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DeSantis Proposed Congressional Map May Wipe Out Dems National Redistricting Advantage, Says NBC News

DeSantis Proposed Congressional Map May Wipe Out Dems National Redistricting Advantage, Says NBC News

“Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis proposed a new congressional map that would create four more Republican-leaning districts and wipe out Democrats’ national redistricting advantage.”

Democrats put enormous time and money into congressional redistricting, with a multi-year effort led, among others, by Barack Obama and Eric Holder. Adding to the rogues gallery is Marc Elias of Clinton campaign/Steele dossier infamy, who has led many of the litigation efforts.

For a while, it looked like the efforts would pay off big league, particularly in California and New York State, where Democrats declared they had given a Master Class on screwing Republicans out of several seats.

The result nationally was a gain of potentially several seats for Democrats purely through redistricting, which it was thought would hold open the slight possibility of holding the House. But then that coup d’etat became shaky with a Judge throwing out the gerrymandered NY State map, with an appeals court hearing on April 20.

And then there was the Free State of Florida, also known as DeSantistan. Ron DeSantis may have delivered the coup de grace to Democrats’ redistricting advantage, per NBC News:

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis proposed a new congressional map that would create four more Republican-leaning districts and wipe out Democrats’ national redistricting advantage.

The map — which would carve up a Black-held district — was released Wednesday afternoon, just days after state legislators said they would defer to DeSantis, a Republican, on the new congressional boundaries. The Republican-controlled Legislature drew maps that would have created less of a GOP advantage, but DeSantis vetoed them last month.

DeSantis’ map would create 20 Republican seats and eight Democratic ones based on 2020 electoral data, according to Matthew Isbell, a leading Florida-based Democratic data consultant who analyzed the maps Wednesday evening. Florida’s congressional delegation consists of 16 Republicans and 11 Democrats in the House. The state was apportioned an additional House seat after the 2020 census.

You’ll never guess what Democrats are calling the DeSantis map. No, seriously, you’ll never guess:

Black lawmakers in Florida are denouncing Gov. Ron DeSantis’s (R) latest congressional redistricting plan, with one state senator calling it “overtly racist.”

DeSantis’s new plan, submitted Wednesday, could help Republicans pick up four seats in the House this fall, multiple outlets have reported….

The new plan would do this in part by likely reducing the number of districts where Black voters are a plurality. Rep. Al Lawson (D-Fla.) told the Orlando Sentinel the plan “is a continued scheme by DeSantis to erase minority access districts in Congress in order to create more seats for the Republican party.”

DeSantis has specifically argued that Lawson’s majority Black 5th District, which stretches along the Florida-Georgia border from Tallahassee to Jacksonville, is unconstitutional. DeSantis vetoed a congressional map approved by the GOP-controlled state legislature in March that didn’t eliminate the 5th District.

The new map would break up that district. It would also reduce Black voting power in St. Petersburg and Orlando, according to Dave Wasserman of the Cook Political Report.

“The fact he has the gall to do something like this clearly shows what he thinks of minorities and black voters,” Florida state Sen. Randolph Bracy (D), who represents Orlando and is running for Congress in a district that would lose Black Democratic voters under DeSantis’s proposed map, told the Sentinel. “This is the most overtly racist action that you can do.”

DeSantis, however, refuses to keep the Lawson district because it was racially gerrymandered to keep Lawson in Congress, and DeSantis wants no part of racial gerrymandering, via NBC News (link above):

“We are not going to have a 200-mile gerrymander that divvies up people based on the color of their skin,” DeSantis said Tuesday at a news conference in Miami. “That is wrong. That’s not the way we’ve governed in the state of Florida. And obviously that will be litigated.”

So DeSantis did his usual jiu-jitsu, taking a hot button issue (a black congressional district racially gerrymandered)and turning it into a winning political issue.

