Florida: State Redraws an Election Map That Was Ruled to Be Unconstitutional | New York Times

ith Florida’s election schedule in disarray after a judge ruled the state’s congressional map unconstitutional, state lawmakers moved one step closer to resolving the uncertainty during a special session on Friday in Tallahassee. Redistricting committees for both the state House and Senate on Friday approved a redesigned congressional map — drawn in private by the two Republican committee heads, members of their staff and outside lawyers — that they expect will comply with the court’s orders. The redrafted map makes relatively minor changes to the two congressional districts that were ordered redrawn: the Fifth District, held by Representative Corrine Brown, a Democrat, and the 10th District, held by Representative Daniel Webster, a Republican. In all, seven districts in Central Florida would be slightly affected by the rejiggered map, which is expected to be approved early next week by the Republican-controlled Florida Legislature.

Texas: Fight Resumes Over Maps That Curb Latino Power | Bloomberg

Texas and voting-rights activists supported by the U.S. government are set to resume a three-year battle over claims that Republican lawmakers intentionally drew Congressional districts to curb the political power of the state’s growing Latino population. Texas seeks to convince a three-judge federal panel today in San Antonio that its voter maps were designed to improve re-election chances for Republican incumbents and weaken Democratic opponents, not dilute minority voting strength. “Partisan gerrymandering” is legal, the state says. The federal government and civil-rights activists say the state is making a distinction without a difference because minorities tend to vote for Democrats in Texas. “Partisanship is not a defense to intentional vote dilution,” Bryan Sells, a lawyer with the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, told the San Antonio judges last month.

Texas: Taxpayers’ tab for redistricting battle nears $4 million | Houston Chronicle

Texans are on the hook for $3.9 million in costs for Attorney General Greg Abbott to fight for Republican-championed redistricting maps, and that number will only grow as a years-long legal fight continues Monday in federal court in San Antonio. A big tally is expected in complicated redistricting litigation, experts say, particularly with the Abbott legal team’s aggressive defense of the congressional and legislative maps approved by the GOP-majority Legislature. “Abbott’s attitude has been very much ‘I’m going to litigate this to the ends of the earth,'” said Michael Li, redistricting counsel at the Brennan Center at New York University School of Law. Abbott’s staff said he simply is doing his job as the state’s top lawyer and that the responsibility for the costs lies with those who have challenged the maps. Democrats said Abbott is using taxpayer funds as an ATM to defend discriminatory maps. Minority and civil rights groups, including the League of United Latin American Citizens, Mexican American Legislative Caucus and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, originally mounted the redistricting challenges in 2011.

Florida: Legislature convenes rushed redistricting special session | Orlando Sentinel

Lawmakers released a re-drawn congressional map Thursday which would shift the contours of seven U.S. House districts spread throughout Central Florida. On the first day of a court-ordered special session, House Speaker Will Weatherford, R-Wesley Chapel, and Senate President Don Gaetz, R-Niceville, showed how they plan to resolve the two improperly gerrymandered congressional districts held by U.S. Reps. Corrine Brown, D-Jacksonville, and Daniel Webster, R-Winter Garden. The new map would shift the city of Sanford out of Brown’s seat, and remove an “appendage” of voters in Orange County out of Webster’s. It would drop the black voting-age population of Brown’s seat from 50 percent down to 48.1 percent, and shave some GOP voters from Webster’s seat. But it also changes the maps of five other congressional seats, within 23 counties. Lawmakers said they made those changes in order to solve overall compactness issues with their original plan. “It was not just the two appendages. We needed to address compactness as a whole,” said Senate Reapportionment Chairman Bill Galvano, R-Bradenton, who added it improved the “serpentine-like” shape of Brown’s seat.

