‘Alligator Alcatraz' faces NEPA challenge over Everglades impacts
What's found at a court hearing Wednesday will shape the future of the facility abruptly plunked in the middle of Big Cypress National Preserve to bolster the administration's mass deportation campaign.
The Center for Biological Diversity and the Friends of the Everglades contend that the site anticipated to eventually house upward of 5,000 detainees falls under the National Environmental Policy Act and so requires a full-bore environmental study.
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'We've had to piece together the impacts, because the state of Florida has not done any environmental impact analysis,' Eve Samples, executive director of Friends of the Everglades, said in an interview.
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Attempting to thwart a Republican move to draw more GOP districts, Democratic lawmakers in Texas fled the state for Illinois. That maneuver, however, wouldn't work in Florida if Gov. Ron DeSantis called lawmakers in for a redistricting session, to redraw the state's congressional district lines. Florida's constitution only requires a simple majority for a quorum for the Legislature to conduct business, and Democrats comprise a superminority in the House and Senate. 'In Florida … the rules are different so leaving the state wouldn't help Democrats stop a mid-decade redistricting cycle here,' House Democratic Leader Fentrice Driskell, a Black Democrat from Tampa, said. Instead, Driskell said Democrats will lean on public opinion to prevail upon Republicans not to pass a partisan gerrymander. It was the public, with 63% of the vote, that passed the anti-gerrymandering Fair District amendments to the state constitution in 2010. 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The other provisions banning drawing district lines to favor or disfavor a political party or an incumbent still apply, as do the requirements for lawmakers to stick to municipal, county or geographic boundaries for the lines where possible. If lawmakers stick to those rules if DeSantis calls them in for a redistricting session, it could be difficult to add more reliably Republican districts. DeSantis, though, doesn't think the Fair Districts amendments are constitutional and is likely to push the Legislature to pass maps to directly undermine them. 'The way (Fair Districts) was done, many people believe runs afoul of the federal constitution,' DeSantis told reporters July 30. 'If that's the case, then I think the Florida Supreme Court's position would likely be, well, this is just it's unenforceable at this point because it's constitutionally defective from a federal perspective. I happen to share that view.' Trump's re-drawing push Redistricting is usually only done once every ten years, following the national census. But Texas is moving ahead with their mid-decade redistricting after President Donald Trump said the GOP-led state could gain up to five seats for Republicans by redrawing the map. Such a move would help keep the U.S. House in Republican control. The GOP has a 220-212 advantage over Democrats in the chamber. Three Democrats have died in office since March. If Democrats hold those seats in special elections, they would need to net three districts in the November 2026 elections to take control of the chamber. In Florida, Republicans have a 20-8 edge on Democrats in the congressional delegation. Democrats, who pushed for a federal anti-gerrymandering law in 2021 that Republicans opposed, have said they will fight GOP attempts at mid-decade redistricting by doing their own redrawing in states under their control. California Gov. Gavin Newsom has said he'll find a way to work around his state's independent redistricting commission. DeSantis has said his office is reviewing the Florida Supreme Court's ruling and is considering calling a special session on redistricting. There could be another court case, though, that affects any redrawing session. The U.S. Supreme Court on Aug. 1 issued a short order calling for briefs over a lawsuit involving Louisiana's congressional district maps, which raise the issue of 'whether the State's intentional creation of a second majority-minority congressional district violates the Fourteenth or Fifteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution,' the order states. That case could further erode section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which erased state laws that inhibited or blocked Black people from voting. A major decision in that case could be a firmer basis for redrawing Florida's maps than Trump's partisan reasoning. 'Depending on how the Court rules, the U.S. Constitution may compel the Legislature to revisit its current districts,' said Michael Morley, faculty director of Florida State University's Election Law Center. 'Thus, it would be prudent for the legislature to wait until after the Court rules in the pending VRA case before engaging in further redistricting efforts.' The prospect of the VRA being undermined is particularly jarring for Driskell. 'To use the Equal Protection Clause (of the Fourteenth Amendment) to undermine section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which effectively is what gave Black Americans the right to vote in 1965 - less than 100 years ago - to me is such perverse interpretation of both the Voting Rights Act and the Equal Protection Clause and it could have devastating impact on what both the Texas and Florida legislatures are allowed to get away with,' Driskell said. Effectively stopping Republicans from pushing through new districts, though, will be difficult. Unlike when lawmakers fled to Georgia in 1891 (over a U.S. Senate seat election) and in 1931 (over gas tax distributions), high-footing it to another state wouldn't disrupt the Legislature's proceedings. Democrats could still kick up a fuss. In 2022, when the Legislature was poised to pass DeSantis' maps, House Democrats' raucous demonstration on the floor delayed its passage for several hours. Gray Rohrer is a reporter with the USA TODAY Network-Florida Capital Bureau. He can be reached at grohrer@ Follow him on X: @GrayRohrer. This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Texas Democrats' redistricting tactics won't work in Florida politics
