Florida’s Racist Congressional Map Rejected

Supply: Sanghwan Kim / Getty

It has been a tough week for Republican legislators who search to carry out systemic racism via congressional map redistricting whereas, on the similar time, denying the existence of systemic racism.

On Tuesday, a panel of federal judges rejected a map drawn by Alabama Republicans as a result of it failed to fulfill the standards for non-racist congressional maps that don’t deliberately dilute Black voting energy. On the identical day, hearings started in Georgia, the place GOP legislators are additionally accused of drawing congressional maps that purposefully break up Black voting districts in order that the white vote continues to be probably the most beneficial.

However days earlier than all of that, the Grand Wizard of lynching Black historical past, Black inclusion and Black voting blocks was advised by a federal decide that his state would even be disallowed to attract up a congressional map that very doubtless violates the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

In keeping with the New York Occasions, over the weekend, a federal decide in Florida dominated that the Solar Shine state’s congressional map violated Florida’s personal Structure by diminishing the affect of the Black vote, and ordered the State Legislature “to enact a brand new map which complies with the Florida Structure.” One might simply speculate that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis didn’t assist his state’s case by explicitly describing his effort to interrupt up majority Black districts as creating “race-neutral” districts.

From the Occasions:

Below state constitutional amendments that Florida voters handed in 2010, lawmakers are forbidden to attract districts “with the intent or results of denying or abridging the equal alternative of racial or language minorities to take part within the political course of or to decrease their means to elect representatives of their alternative.”

In a 55-page ruling, Choose J. Lee Marsh of the Leon County Circuit Court docket dominated that lawmakers had violated that prohibition with the brand new maps they drew after the 2020 census.

Choose Marsh rejected the Florida secretary of state’s argument that the prohibition didn’t apply to this case as a result of Black voters had been a plurality, somewhat than a majority, in a district that the brand new map dismantled.

The secretary inaccurately conflated two items of the legislation, he dominated. One requires the creation of newmajority-minority districts in sure circumstances. The opposite limits the “diminishment” of existingdistricts through which voters from a minority group had enough numbers and affect to elect their candidate of alternative, even when they weren’t an absolute majority — and that was the piece that utilized to this case, he mentioned.

Yeah, and moreover all that, YOUR GOVERNOR EXPLICITLY STATED THAT HE WANTED TO MAKE BLACK DISTRICTS “RACE-NEUTRAL” with out making use of the identical standards to majority-white districts. If solely there have been a selected phrase for Republican A-hole Caucasians Deliberately Segregating ‘Merica by doing issues reminiscent of lessening the worth of the Black vote.

Talking of DeSantis, the Florida governor and main woke-away advocate has been having a foul few weeks all by himself. Moreover the truth that his ballot numbers for the 2024 presidential race have been constantly in free fall, DeSantis not too long ago received booed at a vigil for victims of the racist mass capturing in Jacksonville, he simply received dragged in a serious Florida media outlet’s scathing report about how his anti-immigrant insurance policies have devastated his state, and he simply can’t appear to cease white supremacists from marching outdoors of Disney World and staging demonstrations on his behalf. (Do they not perceive how laborious this demonstrable racist is working to show racism isn’t an actual drawback?)

However proper now we’re speaking about his congressional district racism, and since it’s a factor that has change into frequent in Republican-led states (I’m additionally taking a look at you, Texas) let’s get into an instance of precisely how racist redistricting works.

Extra from the Occasions:

At challenge within the ruling was an space beforehand mapped as Home District 5, which stretched from Jacksonville to Tallahassee alongside Florida’s northern border with Georgia.

The district, whose voting inhabitants was about 46 p.c Black, had elected Al Lawson, a Black Democrat, within the 2016, 2018 and 2020 elections. Its voting patterns had been racially polarized, with Black residents largely voting for Democrats and white residents largely voting for Republicans.

Within the new map accepted by the Florida Legislature and signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis earlier than final yr’s midterm elections, that space was divided into 4 districts whose voting populations ranged from about 13 p.c to about 32 p.c Black. In 2022, all 4 districts elected a white Republican, considered one of whom defeated Mr. Lawson within the course of.

“Below the enacted plan in 2022, North Florida didn’t elect a Black member of Congress for the primary time since 1990,” Choose Marsh wrote in his ruling, in an inventory of details that weren’t disputed by both facet.

And that’s precisely the purpose. It’s not political technique, it’s the usage of legislative energy to carry out racism. If solely there have been some system-based characterization that would describe that type of racism.

If solely.