There will be challenges, so it’s not a sure thing, but DeSantis again puts himself in the national spotlite on issues of importance, just like the anti-grooming bill which lured Disney and others into defending having public school teachers secretly talking sex and gender identity to kindergarteners.

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Comments

The so-called Republicans were ready to pre-emptively surrender before DeSantis stood up and FORCED them to win.

He needs to argue that the district as it stands is racist. Looks like he refused to cross that line and make that clear.

    Arminius in reply to henrybowman. | April 17, 2022 at 9:29 pm

    The fact that he’s arguing that it’s an unconstitutional racial gerrymander makes it plenty clear to me. He’s arguing it’s racist without using that specific word.

    natdj in reply to henrybowman. | April 17, 2022 at 9:50 pm

    He already has made this argument and more. In fact, the governor’s General Counsel, Ryan Newman (who clerked for Justice Alito) submitted the governor’s concerns in a memorandum when calling for a special session. There are other factors involved but CD 5 is gerrymandered in a way that is not compact and continuous, nor does it follow the Florida Constitution.

    https://www.flgov.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/SLA-BIZHUB22032912102.pdf

The 5th and 20th districts are downright abominations, obviously racist gerrymandering.
The 23rd and the 25th don’t make any sense either.

2smartforlibs | April 17, 2022 at 9:27 pm

It would appear that in p.m. sdn sees fit of apoplexy they missed exactly what was going on in New York state. That would make it if they had their way so Republicans could never win their again so I would say what they can do with it but I don’t imagine they let this be printed

Colonel Travis | April 17, 2022 at 9:53 pm

How come there is only 1 governor among the 50 who is worth anything?

    There’s more than one, but not many more. Oklahoma for one.

      Colonel Travis in reply to Barry. | April 18, 2022 at 12:31 am

      Stitt is a good man, yes. Not a lot of news comes out of Oklahoma, and when it does, it’s still not a national freakout like it is in Florida or Texas. The abortion law in Texas is not as strict as Oklahoma’s new abortion law – or anyone else’s in the country? They’ve basically outlawed abortion and the shrieking is nothing like it was for Texas, because Oklahoma isn’t a political prize for the left. If Texas or Florida passed Oklahoma’s law….OMG.

        Florida is, what, the third most populous state? Oklahoma isn’t. And while Democrats may tell themselves Florida ought to at least be purple, they have no such delusions about OK.

      amatuerwrangler in reply to Barry. | April 18, 2022 at 9:27 am

      The Dems have no fear of facing Stitt at the top of the ticket in ’24.

    CommoChief in reply to Colonel Travis. | April 18, 2022 at 12:20 am

    In Bama, Gov Ivey signed into law:
    1. Constitutional carry
    2. Biological bathroom/locker room in schools
    3. Ban on k-5 sex, gender instruction

    Also won at SCOTUS to preserve GoP congressional map. Among other things. Several States have Gov and/or a legislature which are rolling up their sleeves and making things happen. Some more than others for sure.

      DSHornet in reply to CommoChief. | April 18, 2022 at 9:52 am

      Even better, while the other primary gubernatorial candidates are slinging mud like a three-year-old (and in several cases calling names like one, too), she’s sticking to the topics. I like her style, which is why The Bride and I will vote for her again. And, like she said four years ago, that’s no bull.
      .

The trick with winning these sorts of battles is to know the rules of the game better than your opponent…even if they make them up as they go.

Trump spent his career studying his opponents in this manner, and they were so scared of his next move they had to lie and cheat on steroids to “defeat” him in any way possible. The problem is there has been no real consequence to their unlawfulness…at least yet.

DeSantis also understands this tactical approach and acts accordingly, leaving his opponents two steps behind at every turn, left to spew epithet’s because they have no real response. This is good.

George_Kaplan | April 18, 2022 at 12:05 am

Given each seat represents 3.7% of the population, Blacks comprise about 16.9% of the population, form the largest self-identified ancestry group in only a handful of counties, and there are already at least 5 Black Congresscritters, isn’t over-representation already occurring?

