It wasn’t just the way GOP lawmakers colluded to pass a congressional redistricting map that defies the Florida Constitution, drawing lines clearly meant to benefit Republicans over any other consideration.
It wasn’t just the lamentable decision to grovel to Gov. Ron DeSantis’ whim, in a way they never have before.
It wasn’t just the decision to eradicate districts intended to give Black voters a shot at electing candidates who look like them (including the Central Florida district currently served by U.S. Rep. Val Demings, D-Orlando).
It was the indifference.
DeSantis, House Speaker Chris Sprowls and Senate President Wilton Simpson knew they were undoing decades of work toward fairer, more representative elections. They knew, but they didn’t care. They knew this legislation, which favors Republicans in 20 of the state’s 28 congressional districts, fails the standard set by the Fair Districts amendments passed in 2010. They don’t care about that either.
And when the floor of the Florida House erupted in furious protest Thursday, Sprowls betrayed not a flicker of compassion or comprehension. Instead, he lassoed the chaos to shove two more despicable bills through final passage, with no debate.
Serving the wrong master
The map lawmakers approved was not their first attempt. In March, they sent DeSantis a redistricting plan that eliminated one of Florida’s four designated “majority-minority” districts, drawn with enough Black voters to make a Black candidate’s election likely. It wasn’t enough for DeSantis, who demanded the elimination of a second majority-minority district in Central Florida.
The governor’s involvement was highly unusual. Under Florida law, legislators determine the districts, with the governor approving or vetoing the final map. When DeSantis sent lawmakers a map drawn to his specifications, he flipped the script. That’s not unusual; over the past months DeSantis has transformed legislators into lapdogs several times.
Before the House voted, Sprowls opened the floor for limited debate. Dissenters were limited to a few minutes of protest apiece. And they made their anguish known, telling the stories of parents and grandparents turned away from the polls. They described the urgency and awe they felt when walking with civil-rights greats such as Carrie Meek, Shirley Chisholm, John Lewis. They tried to get Republican lawmakers to understand how it felt to watch hard-won victories being picked apart, to see rights eroded.
But when Rep. Yvonne Hayes Hinson, D-Gainesville, went over her allotted time, her microphone was cut off. The floor erupted into a planned — but passionate — protest, with lawmakers staging a sit-in at the front of the House chamber and singing hymns.
Sprowls called a brief recess, but when lawmakers reconvened and chanting resumed, he seized the opportunity to put the redistricting plan to a rapid vote. It passed 68-38. Next up were two bills meant to punish Disney for its opposition to a parental rights bill that overtly targets LGBTQ+ students and teachers. Both passed by similar margins.
A calculated indifference
Here’s the worst part of what’s happening in Florida: DeSantis, Sprowls, Simpson and the lawmakers who fall in line behind them may not harbor hatred for racial or sexual minorities. But — as U.S. District Judge Mark Walker pointed out in a blockbuster ruling three weeks ago — Florida’s Republicans have learned that prejudice can be harnessed for their own political benefit. They have wielded bigotry like a useful, all-purpose tool. They have marginalized vulnerable students struggling with their sexuality — for political gain. They have banned classroom discussions of racism’s modern realities — again, because it was advantageous to their agenda.
And they shrug off any reproach. It’s just politics.
That’s why they don’t comprehend the havoc they wreak.
Fair representation is not just about politics. It’s about personhood. It’s wrong to make laws that make people afraid to speak out about who they are. It’s wrong to draw lines on a map that make some Florida voters invisible.
The state’s current leadership may not see that. But increasingly, the Floridians they represent do.
