Miami federal case lurks over Florida redistricting work

TALLAHASSEE — Lawyers in Miami representing the Florida House, U.S. Reps. Corrine Brown and Mario Diaz-Balart , state House and Senate Democrats, and voting-rights groups squared off in an ongoing legal fight last week over the Fair Districts standards the Legislature is using now to draw new congressional maps. The lawsuit brought by Brown, D-Jacksonville, and Diaz-Balart, R-Miami, has been largely overshadowed by the redistricting drama playing out in Tallahassee today. It specifically challenges whether Amendment 6 dealing with congressional lines intrudes on the federal constitutional relationship between Congress and the state Legislature, which is tasked with re-drawing them. Miami Judge Ursula Ungaro ruled last fall that voters had the right to place the new anti-gerrymandering standards on lawmakers, and the Brown/Diaz-Balart legal team appealed. But if the federal appeals court sides with the two congrssional members and House Speaker Dean Cannon , who has joined in the challenge, it could throw a serious monkey wrench into the process of negotiating final maps. At least, that’s the hope of the chief lawyer for Brown and Diaz-Balart, Stephen Cody . Cody said he expects the court to rule as soon as two weeks from now. If the U.S. Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals overturns the lower judge, state legislators would be theoretically free to amend the congressional maps without the dictates of Amendment 6, he said. “That would allow it. They wouldn’t necessarily have to, but without these constraints we could draw a different and better plan,” Cody said. “They could do that next session. They could do that in 2013. Or at any point or in 2022.” Or, it could happen as soon as in House-Senate conference meetings, where lawmakers will probably have to work out a range of differences between their congressional plans in the weeks ahead. “Federal law does not put any

restrictions on a legislature on when they can re-draw the maps,” Cody said. “They can re-draw them every two years if they wanted.” House Redistricting Chairman Will Weatherford , R-Wesley Chapel, has said repeatedly that lawmakers could draw the congressional maps as if Fair Districts applied and would not let the ongoing litigation affect their work-product. Current Speaker Cannon, R-Winter Park, said as much last week to the Orlando Sentinel editorial board when he was defending his decision to keep plugging away at the litigation. The federal appeal “has nothing to do with the maps that we’re drawing now,” Cannon said Friday. “We have followed [Amendments] 5 and 6 and will continue to follow 5 and 6 all through the election.” Cannon said he was still pursuing the lawsuit because future lawmakers would be bound to the standards, and he felt an important federal constitutional right of Congress to regulate elections was in conflict with the new state constitutional standards. “Our rights are at stake. They are implicated, and we should be at that table,” he said. Cannon’s office has not released a complete accounting of the ongoing taxpayer cost of the legal fight against Fair Districts (which began long before the current lawsuit that was filed the day after voters passed the amendments in 2010). But the Transparency Florida Web site indicates the three law firms helping out with the Fair District fight — Gray Robinson, Latham & Watkins, and Miguel De Grandy PA — have been paid $1.28 million since Cannon took over in 2010. Cannon’s office said that figure also includes redistricting “prep work” unrelated to the litigation, and in support of Amendment 7, the House’s attempt to place another standard on the 2010 ballot “clarifying” Fair Districts.

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Miami federal case lurks over Florida redistricting work

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