With a free hand, I’d have tried to draw a Hispanic GOP seat out of the old 8th. It was curious to note Grayson was concerned about facing a Hispanic Republican (why he spent his $$ to help a White Republican become his opponent in 2012).
I’ve tried drawing a Hispanic-majority CD based in the Orlando area that voted at least 48% for McCain (which is the minimum that one would need for a GOP CD in Central FL), and it can’t be done, even if one has the lines slink down to Collier County (which would take GOP votes away from the three Miami-area Cuban-American CDs). True, the Puerto Rican vote in Central Florida tends to swing, and went for Jeb in 2002, W. and Mel in 2004, and Rubio in 2010 (and Puerto Rican-born voters in Central Florida likely voted for Scott in 2010 and 2014 as well, with “Newyorricans” from NY, NJ, CT, MA and IL voting as Democrat as they did in their original home states), but the numbers just aren’t there right now. Maybe after the 2020 Census there might be a chance, but Western Osceola and Southern Orange have not been trending in the right direction.
My problem with the FL-09 RAT vote sink is that it is not Democrat enough. When that state judge struck down the Jacksonville-to-Orlando black-majority FL-05 CD because it wasn’t compact enough (not because it went all the way to Orlando, but because it curved into Sanford!), the GOP Legislature should have taken the opportunity to redraw the FL-09 to be like 40% Hispanic and 30% black (by adding black Orange County precincts from the FL-05), making it a more efficient (and compact) RAT vote sink. It could then either split Jacksonville into two GOP-leaning CDs (the judge said that there was no need to have a black *majority* CD in North FL, so why not call the bluff and draw two 28% or so black CDs that vote Republican?), or else play it safe and have a black-majority CD run east-to-west from black parts of Jacksonville to Tallahassee and Gadsden County (with Gainesville thrown in there to boot) that would turn the FL-02 into a safely GOP CD (no way could Gwen Graham have won it without Tallahasee and Gadsden). Frankly, that’s J’ville-to-Gadsden CD is how the GOP should have started out, and dared the jduges to strike down an additional black-majority CD.
I’m cautiously optimistic that, later this year, SCOTUS will strike down the voter-approved AZ redistricting commission’s ability to draw congressional district lines because such system doesn’t permit the state legislature to draw congressional district lines (which duty is assigned to the state legislatures in the U.S. Constitution). When that happens, the FL legislature should sue to get that ridiculous “fair districts” constitutional amendment be declared inapplicable to congressional redistricting for the same reason. At that point, the legislature can redraw the CDs to its heart’s content, and we can get a 20R, 7D House delegation from FL.