State Supreme Court: Area U.S. House district needs redraw

The Florida Supreme Court delivered a July 9 ruling by a 5-2 decision that eight of Florida's 27 districts for the U.S. House of Representatives merit redrawing, including one in West Orange County.

That is Florida's Fifth Congressional District, which includes MetroWest and approaches Ocoee, Dr. Phillips and Gotha. Its current representative is Corrine Brown (D).

Tallahassee circuit judge Terry Lewis had ruled original congressional maps drawn in 2012 unconstitutional, which prompted a special session last summer for the state legislature to redraw them.

Lewis had approved those new maps, but the original group of plaintiffs appealed to the Florida Supreme Court with the argument that modifications to the districts of Brown and Rep. Daniel Webster (R-11) -- the representative of the remainder of West Orange County -- were inadequate.

"The court has made it abundantly clear that partisan gerrymandering will not be tolerated," said a statement by David Black, a lawyer for the plaintiffs. "We look forward to the legislature following the (state) constitution and the directives of the court."

Although the nature of redrawn districts remains unclear -- the court sent it back to the trial court level -- legislators must appeal or redraw maps within 100 days, probably in another special session. Brown's district is of particular concern, given its shape: Its southern tip is Tangelo Park, just east of Dr. Phillips, with its northern tip stretching north of Jacksonville International Airport. A winding trip through that district would include Apopka, Seminole State and Ocala National forests, Orange Lake, eastern Gainesville, Palatka and Green Cove Springs.

"With the voters’ approval of the Fair Districts Amendment, that unfortunate fact of political life was banned in Florida," Justice Barbara Pariente wrote in the majority opinion, which found the maps violated voter-passed anti-gerrymandering amendments of 2010.

In Chief Justice Charles Canady's dissent -- joined by Justice Ricky Polston -- he wrote that no improper intent was part of the majority ruling.

"Instead, the majority puts forth a misconstruction of the trial court's ruling based on fragments from the final judgment taken out of context and creatively cobbled together," Canady wrote.

Contact Zak Kerr at [email protected].