Of course if it were the 19th Congressional District being amended or abolished I doubt you’d be hearing screams. It’s not about race, it’s about politics.

    The Gentle Grizzly in reply to George_Kaplan. | April 18, 2022 at 8:39 am

    Blacks are the only race agitating for set-aside districts.

    That tells me that they don’t think a black candidate could be elected on merit alone.

      It’s an open question. For instance, Tim Scott is a Senator from South Carolina. He didn’t have to have a gerrymandered district to win.

      But then according to the Joe “You Ain’t Black” Biden leftists Tim Scott, like Clarence Thomas, aren’t really black since they refuse to live on the Democrat plantation.

      In ;the House there are two black Republicans; Byron Edwards of Florida’s 19th district and Burgess Owens of Utah’s 4th district neither is from a racial set-aside district. And, c’mon man! It’s not even possible to have a racially gerrymandered district in Utah.

      Of course, neither is allowed into the Congressional Black Caucus. Because, sing it with me now, if you’re a black conservative “you ain’t black.

      Apparently kissing Louis Farrakhan’s ring and getting his endorsement and adopting leftist groupthink are required elements of being black.

Former Congresswoman towards convicted fraudster Corinne Brown’s 5th district has been in need of overturn for a long time.

By the way, she got her conviction overturned on her EIGHTEEN counts of fraud and tax evasion. They are re-trying her luckily. This woman deserves to have the book thrown at her multiple times at the dome.

FYI, these people can’t make up their damn minds.

Here’s the daily prog blog telling everyone how evil and racist it was for those evil Republicans to tie up all black voters into one district based on their race.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/12/29/1601523/-Join-our-tour-of-the-worst-Republican-gerrymanders-with-Florida-s-5th-District

Now here’s DeSantis in 2022 telling everyone not to draw districts based on race and he’s being called a racist!

So which is racist? Drawing districts based on race or breaking up districts that were drawn based on race?

The answer for the Dems is easy of course…BOTH BECAUSE EVERYTHING IS RACIST EXCEPT VOTES FOR US

    Milhouse in reply to healthguyfsu. | April 18, 2022 at 1:24 am

    From their point of view putting all the black voters in one district is racist, not because districts shouldn’t be based on race but precisely because they should. To them the “non-racist” or “anti-racist” thing to do is to split those black votes into two districts, carefully adding enough non-black voters to each district to make up the numbers needed for a district, but few enough to guarantee a black majority. They (and the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, which is entirely in their hands) insist that this is what the civil rights laws require. The maximum number of minority-majority districts possible must be created.

    As for the white voters who are added to these districts with the express intention that it will be impossible to elect anyone to represent them, according to one notorious court decision from the ’70s that is not a problem; they are not deprived of representation, because they are represented by the representatives elected by other white people living in other districts. I kid you not, that is an actual federal appeals court decision. And to these people that is how it should be. They simply don’t understand how they are racist.

      CommoChief in reply to Milhouse. | April 18, 2022 at 11:46 am

      That’s a pretty dang good summation of the bizarre and tortured reasoning underlying the creation of ‘minority majority’ districts. IMO, Sec 2 is coming due for a severe shake up where the actual voting patterns of minority group members shift.

      The current use of race as a defacto proxy for political affiliation and representation can’t continue unmodified when Latino and ‘black’ voters shift further away from d and towards r and where Latino and blacks are routinely elected either statewide or in non minority majority districts.

    Dathurtz in reply to healthguyfsu. | April 18, 2022 at 9:14 am

    We can’t forget that the left doesn’t actually believe what they say they believe.

Good. We’ve had a little over a year to see what happens when those stupid communists and their pedophile-in-chief get everything they want.

Will somebody tell me why a Republican controlled legislature is blocking Constitutional Carry here in FL?

Obviously the same turds who early surrendered on re-redistricting.