After ruling, Miami considers new commission maps — is commish’s election rival being targeted?

MIAMI – After a federal judge ruled in May that the city of Miami racially gerrymandered its commission districts, residents had another shot at telling commissioners what they would like to see when it comes to voting maps during a meeting at Miami City Hall Wednesday.

The current commission map splits neighborhoods and a judge told the city to go back to the drawing board and create a “constitutionally conforming” map that complies with the federal Voting Rights Act.

Nora Viñas, part of the group Engage Miami, one of the plaintiffs in the suit, said her organization believes “it is important to maintain neighborhoods that have been historically considered a neighborhood together.”

Under the current maps, Coconut Grove, for instance, is controversially split between three commission districts.

“Keep neighborhoods together, keep Coconut Grove together,” Coconut Grove resident Nathan Kurland urged commissioners during Wednesday’s meeting.

The plaintiffs in the suit created three proposals for maps they felt would be more fair and keep neighborhoods intact.

“Put back the neighborhoods that were divided,” resident Fleta Stamen said.

“We tried to unite communities and neighborhoods, real communities of interest used...boundaries like major highways and the river,” Nicholas Warren, a staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida said.

However, a consultant hired by the city, Miguel De Grandy, came up with another proposal that they claim “better reflects the (commission’s) political and policy choices.”

Rather than unite neighborhoods, the consultant said that the commission desired to “unpack” them.

Like the ACLU proposals, it keeps District 5, represented by Christine King, as majority-Black.

Commissioners were still discussing the map proposals into Wednesday afternoon.

“Based on how the discussion has gone so far today it sounds like the commission is not very interested in listening, which is unfortunate,” Warren said.

Does city-proposed map purposely draw commissioner’s rival out?

District 1 commission candidate Miguel Angel Gabela made an allegation of willful election interference in the latest city-proposed map. He claims District 1 incumbent, Commissioner Alex Diaz de la Portilla, leveraged the redistricting process to remove Gabela from the district just over four months from Miami’s November general election.

During Wednesday’s public comment period, he stated that the latest proposed redistricting map, that De Grandy presented to commissioners Wednesday morning, strategically carves out his residence of 23 years from District 1 just months before the scheduled general election.

He stated on public record that rather than this action being a coincidence, he believes surgically removing his home from District 1 is “politically motivated”.

He stated if the city votes on a map that removes his residence of more than two decades from the district during this election cycle in which he is a candidate he may have to file a lawsuit.

“I’ve been running since February, OK, this is quite obvious this is a political move on somebody’s behalf,” Gabela said.

Rather than doing that, he requested the city consider the “remedy” of being placed back into the district he has lived for 23 years.

Gabela has retained Miami-area attorney David Winker.

“From allowing (Commissioner Joe) Carollo to homestead his property to avoid creditors, to carving a political opponent out of Alex Diaz de la Portilla’s district, the City of Miami has demonstrated again and again that it can’t do redistricting honestly and openly,” Winker said. “We need an independent process under the supervision of the federal judge. This is the City once again weaponizing the government against residents.”

‘Blood sport’: Expert weighs in on proposed map, process

In an interview with Local 10 News, Nova Southeastern Unviersity political scientist Charles Zelden weighed in on the controversy and the political machinations behind redistricting.

“Welcome to Miami. It’s politics as usual in Miami, which is a full-blown blood sport, and you have an incumbent who wants to protect himself from challenger,” Zelden said. “Drawing a man so the challenger can’t run for the seat is a great way to protect your position.”

He added: “If they do pass the map as suggested instead of the map proposed by the ACLU, it is going to result in more litigation, it is going to slow the process down, it is a question is it worth the effort? Ultimately, if it is your seat on the line maybe it is worth the effort to have more litigation, more tension and more problems.”

Zelden notes that the ACLU and commissioners clearly have different goals in the redistricting process.

“If you’re an incumbent, you want maps that are going to protect your your seat and so one of the factors that affects the drawing of district maps is incumbent protection, making sure the incumbent wins,” he said. “The maps that were proposed by the ACLU did not take that into account at all, it was all about questions of racial balance and an ethnic balance. So the the special master here is coming in and trying to combine the two concerns to protect the incumbents, but to do so in a way that does not undermine the racial balance of the district seats.”

Local 10 News as reached out to Diaz de la Portilla and the Miami city attorney for comment on the city’s proposed map.

According to a court order, the city must have a map drawn by June 30.

Ruling: