu’s direction could itself be a voting rights act violation.
“I think if you only drew three effective Hispanic districts,” Lichtman begins, “you’re packing, and you open yourself up to a classic Section Two challenge.”
“That is, because of the packing you’re diminishing Hispanic voter opportunities in Florida because in fact you can create a fourth district,” he says.
As the attorneys gave their closing arguments, the conversation returned to the other standard that has followed this and the congressional cases from the outset: compactness. In terms of the Florida Constitution this is known as tier two compliance. Higher compactness measures tipped the scales in favor of the plaintiffs in the congressional case, and attorney David King argues that’s where the judge should look now.
“The objective way you measure that is by looking at the tier two performance. How does the map perform on a tier two basis,” King says.
But Senate attorney Jason Zakia says those numbers shouldn’t be the only factor driving the judge’s decision.
“If you’re honor is looking to pick a map,” he says, “I don’t think even if you have to pick the best map, your definition of best is necessarily limited to what some mathematical equation computes.”
However Judge Reynolds rules, the process is working on borrowed time. Election supervisors wanted maps settled by the beginning of the month, and with all forty senate districts likely coming up for election, they’ve got a lot of work to do.
