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Anger and skepticism: Coral Springs lawmakers spar over redistricting efforts

By Allison Beck
Panelists at the June 4 Coral Springs-Coconut Creek Chamber of Commerce luncheon, including Christine Hunschofsky (left), Chip LaMarca (center) and Tina Polsky, gave an inside look at Florida’s redistricting process.
Panelists at the June 4 Coral Springs-Coconut Creek Chamber of Commerce luncheon, including Christine Hunschofsky (left), Chip LaMarca (center) and Tina Polsky, gave an inside look at Florida’s redistricting process. Photos by Miami Herald staff

“You don’t get to change the rules in the middle of the game.”

That was the message from State Rep. Dan Daley during a panel discussion Thursday on Florida’s redistricting effort.

Members of the Coral Springs-Coconut Creek Chamber of Commerce listened — and sometimes applauded — as Reps. Daley, Christine Hunschofsky and Chip LaMarca, and State Sen. Tina Polsky discussed the state legislature’s biggest moves in the spring session.

According to the Bipartisan Policy Center, redistricting typically happens once a decade, following the decennial census. Districts are redrawn to reflect population data and create districts with roughly equal numbers of constituents for its allotted number of congressional seats.

“If you say that our population increased, that would mean that we should have more congressional seats. That was not what happened,” Polsky said.

She compared 2026 to the 2022 redistricting process, which she described as being more transparent.

“There were a ton of meetings and maps, there was a website,” Polsky said. “You had an opportunity to look at the area and discuss it with [mapmakers], because no one knows the area as well as we do.”

Redistricting this year split Coral Springs between two congressional districts and created others than span hundreds of miles and up to three counties.
Redistricting this year split Coral Springs between two congressional districts and created others than span hundreds of miles and up to three counties. Map via The Executive Office of Governor Ron DeSantis/ArcGIS

Committee meetings on 2022 redistricting began in summer 2021 and spanned the entire 2022 legislative session, from Jan. 11 until being signed into law May 4.

This year, the process took two days.

Daley said that the redistricting process was in violation of the The Fair Districts Amendments, which were passed by Florida voters in 2010.

“The governor’s staffer, who had drawn the map, testified: I used partisan data,” he said. “You don’t have to be a lawyer to understand that that was wrong. And yet, here we are.”

He tied it to national redistricting efforts encouraged by President Donald Trump.

LaMarca, who voted to pass the map, was the lone dissenter, downplaying redistricting’s impact on election outcomes.

“I think we wake up and we find out that the hardest-working, most-caring person who goes out to get your vote is representing that district,” said LaMarca, the lone Republican on the panel. “What determines the outcome of an election is how hard someone works.”

Daley expressed hope that the state Supreme Court will block the new districts going into effect.

Other panelists said it’s likely too late, though, after judges declined to put redistricting on hold.

Candidates have until June 8 to make it onto ballots for the August primary. Some contenders have already shifted their campaigns to new districts.

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