2020 Census and Redistricting Thread: Florida

[Skill and Chance]

So before I post my map, I'm going to run down a long list of prerequisites. Florida, as any resident would tell you, has numerous moving parts politically. This is especially true when it comes to redistricting. Respecting all of these moving parts, but still getting the a good GOP map is the key to redistricting in the Sunshine State.

- First, Florida has their 'fair districts amendment.' This piece constitutional of constitutional law requires first that districts be compact and ideally competitive. Now, this does not prevent Gerrymandering, take a look at the 2010 map for instance. However, the laws purpose was to prevent another case of the 2000 era tentacles. That as of now is impossible. A road connection is necessary.

- The Second part of the redistricting amendment is that minority language or ethnic groups 'cannot be denied' the opportunity to elect candidates of their choice. This provision is a loophole the the compact/competitive requirements. This language is more inclusive than federal VRA requirements, and makes minority districts part of law. This provision leads to more minority districts than would usually be required, protecting both plurality seats and coalition style seats. It's wording has been interpreted as two clear plurality/coalition districts are more valuable than one 50%+ seat - if the two can be easily drawn. These tenants did lead to 2010's FL05, so it is a tool for the GOP to abuse.

      - This minority requirements are also important to remember when one considers Miami-Dade and Cuban voters. Miami has a democratic geographic lean after 2016, and Cuban GOP voters now need reinforcements from elsewhere. One simply cannot make a >80% Hispanic district in west M-D even though it would be the best possible district by GOP vote. Fajitas across the swamp, similar to south Texas and the current FL-25, are therefore almost necessary. However, road connections are also mandated by Florida law and there are only two roads heading west - one in M-D and one in Broward.

- Florida's 2010 districts went before the court in 2016. The justices that threw out the 2010 map are no longer on the bench, and those that are sitting will likely uphold whatever the GOP draws. This though means that the GOP can't simply re-draw similar districts to those that were thrown out in 2010, without adequate justification. There were three main changes in 2016: the Black part of St. Pete cannot be ripped from the rest of the city and thrown with other Dems across the bay, FL05 goes East-West rather than North-South to Orlando, and the Frankel/Deutch districts need to be North/South stacked rather than an East/West orientation that cuts the coastal communities to give republicans an opportunity. Now, look for the republicans to try and revive some of these arrangements, but in a manner that is justifiable given the 2020 circumstances when compared to 2010.

- Florida will be gaining two districts in 2020 unless Corona royally screws up the Census. Almost the entire state is growing. The 2016 distribution presented in DRA has one of these districts almost certainly to slide into the I-4 region. The second seat goes in the Miami metro under the DRA model, but it could end up on the west coast depending on the final district breakdown. The first goal of the republicans is to ensure these two seats are Red. Florida's tight partisan breakdown may make it such that adding two red seats to the map could put red precincts in short supply, limiting what can be done to the democratic seats.

- Florida's party coalitions are fragmented, and each fragment is politically powerful. The standard for each district in each region is different, and no fragment can be denied it's representation or the maps will fail in the legislature. On the republican side this is the Dixie North, the suburban I-4, the  retirees along the West Coast and in the villages, and Cubans. The democrats have to juggle AAs, Puerto Ricans along the I-4, urban Miami-Dade Hispanics, South Florida Jews, along with a growing cadre of suburban women and younger educated professionals.

- As usual, Incumbents would like to live in their district. Steube presently lives in Lakewood Ranch far outside of the district, forfeiting his influence over residency requirements.

Isn't it reasonably expected that the new state supreme court will just approve whatever Florida Republicans draw?  Florida does have constitutional amendments by initiative (that's how the requirements got there in the first place), however, so it would be possible to put an amendment on the ballot setting up a commission and forcing a mid-decade redraw.  That possibility should prevent them from outright flaunting the rules.     

[Skill and Chance]

If Florida only goes +1, is a 28 CD map easier or harder to soft gerrymander?

[Skill and Chance]

If Florida only goes +1, is a 28 CD map easier or harder to soft gerrymander?

generally fewer seats means easier to gerrymander.

