Warning: Constant ABSPATH already defined in /home/flanews/public_html/wp-config.php on line 37
Capitol News Service » Blog Archive » Legislature Unveils New Draft Maps

Welcome to

Capitol News Service

Florida's Best Political Coverage on Television

Legislature Unveils New Draft Maps

November 29th, 2021 by Mike Vasilinda

The once a decade redrawing of the states congressional and legislative boundaries is heating up in the state Capitol. Today, House staff released the chambers first drafts, while a Senate committee fine tuned that chambers proposals. and as Mike Vasilinda tells us, at least one of the House maps is raising questions of fairness.

Ten yeas ago, new standards approved by voters aimed at making the process of drawing new political boundaries less political were in place for the first time.

Matt Isbell is an independent data analyst and says those standards weren’t always followed.

“They were secretly drawing stuff behind the scenes” says Isbell.

Fast forward to today.  Adding fuel to the debate is that Florida gets one additional member of congress.

“You are recognized for a walk thought of the staff prepared plans” said Senate Congressional redistricting chair Jennifer Bradley.

So far all of the maps have been drawn by staff with no public input. 

“They are telling us that they’ve done the work, but they are not sharing the analysis” says Florida League of Women Voters President Cecelia Scoon.

That worries the League of Women Voters, which originally passed the fair districts amendments.

“So if you want to understand what they’ve done, we have to follow their pathway, and they are just expecting us to trust them, and that’s not how government should work” Scoon told us.

 

After a Monday meeting, Democrat Linda Stewart says unlike a decade ago, politicians don’t appear to be trying to pick their voters instead of the other way around.

”What I’ve seen is not political.”

Q:”What does that bode for the future?”

“I think it means we won’t have a lawsuit.”

Two congressional maps dropped by the House today, are raising eyebrows.

Donald Trump won 16 of the states 27 congressional districts in 2020. Analyst Isbell 

says Trump would have won 17 districts under the first House released map, and more under the second.

“This second House Congressional plan has Trump at eighteen districts and Biden ten, so that’s much more aggressive than the other plans” says Isbell.

The House and Senate will each re-draw their own districts, but in the end, both must agree on the new congressional map.

After lawsuits following the 2012 redistricting, courts redrew both the Senate and Congressional maps, which took several years of litigation.

 

Posted in State News | No Comments »

Comments are closed.

copyright © 2016 by Capitol News Service | Powered by Wordpress | Hosted by LyonsHost.com