The senate had preserved a FL-3 junior district snaking south from Jacksonville to Daytona Beach (since it was smaller it didn't have to get to Orlando), which also pinned a district along the coast. An illustrative plan keeping the district in Duval County was presented.
So an unabashed gerry to prevent the creation of a Volusia-based marginal, basically? (There shouldn't be a problem creating a minority Senate district in Duval alone, if somewhat on the close side of 50%.) Sounds like they were right to strike that.
In the Orlando area, an existing black opportunity district was maintained, and a Hispanic opportunity district was created, with a district to the west having an arm between the two where an incumbent lives.
So they're saying the arm is bad, even though Whites live in it (assuming the arm is where I guess it is... Whites do live there). Highly interesting in that case, as that situation is exactly mirrored in the Congressional map (except the southern district is merely Hispanic influence, there not being the numbers for Hispanic opportunity with larger districts.) That incumbent is of course Dan Webster.
There was a long narrow black opportunity district in Palm Beach and Broward counties, and a parallel beach district. The Democrats had demonstrated how to game the Roerck compactness measure by connecting two areas 40 miles apart by going inland and grabbing a large area of the Everglades (and likely using the western county line). Though the plan was presented by the Democratic party, the court opined that it did not show intent to favor Democrats since Democrats won most seats in the area.
Uh... that don't sound too reasonable. Of course the congressional map already does that, but it does so with good reason that may evaporate with smaller districts.
The chairman of the senate redistricting committee has issued a plan that addresses all the issues in the Supreme Court decision.
They based the minority districts on a functional analysis (eg whether the district would election the minority candidate of choice vs. a simple percentage of VAP), which permitted more compact districts.
They made a determination that the area between the Black and Hispanic districts in the Orlando was necessary, but they placed it in a district to the east. If you look at the original map for the East Central area, you can't even see the connection to the rest of the district because it is covered up with a highway marker.
They took a more radical approach in Broward-Palm Beach, creating a 49% black district in central Broward, and a 25% black, 26% Hispanic district in northern Palm Beach.
The original map had a 55% black district, and then a 20% black district in southern Broward. So they added the somewhat black area adjacent to the southern part of the district, and lopped off the Broward part of the district.
Instead of 3 districts to the crossing the county line, there is only one.
They also decided to draw for odd and even district numbers randomly.
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