This is very true if you are talking about the difference in size between the upper and lower chamber in Texas (just short of 5X), but when it's a difference of +/-1 seat, there will be unique break points about how many seats need to be in a metro area or how many VRA seats are required that can distinctly advantage one side or the other.

In the case of Florida, Republicans have a delicate situation in Miami that resembles what Southern rural Dems were dealing with during 1994-2010.  I think they can make a better arrangement in South Florida the more districts there are to go around? 

[Skill and Chance]

I'm just thinking some more about your FL-15/FL-16 arrangement, and whilst it's certainly elegant, I'm wondering if it's necessary to concede two safely Dem seats in the area.

None of the surrounding seats are competitive and several of them are trending Republican, so wouldn't something like my arrangement be more electorally profitable for them, by swapping two safely Dem seats for one safe seat and one potentially competitive one?

If you wanted to be slightly more aggressive and if Bilirakis was willing to give up Palm Harbor, you could draw something like this:



That gives you a district that shouldn't fall foul of the Fair Districts Amendment, but which Clinton only won by one and which looks to be trending rightwards. If you then keep the non-Pinellas portions of my FL-12 identical, that still gives you a district that Trump won by 12, and trends around Tampa make that too close you can bolster the margin by swapping out the Pasco coast for slightly redder precincts further inland.

Yes, the Peninsula is trending R pretty noticeably.  It wouldn't surprise me if Republicans won the existing Crist district in a good year.

[Skill and Chance]

So what changes most now that we know they are only getting 28 seats?

[Skill and Chance]

I don't see them dropping the FL-5 AA seat.  Minority access seats pretty much never go away.   Even with the R State Supreme Court it'll exist in some fashion somewhere.  The optics of drawing it out to replace it with a bunch of 55% R seats is absolutely horrible.

Yes because the current fl5th looks so clean and nice on the optical side to the average voter.

The much more moderate GA gop was also willing to draw out the similarly non sensible Ga 12th even if it was a minority access seat.

Democrats could argue for a seat purely based in Jacksonville and that had a chance in a lawsuit. I do not see current courts requiring Fl 5th in current form.

Pretty shape of a district < Denying Blacks representation

I'm not sure GA-12 is fitting the role of "minority access" either.  It was a new seat when they drew it and only lasted two elections.   If it was it was a really terrible one.

Its not just the shape. Its the fact that Tallahassee and Jacksonville are 2 separate cities quite far apart. Just like how the old GA 12th in the 2000s originally went from Savanah to Augusta to Athens. The GOP made it drop Athens in 2006 and in 2010 they dropped Savanah .  To most people they would vote for an improved fair amendment only if the districts are ugly as those are easy to propagandize. Leaving FL 5th as is,increases the chances of a ballot measure succeeding if anything.

I agree it's hard to justify FL-05 from a VRA/state law equivalent perspective . It's almost impossible to justify FL-05 while opposing LA-02 and agreeing that the 2011 VA-03 and NC-12 were unconstitutional. 

At the same time, it's not crazy to think R's would benefit strategically from keeping FL-05 this decade.
 Northeast Florida has significant dummymander potential for R's down the line and the backlash to drawing out a black congressman would only accentuate that. 

[Skill and Chance]

Here's my 20-8 R FL map. FL-28 and FL-27 are won by Trump by 1% and 2% respectively. The Tampa and FL Metro districts are not as clean as Abdullah's map, but it gets the job done for the GOP if they pursue a map like this in someway.

https://davesredistricting.org/join/19b9da27-58b4-405a-950f-0294ba7659fd

Frankly I think they are worried enough about the Jacksonville area at this point to do 19/9.  They might try to drop the arm into Tallahassee, though.
That clearly violates the law, the language of the amendment states pretty clearly that they have to keep towns, counties intact.

[Skill and Chance]

So why is it that the FL map was so much tamer than NC or OH?

Obviously the constitutional amendments if this holds.

Also, they know that downballot R's tend to outperform presidential R's in most of FL.  This is true everywhere south of the Panhandle, and North Florida (outside of downtown Tallahassee and Jacksonville) is too R for this to matter anymore.  NC and OH are generally the opposite.

[Skill and Chance]

IDK what to make of this... R's in OH and NC swinging for the fences, but very reserved maps in Florida, Texas, and probably Georgia.

