Redistricting emails: Consultants discussed ways to ‘bring more population’ to minority districts
Early in the redistricting process, two political consultants talked legal strategy for increasing population in minority legislative districts, according to a batch of sealed emails obtained by the Scripps-Tribune Capitol Bureau.
That issue was an important element of this summer’s redistricting trial, which focused on the congressional map. Plaintiffs tried to make the case that the GOP-led legislature “packed” Democratic-leaning minority voters into a handful of districts to make the surrounding seats more reliably Republican.
By doing that, they argued, it dilutes the minority vote and gave Republicans more safe seats.
In an email exchange between Pat Bainter, the owner of Data Targeting, and Tampa-based political consultant Anthony Pedicini talked about potential ways to boost population in some minority districts by putting fewer people more conservative Panhandle districts.
Bainter said attorneys told him that they can deviate in population by up to 5 percent as long as it’s in the name of preventing “retrogression,” or the weakening of minority voting strength in certain districts.
“So, in affect, we are green lighted to, for example, make some of the panhandle districts light, but as much as minus 5% in order to be able to bring more population to some of the minority districts,” Bainter wrote in a July 2011 email.
Bainter was clear this would only apply to “STATE LEGISLATIVE DISTRICTS” not covered by federal voting laws, according to the email.
Pedicini responded six-minutes later with a one-word email: “Yeah!”
It’s worth noting that the three Panhandle state Senate seats, one of which is held by a Democrat, have an average of population of 474,228, or roughly 4,000 more people than the statewide average.
The email was sent months before the Legislature unveiled its first maps. At the time, lawmakers were traveling across the state to get redistricting input at public forums.
(From the: Political Fix Florida)
