Pictured: The data table that caused this mess, showing voter distribution under old district lines circa 2018.

It’s an odd thing to peruse a deposition in a high-profile political court case and see your own name show up — without warning — a half dozen times.

That happened to me this weekend as I perused a deposition transcript from Bob Waechter, a one-time kingmaker in Sarasota County politics. More recently, he became a driving force behind desires to redraw county district lines just a year ahead of the 2020 Census. Imagine my surprise when he cited a column I wrote as an inspiration.

Mind you, I didn’t write a column saying redistricting was a good idea. Indeed, I would eventually write several that said it was a very bad one. He acknowledged as much in his deposition, something only taking place because a narrow majority of county commissioners thought a map Waechter drew and submitted under a fake name was the only realistic way forward in a world where the best course of action was to do nothing.

So what did I say that set off this series of follies? My 2018 column in fact focused on how a switch to single-member districts, while greatly desired by local Democrats, may not prove as bountiful to the party hoped because only one existing district would be competitive for a Democratic candidate.

But apparently that was enough. Or at least the corresponding data was.  Waechter said he actually was moved by a realization that in the eight years since Sarasota officials last drew lines, the registered voter population in each district had become out of whack.

To some degree it doesn’t bother me, I suppose, for someone to read facts presented in my research and reach wildly different conclusions about what’s important. That’s the game with political journalism, after all. I present the information and let voters make their decisions on policy independently, and can’t get upset if a reader reaches different conclusions. My only goal is to leave them informed.

Yet it makes me wince a little to think someone read my column and decided they needed to submit a redistricting proposal the last day it was allowed, using a fake name.  Just like I cringe that a county commissioner, based on the same concerns about population distribution, would pick that proposal out of all public testimony and decide it was a better proposal than any option a high-priced consultant originated on their own (I should note Waechter’s attorney stressed to me the map ultimately approved wasn't the proposal exactly, but one commissioners paid that consultant to tweak into something legally defensible).

Perhaps I should take a moment and marvel at the influence my words can have, even unintentionally. Waechter suggested my voter analysis may have inspired elected officials to action as well.

“I’m sure Jacob Ogles likes to think that I wasn’t the only person to read his article,” Waechter told attorneys.

On that point, I grant he’s absolutely correct.

And since he got that right, maybe I should accept that a wide array of people would also read my article and assume it a call to action. Perhaps many reasonable people, while coming to a different political conclusion than I, would see the data and find a need to spend thousands on a consultant, hold a lengthy roadshow to get people to trust that process, promptly throw out the product of that process, and take up a clearly politically motivated map to use instead.

But I wish officials also read warnings that such a course of action would land Sarasota County in court, spending thousands more  as further details emerge and made a dubious process smell all the worse.

Because frankly, the place county leaders find themselves now shouldn’t surprise anyone at all.

Jacob Ogles is contributing senior editor to SRQ MEDIA.

Pictured: The data table that caused this mess, showing voter distribution under old district lines circa 2018.