Florida: Wanted: Honest Algorithms For Voter Redistricting | InformationWeek

When drawing new districts for Congress and the State Legislature, Florida has what sounds like a simple rule: “Districts shall be as nearly equal in population as is practicable; districts shall be compact; and districts shall, where feasible, utilize existing political and geographical boundaries.” Yet as I write this, the Legislature is meeting in special session to address a judge’s ruling that lawmakers “made a mockery” of the redistricting procedure when they drew new maps in 2012, tilting them in favor of the Republican majority. Under the ruling, legislators must now redraw at least two districts — potentially forcing elections in the affected areas to be postponed until after November. In 2010, I campaigned for the FairDistricts amendment to the Florida constitution, which included the anti-gerrymandering rule quoted above, stating that districts should be compact. There was more to the legal language, of course, including clauses designed to avoid conflicts with other state and federal laws. But I thought the principles were pretty clear. While gathering petition signatures outside the library to get the measure on the ballot, I kept a map of some of the odder jigsaw puzzle piece districts in Florida taped to the reverse side of my clipboard. “What it will mean, if this passes,” I would tell people, “is that districts will be neat little squares, pretty much, instead of crazy squiggles.” And yet somehow the redistricting process, following passage of the amendment, still produced Florida’s US Congressional District 5 (since 2013) via Wikimedia Commons. That is Congressional District 5, which stretches from Jacksonville to Orlando, a length from tip to tail of well over 100 miles.

Editorials: Redistricting 2.0: Lots of shoes still to drop | Tom Jackson/The Tampa Tribune

So the Legislature is back at it, once more attempting to thread the devilishly minuscule eye of a needle only lawyers could love. Which is appropriate, because the thing was the creation of lawyers in the first place, and lawyers incapable of making the absurd and impractical seem reasonable soon come to be known as teachers or journalists or multilevel marketers. I mean, as anyone who has sat through a courtroom case can tell you, if all you hear is one side — it tends not to matter which side — even the lawyerly equivalent of Boo Weekly can make his version of the argument sound impenetrable. This is not to suggest, back in 2010 when voters were challenged to decide how future political boundaries would be drawn, the face-value presentation on behalf of compact, contiguous and party-neutral districts lacked merit. Indeed, there was then and remains today much to commend about such an arrangement, the very least of which is the likelihood that districts thus composed would simultaneously yield fewer safe seats while creating more competition. The last I looked, competition was revered as among the most precious of American virtues.

Florida: Legislature: Don’t talk to congressional members, political consultants | Orlando Sentinel

In advance of a rapid-fire redistricting special session slated to start Thursday, House and Senate Republican leaders have ordered staff to have no contact with congressional members, lobbyists or political consultants. Those three cohorts of influence-peddlers and politicos helped the Legislature run afoul of Florida’s anti-gerrymandering constitutional requirements, and lawmakers appear to be taking no chances this time. “House Redistricting Committee staff have been informed that they are to have no interactions with any member of Congress, Congressional staffer or aide, or with any political consultant,” House Redistricting Chairman Richard Corcoran, R-Port Richey, said in a memo. “If any member of the House suggests to Redistricting Committee staff that a plan be changed with an intent to favor or disfavor any incumbent or political party, staff should disregard the suggestion entirely and report the conversation directly to me.”

Florida: Lawmakers to Redraw Congressional Maps but on Their Own Terms | McClatchy

Florida legislators indicated Monday that they will meet in special session this week to make the court-ordered repairs to two congressional districts in North and Central Florida but they will not accept holding special elections this year to put them in place. In a joint email to legislators, House Speaker Will Weatherford and Senate President Don Gaetz said they “continue to maintain our strong objection to any attempt to disrupt the current election process.” But they also laid out the schedule for the special session they are convening on Thursday in response to an Aug. 15 deadline imposed on them by Leon County Circuit Judge Terry Lewis. Lewis ordered lawmakers to revise their congressional redistricting map to fix two districts he had previously ruled unconstitutional, those held by U.S. Reps. Corrine Brown, D-Jacksonville and Dan Webster, R-Winter Garden. He wants the Legislature to fix the map to make Brown’s snake-shaped district more compact and to remove an appendage in Webster’s Central Florida-based district intended to give Republicans an advantage.

Florida: Legislature plans quick fix for districts | Associated Press

The Republican-controlled Florida Legislature laid out plans Monday to move ahead quickly and make minimal changes to congressional districts declared illegal by a state judge. Florida legislators will hold a nine-day special session starting on Thursday to redraw the state’s 27 congressional districts. Circuit Judge Terry Lewis had given legislators until Aug. 15 to draw up a new map that may be used for a special election later this year. Senate President Don Gaetz said that it was the goal of legislative leaders to “move forward without delay to remedy the boundaries of the two congressional districts” cited by Lewis in his July ruling. Lewis ruled that the districts were drawn to benefit Republicans in violation of the “Fair Districts” standards adopted by voters four years earlier. The two districts are a sprawling district held by U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown that stretches from Jacksonville to Orlando and a central Florida district held by U.S. Rep. Dan Webster. “Because the court held intact 25 of the state’s 27 congressional districts as the Legislature drew them, I believe we can and should meet the court’s requirements with minimal impact on the rest of the state,” Gaetz said in a statement.

