Opinion: The court's duty

The Florida Constitution requires the Supreme Court to approve or reject only one thing that the Legislature does. The uniqueness of this duty refutes the fiction, argued as fact before the court the other day, that it has an implied obligation to rubber-stamp the current House and Senate redistricting scheme. If ordinary laws deserve some benefit of the doubt, to be presumed valid unless proven otherwise, redistricting clearly does not. The requirement for mandatory review was written by people whose bitter experience, honed over a 12-year struggle, taught them that legislators could never be trusted to fairly draw their own districts. What's at stake is the citizen's fundamental right to cast a vote that matters.

But during oral argument the other day, some justices sounded as if they are uncomfortable with the burden and tentative about doing their duty. Justice Leander Shaw, for one, fretted that it calls for "considerably more fact-finding" than the court could carry out in the 30 days (of which less than two weeks remain) that the Constitution allows. He and others seemed to be suggesting that opponents should take their complaints to state or federal trial courts, as some already have. Whether the constitutional schedule leaves time enough is a reasonable question, but one for another day. The issue before the court now is whether there is enough that's obviously wrong on the face of this plan to send it back to the Legislature, as the attorney general recommended, for a better explanation.

To that question, the answer is yes. Shaw himself supplied one reason when he cited the appearance of what he called "eye-popping districts" that he suggested the Legislature should have to explain. Strange shapes can be a pretty telling clue that what the mapmakers had in mind would not lend itself to rational explanation.

An analysis commissioned by Hialeah Mayor Raul Martinez and two other opponents exposes the political gerrymandering underfoot. Written by Allan J. Lichtman, a history professor and voting expert at American University, it documents how the plans "are so 'heavily tilted' in favor of the Republicans that they would likely carry 81 of the 120 House districts (up from 77 now) despite polling a minority of votes in statewide elections." Lichtman found significant evidence that the pro-Democratic black vote had been packed in some cases, "well beyond what is necessary to provide black voters a reasonable opportunity to elect candidates of their choice," and fragmented in others. He also documented that 83 percent of the Cuban Hispanics in Miami-Dade and Broward counties were assigned to Hispanic-majority House districts, while only 55 percent of the non-Cuban Hispanics were. The huge statistical difference prevailed "even when they lived in the same precinct." The Cubans, of course, are more likely to vote Republican.

The response of counsel for the House was to urge the court to disallow Lichtman's evidence -- indeed, any evidence -- as outside the scope of the present hearing. Seeming to agree, Chief Justice Charles Wells fretted about the lack of opportunity for cross-examination. But in fact, Lichtman's data suggest serious violations of the federal Voting Rights Act, which even the Legislature acknowledges that the court is bound to respect. There ought to be time to cross-examine over that; there are procedures, such as the appointment of a special master, by which the court could have it done in just a few days.

The best way to deal with the deadline is for the court to follow the attorney general's advice: Send the scheme back to the Legislature for the adoption of statewide standards. The present plan is indefensible on its face.

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