Four voting-rights organizations sent a letter to key lawmakers Wednesday asking them to accelerate the Legislature’s timeline for the once-a-decade redistricting process.
In the letter — signed by the NAACP, League of Women Voters of Florida, Democracia USA and Common Cause — the groups say the current timeline doesn’t ensure the maps will be approved and clear the necessary legal hurdles soon enough to avoid ” disaster” at the polls.
“Failure to approve maps in early January 2012 will most assuredly delay final approval of new districts until close to election day thus causing massive voter confusion and precluding organized, thoughtful elections,” the groups wrote.
The groups’ plan calls for lawmakers to face an Oct. 3 deadline for filing their plans, committees to finish work by the end of December and the full Legislature to approve maps by Jan. 13 — the end of the first week of session.
Lawmakers have defended the current process — one of the latest in the nation — by saying the Florida Constitution requires the maps to be approved next year, and that the courts and the U.S. Department of Justice should work to quickly review Florida’s maps.
“That same logic should apply to the Legislature which has the unilateral ability to control its own timeline,” the four organizations wrote in Wednesday’s letter.
The current redistricting timeline makes provision for official approval of the new district plans during the Legislative Session that runs from January 10 – March 9, 2012.
In a statement issued by his office, House Speaker Dean Cannon said the letter wasn’t credible.
“Given the League’s complete refusal to meaningfully participate in the redistricting process by submitting any proposed maps themselves, this is clearly another politically motivated ruse that attempts to mislead the public and increase the chance the districts will end up being drawn by the courts,” said Cannon, R-Winter Park.
