In November 2018, Sarasota County voters, both Democrats and Republicans, changed the system by which future County Commissioners would be elected—nearly 60 percent pulled the lever for Single Member Districts.

In response to the passage of the county charter amendment, four of the sitting Commissioners (all opposed to Single Member Districts) and two whom are up for election in 2020, have chosen to reconfigure district boundaries.

Is there anything more contentious than incumbents drawing their own districts’ boundaries the year before an election?

Compounding suspicions is the fact former state Senator, now County Commissioner Nancy Detert has been the chief proponent of this push to redistrict before the 2020 Census. The former state legislator was a member of the infamous 2012 Senate Reapportionment Committee, which was central to the statewide decennial redistricting process.

In lawsuits brought by the League of Women Voters and other organizations, it was revealed both the State Senate and US Congressional maps were illegally gerrymandered, in violation of the Florida Constitution. 

In 2015, when all was said and done, the Legislature’s legal fees and court-mandated Special Sessions cost Florida taxpayers a mammoth $11 Million.

In the landmark partisan gerrymandering case heard by the US Supreme Court, Rucho v. Common Cause, Chief Justice Roberts wrote for the Court’s majority and withdrew the federal judiciary from refereeing cases of state legislative and congressional partisan gerrymandering. Instead, Chief Justice Roberts pointed to Congress and individual states as Constitutionally permissible venues for restraining partisan gerrymandering. Florida’s Fair Districts amendments to the state Constitution, passed in 2010, was cited as an example.

In Justice Elena Kagan’s dissent, she referred to two amicus curiae briefs submitted by current and former federal and state legislators that pointed to partisan gerrymandering as a political cancer threatening the healthy functioning of the body politic: “These artificially drawn districts shift influence from swing voters to party-base voters who participate in primaries; make bipartisanship and pragmatic compromise politically difficult or impossible; and drive voters away from an ever more dysfunctional political process.”

With at-large elections masking the underlying partisan composition of Sarasota County, elections haven’t been competitive, political tension has been absent, and the all-Republican County Commission can always retreat behind the “red wall of Clark Road” when they take an unpopular vote.

This lop-sided environment has led to an ossified policy apparatus ineffective at addressing the region’s most pressing challenges.

The county’s economic engine is still dependent on the cyclical industries of homebuilding and tourism, sectors that are easy victims of economic hiccups. According to the United Way, approximately 38 percent of Sarasota County households are unable to afford the basic necessities of life (proper nutrition, healthcare, housing and transportation). And sewage spills from antiquated infrastructure only seem to grow in frequency and volume.

Whereas the Fair Districts amendments make illegal the partisan gerrymandering of state legislative and congressional districts, no equivalent legal protection exists at the local level.

Absent any legal obligation for current and future Sarasota County Commissioners to draw districts fairly and free of any "... intent to favor or disfavor a political party or an incumbent," the citizens of Sarasota are left between a rock and a hard place.

If the Commission is serious about operating a fair redistricting process, they should place a county charter amendment on the 2020 ballot or pass a county ordinance equivalent to the Fair Districts amendments to the Florida Constitution.

Gabriel Hament, a Sarasota native, in 2015 managed a successful Sarasota City Commission campaign. He served as a fundraiser and helped launch a state legislative campaign, and has been a volunteer organizer for School Board, state legislative and gubernatorial contests.