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Florida’s Redistricting Battle

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The legal battle over the drawing of Florida’s congressional and legislative district boundaries continues this week with the release of additional documents in the ongoing lawsuits challenging how lawmakers came up with the new maps. The Associated Press reports the Florida Supreme Court is unsealing documents of a two year old e-mail exchange between Republican political consultants indicating changes to state Senate maps were intended to limit Democratic gains in the 2012 election.

This follows the release in November of more than 500 pages of e-mails from GOP consultants related to redistricting that had been kept secret during a 12 day trial this past summer. Those e-mails were from the Gainesville-based Republican consulting firm Data Targeting. The League of Women Voters of Florida is leading a consortium of plaintiffs alleging that district boundaries were drawn to favor Republican candidates in political contests, which goes against anti-gerrymandering amendments Florida voters add to the state constitution in 2010. We explore what the unsealed documents reveal about the redistricting process and what’s next for plaintiff’s challenging the state’s political boundaries.

Guests:

Matt Dixon, Tallahassee Bureau Chief, Naples Daily News E.W. Scripps Co.

David King, Attorney for the League of Women Voters of Florida