The Florida Supreme Court ruled on Thursday at least eight of the state’s 27 congressional districts will have to be redrawn.
District 5 represented by Congresswoman Corrine Brown is one of the eight the Florida Supreme Court deemed unconstitutional due to gerrymandering.
Brown’s district is predominately African American and snakes from Jacksonville south to Orlando.
Stephen Baker, a retired Political Science professor at Jacksonville University, says Brown’s district is an example of a minority access district.
“That is to draw the districts in a way that previously discriminated against minorities will have a greater opportunity to be represented,” Baker said.
Baker says since African Americans disproportionately vote Democrat, the result is adjacent districts end up voting Republican.
Because of that he says, Republican congressional districts now outnumber democratic ones about three to one, but it’s not totally representative of how Florida votes. The state voted Democrat the last two presidential elections, and senators are more evenly split between the two parties.
“So any redrawing of the districts is expected to benefit the democrats, although the devil is in the detail[s].”
Baker says stacking a district in one party’s favor means an election can be decided in the primary.
Baker said, “And as a result, the Democrats tend to have more liberal candidates than the mainstream and the Republicans tend to have more conservative candidates than the mainstream.
He says more evenly drawn districts could level the playing field.
Lawmakers have 100 days to redraw the districts in question.
