The Orlando Sentinel recently had an editorial in support of a redistricting reform effort in Florida. As noted in this previous Rose Report post, the proposed changes are short on specifics at this point, but the overall aim is to increase the number of competitive districts.
The article brings up the immense disparity between statewide party voter registration numbers and each party’s numbers in the Florida House of Representatives and the Florida Senate.
Looking at the list of candidates for the 140 state legislative races on this year’s ballot, one might never realize there are roughly the same number of registered Democrats and Republicans in Florida.
Despite this parity in voter registration, Republicans dominate both houses of the state legislatures, as show by the graph below.
As the graph demonstrates, Republicans make up over two thirds of each house of the state legislature, despite having less than 50% of the two party registration. At the least, this suggests that Florida legislative districts have been drawn for partisan purposes.
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