Springtime in Tallahassee! The Florida Legislature will convene three special sessions. At press time, two are yet unscheduled. The governor set a new date for the third.
One session will pass a state budget, something that absolutely, positively must happen by June 30.
Another session will propose a constitutional amendment mandating big cuts in local property taxes on homesteads. No definite plan yet. Any proposed constitutional amendment would need to be certified by the secretary of state’s office by Aug. 4 if it will be on the ballot this year.
And finally, the one special session with a declared date will redraw the U.S. House district maps. That’s set for April 28, a week later than previously declared. The extension gives legislators time to see what Virginia will do with its proposed gerrymander favoring Democrats and perhaps react to what is expected to be a useful U.S. Supreme Court ruling nullifying more of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
Republicans say the quiet part out loud when it comes to gerrymandering
The redrawing effort was announced after President Donald Trump urged state legislatures to gerrymander their maps more radically so Republicans do better in this year’s difficult midterms. That would violate Florida’s Fair Districts Amendment, which bars gerrymandering intended for partisan advantage. So legislators have been warned not to say out loud why they’re really doing this.
Oh wait, someone did say the quiet part out loud.
“Because of what now has been done in Virginia, now Florida needs to respond,” U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds, the Trump-endorsed candidate for Florida governor, declared at a Broward County event. If a gaffe is defined as speaking an obvious truth that politicians are not supposed to say, well, this was a dictionary example. Look for it in upcoming court filings.
As we go into Special Session Spring, it should be noted that in normal times a budget gets passed on the last day of the 60-day legislative session — ideally during daylight hours. And that proposed constitutional amendments also get passed during the regular session. And that in normal times, redistricting happens once every 10 years, early in a year ending in a 2, and then only after months of study, debate and public rollout.
Needless to say, these are not normal times. This is a year of just-in-time enactments.
Republicans hoping for gains in an iffy midterm cycle
The plan appears to be for the governor to plop new districting maps in front of the Legislature, which will approve them in a quick party-line vote. Then, on to the next thing. The next things being legislation to make vaccines more voluntary rather than requirements for schoolchildren and an Artificial Intelligence Bill of Rights because legislators need only a day or two to regulate an advanced emerging technology since they’re in town anyway. All the quick work of four days.
This push comes as some Republicans question whether a new gerrymander will produce big gains in a trying midterm cycle. If you shave Republican advantages from overwhelming to just OK to create the maximum number of Republican-leaning districts, upsets are possible. Add if voters are faced with unfamiliar names on the ballot because their representative was drawn into a neighboring district, some incumbent advantage disappears.
Some districts that on paper are Republican slam-dunks may prove less so because of public mood and the quality of some candidates.
Take, for instance, the 7th House District, which includes Seminole and southern Volusia counties. There, Rep. Cory Mills is under investigation by the House Ethics Committee. Allegations of campaign finance violations have combined with charges of domestic violence, along with complaints that he exaggerated his military record, and there are also questions about his business dealings. It’s all been piling up.
Mills is Trump-endorsed (the president praised him as a “MAGA Warrior”) and the apparent frontrunner. Still, the Cook Political Report last January changed the district’s rating from “solid Republican” to mere “likely Republican.” What happens if a new map turns that district into a lighter shade of red?
It’s hard to sense a lot of enthusiasm for this exercise. But as it did in 2022, the Legislature will go along with the governor. The governor’s 2022 maps were a more aggressive partisan gerrymander than the Legislature originally intended. And this year’s map promises to be a gerrymander on top of the earlier gerrymander.
In short, a pretty cynical violation of the Fair Districting Amendment, but that’s for the courts to decide.
Mark Lane is a News-Journal columnist. His email is mlanewrites@gmail.com.
This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Special Session Spring set to start in Florida
Reporting by Mark Lane, Special to The News-Journal / The Daytona Beach News-Journal
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