Speaker 1: Let's start with some very important actually good news today, at least sort of
if the problem gets fixed.
A judge has ruled that Ron Desantis's new redistricting map in the state of Florida
is completely unconstitutional.
Not okay.
The lines are going to have to be redrawn.
And this is very good news because what was done in Florida was such a brazen attempt
to gerrymander to the benefit of Republicans.
And everybody tries to do it whenever they get the opportunity, they try to do it, there's
no doubt.
But this was so obvious and so brazen that we were.
If this wasn't stopped by a judge, then all bets are off.
So we have a very good report from Axios.
Florida judge says the Santos redistrict redistricting map unconstitutional.
A Florida judge on Wednesday struck down a portion of a redistricting map drawn by Florida
Governor Ron DeSantis and his staff.
A Leon County Circuit judge, Lane Smith, said.
I am finding that the enacted map is unconstitutional under the Fair District Amendment because
it diminishes African-Americans ability to elect the representatives of their choice.
A formal order is expected today or tomorrow to ensure the maps aren't used in November.
This is a key part, which is not only was this map found to be unconstitutional, it
can't be allowed to be used in November while a new map is figured out.
That's an absolutely critical element to this.
DeSantis plan dismantles the north Florida seat now held by a black Democrat.
The new maps DeSantis called race neutral make it harder for North Florida voters to
elect a black member of Congress in the fifth Congressional District, where nearly half
its residents are black.
So the technique that's used here is if you have, for example, in this case, a district
where you have a black Democrat and nearly half the residents are black, and you say,
well, this is this is a seat that, as currently drawn, is likely to be won again by this elected
official.
What you do is you split that district up and you put some of the black folks in one
Republican district and some of the black folks in another, so that in neither district
do they have a critical mass.
And in this way, you can take one or two seats.
And in fact, when we look at the map, the whole point of the map as drawn is to create
a whole bunch a whole bunch of easy Republican districts while making it very difficult for
Democrats to win.
And of course, if you're looking at this map, you will see that in southeastern Florida,
the Miami, etc. area, you have a number of of blue districts.
But these are maps that make it very difficult for Democrats to win anywhere else.
And part of the way that this is done is by using general demographic trends.
Black folks tend to vote more for Democrats than Republicans in Florida.
And you can you can use that to your advantage.
A Democratic aligned redistricting group joined voting rights and civil rights organizations
to file suit against this map the same day it was signed into law late last month.
And fortunately, because this doesn't always happen, it was adjudicated or evaluated relatively
quickly by the judge.
So, listen, nobody's surprised, right?
I mean, this is this is not only the expected outcome of Ron DeSantis deciding he was going
to redistrict and draw the maps himself.
This is this is a feature, not a bug of what they do here.
And the most important things here are, number one, that the judge ruled on this quickly.
But number two, that the judge is expected today or tomorrow.
Maybe by the time you see this clip, it will already have been done, not allow these maps
to be used in November.
And one of the other aspects of this is there is a sort of I don't want to necessarily call
it virtue signaling, but it's a sort of virtue signaling where many things that Ron DeSantis
has done have not been designed to stand up to legal scrutiny.
In fact, they were probably done knowing they wouldn't stand up to legal scrutiny.
The point here is to attempt a whole bunch of stuff to then be able to use it either
in his reelection campaign, which is getting going now.
DeSantis is up for reelection in November as governor of Florida, or it's theorized,
and the polling suggests that he may have a shot.
It's theorized that Ron DeSantis may try to run for president, starting with Republican
nominee in 2024.
And so, you know, opening Florida early to large sporting events when everything else
was shut down, as we were trying to figure out in 2020, what is COVID, how does it work,
how contagious is it?
All of these things he can use that the don't say gay bill, the event to commemorate the
victims of communism, I think it was called, which we talked about earlier this week, obviously
unconstitutional congressional maps.
A lot of this stuff isn't designed to stand up.
The legal scrutiny because it's not going to.
But it is designed to allow Ron DeSantis to take credit for it at some point later.
And it wouldn't be.
I would be shocked if he didn't do it either for his gubernatorial reelection campaign
or if he does decide to run for president in in 2024.
Now, just as an update, we've been very, very closely following.
What are the what are the betting odds when it comes to the 2024 Republican nominee?
And I actually am trying to find it.
I don't have it in front of me.
Where was this?
Ah, here it is.
Ron DeSantis continues continues to close in on Donald Trump.
And if we look now at last check, Ron DeSantis was roughly at $0.31.
Now it's $0.32.
So the whole point here is you now have to wager $0.32 to win a dollar on Ron DeSantis
being the nominee, meaning that the higher that number goes, the more likely it is that
DeSantis will be the nominee.
This is the closest it has been between Trump and DeSantis for as long as we've been tracking
these numbers.
And at one point, DeSantis was down at like 11 or 12 and now up to 32.
He has almost caught up to Donald Trump in terms of the betting odds.
We could also look at actual polling.
It's just not super accurate this far out necessarily.
And sometimes looking at betting betting odds gives you a little more information.
So that's the latest with the Santos and we're going to continue to follow it.