New York: Redistricting amendment language set, critics object | NCPR

The state board of elections approved the language for a ballot amendment that would change the way redistricting is done in New York. But not everyone is happy with the wording or the amendment. The November ballot amendment would permit the Senate and the Assembly to appoint members to what the amendment describes as an “independent” commission to redraw legislative district lines every ten years, as required by the census. The state Board of Elections approved the language for the proposal at their August meeting. Board commissioner Andy Spano says he’s satisfied with the final wording. “We all talked about it,” Spano said. “It made a lot of sense because it defined what was the initial intent of the legislature and the governor.”

Florida: Legislators plan to return for redistricting session on Thursday | Miami Herald

Facing an Aug. 15 deadline, Florida legislative leaders will announce Monday that they will bring lawmakers back for a week-long special session on Thursday, Aug. 7, to revise the congressional redistricting map declared invalid by a judge. Circuit Court Judge Terry Lewis on Friday ordered lawmakers to revise their congressional redistricting map to fix two districts he had previously ordered unconstitutional, those held by U.S. Reps. Corrine Brown, D-Jacksonville and Dan Webster, R-Winter Garden. Lewis gave the Legislature until Aug. 15 to fix the map, an action that requires a special session of the Legislature and an abrupt halt to their summer vacations and primary campaigning. Lewis also said he was considering calling a special election after Nov. 4 for the affected districts and he called for an Aug. 20 hearing to decide how to go forward.

Florida: Judge takes on gerrymandering; sets stage for Supreme Court cases in fall | The Washington Post

About 10 years ago, the justices of the Supreme Court took a good, hard look at the way politicians bend, tweak and manipulate electoral boundaries in order to protect themselves and punish their enemies — and threw in the towel. The Constitution, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for a plurality in Vieth v. Jubelirer , does not provide “a judicially enforceable limit on the political considerations that the states and Congress may take into account when districting.” In other words, politics is politics. It’s the court’s duty to decide what the law is, Scalia said, but sometimes the answer is that it is none of the court’s business. Scalia acknowledged that the Supreme Court had previously ruled otherwise. But “18 years of essentially pointless litigation” had convinced Scalia and others on the court that it was impossible to come up with a test to decide when partisan gerrymandering amounted to a constitutional violation. The political parties have been running through that green light ever since.

Florida: Judge calls for special election and immediate revamp of congressional map | Miami Herald

Circuit Court Judge Terry Lewis ruled Friday that the Florida Legislature must immediately revise its flawed congressional map and gave it until Aug. 15 to submit a revised  map and ordered the state to propose a special election for the affected congressional districts. The  practical effect is that lawmakers will have to schedule a special session to approve the new maps before the court’s deadline, or they could appeal his ruling and ask a higher court to stay the ruling. Lewis agreed with the Legislature’s lawyers and concluded “there is just no way, legally or logistically, to put in place a new map, amend the various deadlines and have elections on November 4th as prescribed by Federal law.” Lewis acknowledged that there is no easy solution but suggested “it might be possible to push the general election date back to allow for a special election in 2014 for any affected districts.”

Editorials: Keeping elections on track the best choice in Florida redistricting mess | The Tampa Tribune

Circuit Judge Terry Lewis is skeptical he can redraw the boundaries of the state’s congressional districts in time for the primary and general elections this year. He has good reason for skepticism. Military ballots have already been mailed overseas, and local supervisors of elections are mailing ballots to voters in their counties and preparing early-voting sites in advance of the Aug. 26 primary election. To put the brakes on that process and disrupt or delay the primary and general elections would be foolish. Although the legality of the district boundaries is clearly in question, it’s simply too late to pull back now. He should allow the elections to proceed with the existing maps. If he does, we hope the parties that successfully challenged the maps will consider the chaos an immediate appeal will cause and accept that it’s too late. Holding the elections as scheduled will also allow time to redraw the lines, and to determine whether Lewis, the Legislature, an appointed third party, or the state’s highest court have that authority. After they are redrawn, perhaps special elections can be held in the affected districts.

