A decision by the Florida Supreme Court requiring a redrawing of the state's congressional districts could pave the way for a comeback by one of the state's most controversial politicians: former Gov. Charlie Crist.
Crist — a Republican-turned-independent-turned Democrat — was written off as politically dead last fall after he narrowly lost a bid to reclaim his old job as governor to Republican incumbent Rick Scott.
But the high court’s 5-2 decision requires state legislators to redraw eight of the Sunshine State's 27 U.S. House districts to comply with a 2010 statewide initiative outlawing gerrymandering. That could easily put Crist’s St. Petersburg home in the 13th District represented by Republican Rep. David Jolly, and make the district vulnerable to a Democratic challenge.
Speculation about Crist running for Congress began earlier this year amid rumors that Jolly might give up his House seat to run for the Senate seat being relinquished by fellow Republican, Marco Rubio, who is running for president. Last year, following the death of longtime GOP Rep. Bill Young, Jolly — who had been Young’s onetime top aide — won a nationally watched special election to succeed him with 52 percent of the vote.
"Now that the district could include his home and become more Democratic, many expect Crist would file [for Congress] even if Jolly stayed put and ran for re-election," Politico reported on the day after the landmark court ruling.
Once considered a conservative as the state’s fiercely pro-death penalty attorney general, Crist was elected governor on a conservative platform in 2006 and was considered as a possible vice presidential running mate with John McCain in 2008.
By 2010, however, Crist had fallen into disfavor with many Republican activists for his strong advocacy of climate change and acceptance of President’s Barack Obama stimulus money, which he did with an embrace of the president when he visited Florida in 2009.
With polls showing him losing the GOP Senate nomination to Rubio in 2010, Crist switched to an independent candidacy and placed second in a three-candidate race won by Rubio.
In 2012, Crist addressed the Democratic National Convention, endorsed Obama for re-election, and soon changed his registration to Democrat. As a losing candidate for governor last fall, Crist reversed himself on several conservative positions he had taken in past campaigns as a Republican.
The court decision that opened the door to a Crist comeback began in a suit started by a group of activists, including the League of Women Voters. Florida's Supreme Court ruled that the state's U.S. House districts were in blatant violation of the voter-enacted 2010 referendum banning political lines from being drawn to favor one of the political parties or incumbent lawmakers.
A lower court had ordered the Republican-controlled legislature to redraw two districts. The Supreme Court, however, went further last week and ordered eight districts to be redrawn. Ironically, the two dissents to the high court ruling came from jurists who were both appointed by Crist when he was Republican governor: Justices Ricky Polston and Charles Canady, a former U.S. representative and Clinton impeachment manager in 1999.
Affected along with Jolly’s district were those of three other Republicans — Reps. Mario Diaz-Balart, Carlos Curbelo, and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen — and four Democrats: Reps. Corrine Brown, Kathy Castor, Ted Deutch, and Lois Frankel.
"The new redistricting standards are impossible to achieve," veteran Florida elections analyst Jay O'Callaghan told Newsmax. "Any time you draw a district, it is almost impossible not to produce a district that favors either political party. Under the present plan, which was drawn by Republicans, Democrats gained four U.S. House seats and defeated three Republican incumbents — Allen West and David Rivera in 2012 and Steve Southerland in 2014. So I think the legislature made a good effort to avoid a blatant GOP gerrymander.
"The Supreme Court's liberal majority opinion simply ordered the districts to be changed just as the liberal groups suggested in their lawsuit. Their remedy is designed to defeat three more Republican members of Congress and prevent any Republican from representing over 2 million people in the Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach area."
One of the Democrats most affected by the plan is Corrine Brown, a 12-termer and member of the Congressional Black Caucus whose 5th District has a black majority.
In a strongly worded statement following the ruling, Brown declared: "Minority communities do not live in compact, cookie-cutter-like neighborhoods, and excessive adherence to district 'compactness,' while ignoring the maintenance of minority access districts, fragments minority communities across the state."
John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax.
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