Miami should have more commission districts for fairness, not fewer of them

Magistrate says city gerrymandered new boundaries

A U.S. federal magistrate recommended earlier this month that the city of Miami toss out its new districts — finalized last year after weeks of heated meetings, multiple changes, and the objections of many residents — because they were gerrymandered by racial lines to keep the current candidates in office.

The temporary injunction prevents the new districts from being used in November’s elections, but the city still has until Saturday to respond and then the group that sued — led by the American Civil Liberties Union — have until May 19 to respond before a judge makes a final decision.

So what is Commissioner Alex Diaz de la Portilla‘s fix? Scrapping the district elections and going to citywide groups — something both he and other commissioners agreed during the redrawing process would lead to five Cuban Americans on the dais.

On Thursday, the commission asked consultant Miguel DeGrandy, the same guy who drew the maps now flagged as invalid, to come up with alternate maps — including one that has no districts at all.

“Once we eliminate single-member districts, then all of Miami is Miami,” Diaz de la Portilla said. “It’s a city, and everybody can vote, and pick their commissioner, group one, two, three, four and five, and then there’s no debate about where the lines are drawn.”

And, of course, nobody will care whether he lives in the district or not anymore.

Ladra has a better idea: Draw in two more districts. Going from five to seven districts shouldn’t be so hard and will have the additional benefits of (a) representing more people at a local level and (b) providing a commission that is harder to buy off.

Miami is the 44th-largest city in the U.S. and the core of the nation’s eighth-largest metropolitan area. But cities of comparable size normally have more districts and more electeds.

Atlanta has a population of 498,715, or just about 30,000 more people than Miami. But Atlanta has 15 city council members — 12 elected in districts and three at large. Long Beach, California, just a little smaller than Atlanta and a little bigger than Miami, with a population of 466,742, has nine district council members. The city of Oakland, which is a little smaller than Miami, with 440,646 residents, has seven district council members. The city of Tampa, pop. 384,959, also has seven districts.

Of course, Diaz de la Portilla might have an ulterior motive.

ADLP is facing a tough re-election this year in a district that (a) either doesn’t know him or (b) is disgusted by him. Although he beat Miguel Gabela in the 2017 runoff in a 61% to 39% vote, he’s gotten lot of negative headlines since then. There was the ghost employees, the missing COVID gift cards, the shake up at the Omni CRA, the infighting with Commissioner Joe Carollo, the car accident he didn’t want to be named in — and that he successfully got his girlfriend’s name off the report. And Ladra is certainly forgetting something.

Meanwhile, his brother has run and lost in two races — one for county commission and one for judge.

Las malas lenguas say de la Portilla has polled — he certainly has the money for it in his political action committee, which collected $633,000 in just the last two months — and that it doesn’t look good for him in District 1. So he wants to try for citywide.

Ladra is not sure why. He couldn’t win a county commission race in District 5, which includes all of the downtown and Brickell. The people in the city’s District 5, largely the black community, aren’t gonna vote for him. Neither are the people in District 2, especially the Coconut Grove residents who still remember how he carved their community up to retaliate against former commissioner Ken Russell.

So is he looking to Districts 3 and 4, Little Havana and Flagami, to save him?

Hopefully, Commissioners Sabina Covo and Manolo Reyes — who are facing elections in November as well, but with much friendlier voters — don’t think this is such a good idea.

Miami should have more commission districts for fairness, not fewer of them added by Ladra on May 12, 2023
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