Rep. Scott Randolph ( D-Orlando), has written to House Speaker Dean Cannon requesting that the billing records from the House’s intervention in a lawsuit challenging the new redistricting standards, be released.
Florida voters by 63 percent last November, approved Amendments 5 & 6, which aims to end gerrymandering in the once-a-decade redrawing of Congressional districts.
The House entered the lawsuit after U.S. Reps. Corrine Brown, D-Fla., and Mario Diaz-Balart, R-Fla., asked a federal judge to throw out an amendment to the Florida Constitution that aims to end partisan gerrymandering in the once-a-decade redrawing of Congressional districts.
“Given the degree to which consolidated joint motions of the plaintiffs and the Florida House of Representatives are being filed, it is apparent that the Florida House — and thereby, the Florida taxpayers — are the ones shouldering the cost of this litigation,” Randolph wrote in a letter to Cannon, R-Winter Park.
“As a member of the Florida House and a caretaker of Florida’s tax dollars, I find it imperative to be able to tell my constituents how their tax dollars are being used in this litigation.”
Randolph’s letter says he has received monthly summaries of spending on the case, but wants to see more detailed information.
The lawsuit, which does not address a similar amendment for legislative districts, contends the new standards violate the U.S. Constitution because they interfere with the Legislature’s power to draw the lines.
The amendments carried 63 percent of the vote in the November elections, and citizens have hammered lawmakers over the House’s role in the lawsuit during a tour of the state by the House and Senate committees charged with overseeing redistricting
