House redistricting court case still unsettled

The speaker's quick fix fails to impress a three-judge federal panel, and qualifying looms.

By STEVE BOUSQUET, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published July 9, 2002

TALLAHASSEE -- One lawyer called it "the speaker's fix."

But House Speaker Tom Feeney's plan to redraw part of the statewide map of Florida House districts to eliminate a single objection by the U.S. Justice Department did not fix anything Monday.

Instead, a panel of three federal judges fired question after question at lawyers for both parties but issued no decision.

"The clock is ticking," House lawyer George Meros told the judges.

The federal government rejected the House map last week, concluding that it violated the Voting Rights Act by weakening the political clout of Collier County Hispanics. Feeney, worried that a special session would wreak havoc with the election calendar, proposed a quick fix.

So Feeney drew a new map and asked the federal judges to approve, hoping to avoid a rancorous legislative session.

"The speaker's fix," as Meros called it, shifts about 9,000 Collier County Hispanics to solidly Republican House District 112 in hopes of complying with the Justice Department's demand for a Collier-based Hispanic seat.

Feeney wants the court to treat the new map as an interim plan for 2002 only and allow the Legislature to make permanent changes after November. Democrats want the judges to conclude that the ability of blacks to elect black candidates in four Miami-Dade districts has been illegally diluted.

Democratic lawyer Thomasina Williams criticized Feeney's solution because it was never presented to the public or voted on by lawmakers.

Democrats offered an alternative that redraws 11 districts and converts one safe Republican seat in Miami to a tossup.

Republicans attacked that proposal, saying it unfairly shifts some blacks in Broward County to a safe Miami-Dade Hispanic seat and would force Rep. Wilbert Holloway of Opa-Locka, one of the few Democrats who supported the Republican-sponsored map, to run against a Hispanic Republican.

The judges recessed after listening to five hours of testimony, during which various maps were displayed on TV monitors and easels in the courtroom.

Because Feeney sent his new map to the court, the judges have sole jurisdiction over whether the new map complies with the Voting Rights Act. Tim Mellett, a Justice Department lawyer who attended the hearing, said a court-approved plan does not require review by his office.

The GOP, which controlled redistricting for the first time this year, hoped the legal skirmishes would be over by now.

The Justice Department and the courts have approved maps redrawing lines for Florida's 25 congressional districts and 40 state Senate seats. The House map is all that remains, with legislative candidates' qualifying less than two weeks away.

The changes offered by Feeney affect about 70,000 people in a state with 16-million residents.

"You're talking many more mosquitoes than people in the great bulk of these districts," Meros told the judges.

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