Editorials: ‘Jungle primary’ brings unintended consequences | Harold Meyerson/Capital Times

Would the dysfunction of U.S. politics be dispelled if we got rid of partisan primaries? That’s the contention of Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. In an op-ed for The New York Times, Schumer argued that the primary system in most states, in which voters choose nominees for their respective parties who then run head to head in November, gives too much weight to the party faithful, who are inclined to select candidates who veer either far right or far left. The cure Schumer proposes for this ill is the “jungle primary,” in which all primary candidates, regardless of party, appear on the same ballot, with the top two finishers, again regardless of party, advancing to the general election. The senator cites the example of California — once the most gridlocked of states, now a place where legislation actually gets enacted — as proof that such primaries work. But Schumer misunderstands what got California working again. In so doing, he also misses the fatal flaws of the jungle primary.

Florida: Judge doubts Florida election maps can be fixed by November | Reuters

A judge who ruled Florida’s new congressional districts were unconstitutional earlier this month expressed doubt Thursday that he can postpone next month’s primary election for a quick fix of the political boundaries. Circuit Judge Terry Lewis said he will rule by the end of next week on a request by the Republican-run legislature to proceed with the 2014 elections, using the flawed district lines. Lawyers for the League of Women Voters and a coalition of Florida citizens argued that there is still time to realign the districts. The judge ordered two districts redrawn because they were designed to benefit incumbents. Those districts are held by U.S. Representatives Corrine Brown of Jacksonville and Daniel Webster of Orlando.

Florida: Groups ask to move Florida election, draw new map | Miami Herald

A Florida judge is being asked to move this year’s election dates — including postponing next month’s primary — in order to draw up new congressional districts for the state. The request was filed Wednesday by a coalition of groups, including the League of Women Voters, who successfully challenged Florida’s current congressional map. Circuit Judge Terry Lewis ruled earlier this month that the state Legislature illegally drew the districts in 2012 to primarily benefit the Republican Party. Florida legislative leaders have said they will change the districts, but they want to wait until after the November elections to avoid disruption and problems at the polls. More than 1 million absentee ballots for the Aug. 26 primary went out this week.

Florida: Redistricting clash heats up as hearing approaches | Florida Today

The coalition, which includes organizations like the League of Women Voters of Florida, asked Lewis to either go ahead with the November elections after drawing a new map or delay the elections until December. If the November elections are held under the existing map, the state should hold a separate, special election as soon as March to choose members of Congress under new lines, the groups said. They also asked Lewis to draw a new map instead of allowing the Legislature to do it. “The citizens of Florida have already endured elections under gerrymandered districts after the Legislature blatantly disregarded their will,” the groups’ lawyers said in a filing. “Legislative defendants have expended considerable taxpayer money to resist public scrutiny and defend their unconstitutional conduct. Florida?s voters should not have to wait for two more years for constitutional elections, and they certainly should not have to sit by as legislative defendants risk additional elections under an invalid congressional plan.”

Florida: Legislature asks judge to delay new map | Associated Press

A Florida judge was told Thursday that there is no practical way to redraw the state’s congressional districts before this year’s elections. Circuit Judge Terry Lewis held a hearing Thursday to consider what steps to take since ruling that the current congressional map is unconstitutional because two districts were drawn to benefit the Republican Party. Republican legislative leaders announced this week that they do not plan to appeal the ruling but they want Lewis to let them redraw districts after the November elections. Lawyers for the state Legislature, as well the state’s election supervisors and the state office that oversees elections told Lewis that voting has already begun in the state’s Aug. 26 primary.

Editorials: Fixing Florida’s redistricting | Tom Tryon/Herald Tribune

Terry Lewis — the circuit judge, not the former interim manager of Sarasota city and county governments — faces a dilemma. Lewis recently ruled from Tallahassee that the state Legislature violated terms of a “fair districts” amendment to Florida’s constitution. Among other provisions, the amendment — approved in 2010 by 63 percent of voters statewide — requires the Legislature to create reasonably shaped congressional districts without favoring incumbents or political parties. Following a 12-day trial, Lewis found that interference by Republican operatives both manipulated and influenced the creation of new districts statewide. Legislative leaders declined to appeal. During a hearing Thursday, Lewis must either:

A. Allow this year’s congressional elections to continue in Florida, even though he found that the creation of two of the districts was unconstitutional.