[Skill and Chance]

Despite what was done to Crist's district, it's hard to see Dems not voting for these maps if they come up. It's the best they can realistically expect and has the capability of being 15-13 D in a 2018 type year.

This one seems like a calculated gamble by the FL GOP that Dems will move in the direction of becoming an AOC/identity obsessed party and lose Hispanic and Jewish voters. Note the Tampa area 3 Biden seats could all become R with additional GOP gains with minorities and WWC voters. The new 22nd in eastern Broward/Boca/Delray is a heavily Jewish area and could swing R if Dems continue in the AOC/Corbyn direction. This is a big if and must involve the Rs moving on from Trump (but not so much his policies). Murphy probably has GOP allies in the legislature uninterested in helping Sabatini join Boebert and MTG in Congress. Still, the 21-7 upside for the GOP comes with enormous risk and Dems get the economy strong in 2024, mild reversion with Dade Hispanics, it could easily become a 14-14 map.

I do give the Florida GOP credit if it passes, it is definitely something different than other Republican maps and I don't doubt the political acumen of the strongest state party in the country.

Your thinking too hard. We have the mapper 'on record' basically saying he doesn't want any lawsuits or litigation, which means following the constitutions anti-gerrymandering laws as they were written rather than as one desires AND provide adequate access for minorities. With those considerations, ones can only Gerry so much yet this map attempts such things.

If they opt for the coastal 21/22 rather than the N/S it would simply be because the coast actually has entrenched GOP areas and they are gerrying two safe D seats into a Safe D and a potentially competitive one. The GOP has long held some coastal state house seats in this area. This isn't some new invention - the 2010 map did it. Which is why it may not occur: coastal-inland was thrown out in favor of north-south. Same with Tampa - more a product or nesting and a desire to try to make the seats similar to the successfully gerryed state Senate lines than any pecularities. You can see very similar behavior on the state Senate map, which is more status-quo/incumbent protection with gerrymandering reserved for those areas like Gainesville that are safe from a lawsuit and clearly would remove a competitive seat from the board in favor of the GOP.

IDK what to make of this... R's in OH and NC swinging for the fences, but very reserved maps in Florida, Texas, and probably Georgia.

Which ofc is weird, but reflects the political situation in their states. The GOP fears the states with established or growing Dem parties, especially when said parties are dependent upon minority voters and therefore have most of their seats situationally untouchable by litigation. Retention not expansion is the goal. Meanwhile in the other states on your list the Dems have been out of power for a long time, and recently were (relatively) never close to really seizing it. The mappers are therefore confident, even though institutional strength means the Dems are in a stronger position in both states thanks to their courts than in TX or FL. Same thing will likely happen in KS.

Ehhh... I think the GOP has a lot more to worry about in NC now than in FL or even TX given how much the Hispanic vote shifted right in 2020 and how aggressive the Biden admin has been on environmental issues.

OH and GA R's both seem to be reading the landscape well.  NV and NM D's look overconfident.    It sounds farfetched, but I also think the KS GOP should be more worried.  There's a long way to go, but KS actually had a bigger swing toward Biden than GA. 

[Skill and Chance]

Congressional map passed on a 31-4 vote, lots of DEM crossover support.

https://twitter.com/MaryEllenKlas/status/1484253338912931845?s=20

Wow, that's very veto-proof.

[Skill and Chance]

What I don't get is why the Dems voted "No" lol

This map is a best-case scenario.

A few of them wanted to push for another Hispanic access seat in central florida.

Between this, the Beshear veto in KY, and the refusal to supply 2/3rds in MO, Dems sure are into counterproductive last stand tactics these days.

[Skill and Chance]

Interesting.  Lots of surprises this year (KS and LA R gerrymanders likely going through over Dem vetoes, OH and NC getting blocked in court, FL, TX, and GA all being quite tame vs. expectations).

[Skill and Chance]

This whole odyssey has been truly bizarre. I don't think anyone at the outset would have anticipated that an R trifecta in an important swing state like Florida would have legitimate and heated disagreements between all three branches of government.

Well it's a bit like the Solid South era Dem parties in that they've had a trifecta continuously since 1999 and there's a significant political machine component to the state party.