B. Require the Legislature to redraw the Fifth and Tenth districts.

Florida: Legislature agrees to redraw invalid congressional districts — for 2016 | Miami Herald

Florida legislative leaders ended their silence on their rejected congressional map Tuesday and announced they will not appeal a judge’s ruling, but will redraw the invalid map, as long as they can wait until after the 2014 election. House Speaker Will Weatherford and Senate President Don Gaetz asked Judge Terry Lewis to clarify his ruling about the timing of the revisions he is ordering when he ruled that two districts violate the Fair Districts standards of the state constitution, rendering the entire map invalid. Lewis scheduled a hearing on the case for Thursday. Weatherford, R-Wesley Chapel, and Gaetz, R-Niceville, said Tuesday that revising the districts in the midst of a campaign season — after ballots have been printed and campaigns launched — would be impractical and disruptive. Elections officials sent overseas absentee ballots by Saturday, before lawmakers announced the decision not to challenge the maps.

Editorials: Florida Déjà Voodoo – Why there is no reform that could be better for progressives than redistricting reform | Ron Klain/Slate

In my legal career, I’ve suffered two painful defeats litigating against the Republican political machine of Florida. The first was a case called Bush v. Gore. The second—less famous, but just as bitter—came two years later, in 2002, when I worked on a legal challenge to Florida’s absurdly partisan redistricting plan, only to see our claims rejected by both the state and federal courts. So last week’s court ruling overturning gerrymandered congressional districts in Florida gave me a serious case of déjà vu for several reasons. First, its author was Leon County Circuit Court Judge Terry Lewis—a major figure in the post-2000 Florida election litigation miasma, who ultimately wound up overseeing the statewide hand recount of ballots that the U.S. Supreme Court halted in its infamous 5–4 order. Second, the ruling represented a long overdue vindication of our 2002 claim that the Florida Legislature had abused its power in entrenching its control over the state through redistricting. While much of the coverage of Lewis’ opinion has focused on the Florida legislative “chicanery” that it laid bare, a more substantial question is this: Why did this case strike down a hyper-partisan districting plan, when virtually every other such court challenge, in virtually every other state, has failed over the past three decades? How was the widespread bastardization that allows “representatives to pick their voters, instead of voters picking their representatives” finally checked by a court decision?

Texas: How a Texas redistricting case could revive the Voting Rights Act | MSNBC

A push to fix the Voting Rights Act has stalled in Washington. But a trial taking place this week in a sleepy San Antonio courtroom could help revive the landmark law without Congress lifting a finger. At issue in the case is a redistricting plan approved in 2011 by Texas’s Republican legislature. The Obama administration charges that the plan intentionally discriminated against the state’s soaring Hispanic population in an effort to boost the GOP’s share of seats in Congress and the statehouse. Texas admits the plan was designed to help Republicans—which isn’t illegal—but says it did not aim to target Hispanics. If a three-judge panel rules against Texas, it likely would not affect the state’s congressional district maps, because a federal court has already rejected the original maps and created new ones that are fairer. Instead, the implications would be much bigger—potentially even bolstering voting protections for racial minorities in states across the country.

Florida: State says it will change its congressional districts after judge said violate state law. But after the election.| The Washington Post

Florida lawmakers are asking for a few more years to fix their legislative boundaries after a judge said they violate the state’s redistricting guidelines. (The Washington Post’s Sean Sullivan posted on it here.) Circuit Court Judge Terry Lewis ruled last week that two of Florida’s 2014 district boundaries need to be redrawn because a “secret, organized campaign” by political consultants influenced the process, according to the Miami Herald. The consultants “made a mockery of the Legislature’s transparent and open process of redistricting” and went to “great lengths to conceal from the public their plan and their participation in it,” Lewis wrote in his 41-page ruling.

Florida: G.O.P. Seeks Delay on New Districts | New York Times

Two top Republican leaders in Florida announced Tuesday that the Legislature would redraw the boundaries for the two congressional seats that a judge ruled unconstitutional, but they said they did not want the map to take effect until the 2016 elections. In agreeing, for the moment, not to appeal Thursday’s state court decision, Will Weatherford, the State House speaker, and Don Gaetz, the State Senate president, are hoping to persuade the judge that the 2014 elections would be thrown into “chaos” if the process was rushed. The Legislature’s decision surprised analysts and lawyers who expected a protracted legal fight. Still, the possibility of an appeal remains, depending on the judge’s decision.

Florida: Politicos Ponder Fallout From Redistricting Ruling | WJCT

Members of Congress, candidates and political observers are grappling with the fallout of a judge’s Thursday ruling that two of the state’s congressional districts were illegally drawn for partisan reasons. Lawyers on Friday were preparing to ask Leon County Circuit Court Judge Terry Lewis to move quickly to prescribe a remedy for the flawed map. Meanwhile, Democratic Congresswoman Corrine Brown blasted Lewis’s decision, while a former congressman blamed the ruling after pulling the plug on a comeback attempt. While Lewis declared that the GOP-dominated Legislature’s maps were unconstitutional under the state’s anti-gerrymandering standards approved by voters in 2010, he did not specifically lay out a fix for the districts. He could redraw the lines himself or order lawmakers to do it.

Texas: State accused of purposely excluding minorities in redistricting | Associated Press

The U.S. Justice Department told judges Monday that Texas lawmakers carefully crafted electoral maps marginalizing minority voters despite the state’s exploding Hispanic population in a deliberate effort to racially discriminate and protect conservative incumbents. Attorneys for Texas countered that the Legislature did the best it could, given that it had to devise maps partisan enough to pass the Republican majority, while dismissing suggestions of intentional discrimination. The case, which opened before a three-judge federal court panel in San Antonio, concerns electoral districts drawn in 2011 for U.S. House elections, as well as voting maps for the state House. It could also have national implications — the Justice Department has joined and is arguing that the Voting Rights Act should still apply to Texas despite a recent Supreme Court ruling weakening many of its key portions.

Editorials: Texas GOP’s secret anti-Hispanic plot: Smoking gun emails revealed | Salon.com

On Nov. 17, 2010, Eric Opiela sent an email to Gerard Interiano. A Texas Republican Party associate general counsel, Opiela served at that time as a campaign adviser to the state’s speaker of the House Joe Straus, R-San Antonio; he was about to become the man who state lawmakers understood spoke “on behalf of the Republican Congressmen from Texas,” according to minority voting-rights plaintiffs, who have sued Texas for discriminating against them. A few weeks before receiving Opiela’s email, Interiano had started as counsel to Straus’ office. He was preparing to assume top responsibility for redrawing the state’s political maps; he would become the “one person” on whom the state’s redistricting “credibility rests,” according to Texas’ brief in voting-rights litigation.

Florida: Ruling That Rejects 2 Districts’ Borders Casts Haze Over Coming Elections | New York Times

After political operatives helped redraw the boundaries of Florida’s Fifth Congressional District, now held by Representative Corrine Brown, a Democrat, it snaked all the way from Jacksonville to Orlando, packing in more Democrats, but also benefiting Republicans in nearby districts. In a similar process in the 10th District, in the Orlando suburb of Winter Garden, an “appendage” was tacked on benefiting the incumbent, Representative Daniel Webster, a Republican. On Thursday night in a scathing decision, a state court judge tossed aside those district lines, saying they “made a mockery” of a voter-approved amendment meant to inject fairness into a process that has long been politically tainted. But Judge Terry P. Lewis’s blistering attack offered no remedy or timetable for fixing the boundaries. With Florida’s primary election only six weeks away, it is unclear whether voters will cast ballots on Aug. 26 and then on Nov. 4 based on a map that a judge has declared unconstitutional — or whether changes, if they withstand appeal, will be postponed until 2016.

Florida: Redistricting ruling could mean big change, or status quo | Miami Herald

The court ruling that invalidated Florida’s congressional districts this week will give voters in November’s elections something they are used to: uncertainty. Leon County Circuit Court Judge Terry Lewis rejected the Legislature’s 2012 congressional map and specifically ordered two of the state’s 27 districts redrawn to comply with the state’s Fair Districts constitutional amendment. U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown, a Jacksonville Democrat, should see her sprawling district become more compact and follow traditional political boundaries, Lewis ruled. And U.S. Rep. Dan Webster, a Winter Garden Republican, should have his Orlando-based district revamped to eliminate the partisan advantage that came when lawmakers swapped out Hispanic Democrats for white Republicans. Among the harsh criticism Lewis directed at the Republican-controlled Legislature was that they allowed “improper partisan intent” to infiltrate the redistricting process and seemingly ignored evidence that partisan political operatives were “making a mockery” out of their attempts to conduct themselves with transparency.