State Sen. Bill Galvano tells Bradenton Kiwanis Club about redistricting, 2016 legislative session

State Sen. Bill Galvano tells Bradenton Kiwanis Club about redistricting, 2016 legislative session

BRADENTON -- State Sen. Bill Galvano, R-Bradenton, provided a candid and, at times, lighthearted look at the complicated redistricting lawsuit and a brief look forward to the 2016 legislative session at a Bradenton Kiwanis Club meeting Tuesday afternoon.

Galvano, majority leader of the Senate and chairman of the reapportionment committee that handled redrawing congressional and state Senate lines following legal challenges, compared redistricting orders from the Florida Supreme Court to a carnival game.

"I equated it to when you're at the carnival, and you win the ball game and knock down the pins, then the carnival guy says: 'OK, you can pick a prize but only one under here, not past here and within here,'" Galvano told a crowd of about 100 at the Manatee Performing Arts Center. "Then all that's left is a pencil eraser or something."

The Florida Supreme Court picked the congressional district map drawn by the League of Women Voters, who challenged the boundaries in the first place, over maps drawn by the House and Senate. Galvano testified in a redistricting trial last week, where David King, attorney for the League of Women Voters, said Galvano had purposely chosen a map favoring Republicans while Senate lawyers said the League of Women Voters drew maps favoring Democrats.

The map submitted by Galvano gave Republicans a potential three-vote majority, down from the present six-vote majority, but Galvano testified in court and reiterated Tuesday t they did not analyze that information when drawing the districts. He said it wasn't exactly fair to compare the League of Women Voters maps with the maps drawn by the Legislature, because the challengers could build on the submitted Legislature maps.

"They can always take what we've done and then make it a little bit better," Galvano said.

Galvano also said he disagreed with aspects of the "sterile court process" when it came to the maps, because the process didn't allow them to consider the likemindedness of people in districts, instead only relying cut and dried scores.

"It's more important that it follows a creek, or a power line or a city limit rather than drawing like people together. For example, my district right now, it's Manatee, southern Hillsborough, Hardee, Desoto, northern Charlotte, Glades and southern Highlands, and I love all those people," Galvano said. "And it breaks my heart that with this application that I'll probably lose those people in the center of the state. ... From my perspective, you're missing the human aspect of that."

Congressional districts have been decided, and an order on the new Senate district boundaries will likely come the second week of January before the Florida Supreme Court reviews it, Galvano said. That's when the 2016 legislative session will begin.

Galvano gave a brief preview on what people can expect to see there as well.

A water policy bill will pass the state Senate the first week of session, he said, which is expected to increase transparency, protect the Everglades and conserve Florida's water resources.

The Legislature came under fire last year after voters overwhelmingly passed an amendment to Florida's Constitution to dedicate state tax money to protect Florida's natural resources and much of the money went into existing budget items.

Galvano said people could also expect progress on the gambling compact, which regulates the Seminole tribe's running of banked card games, citrus greening, mental health treatment support, creating opportunities for children with special needs and reducing taxes on individuals and small businesses. Gov. Rick Scott has proposed $1 billion in tax cuts for Florida businesses.

Galvano said after four legislative sessions in 2015 -- only one of which technically fulfilled its intended purpose -- it was an important but challenging year. He said he spent 38 weeks in Tallahassee, much more than usual, concluding with the cross-examination over the Senate map last week.

"I will tell you, two and a half hours of cross examination on TV is not fun. It's not something I would recommend doing over the holidays," Galvano said, prompting laughs. "It was funny, at one point, David King goes: 'So you're telling me you're just lucky?' And I think, 'I'm sitting here, it's Dec. 16, I don't consider this very lucky.' But that's part of the process."

Kate Irby, Herald online/political reporter, can be reached at 941-745-7055. You can follow her on Twitter@KateIrby

This story was originally published December 22, 2015 at 5:39 PM with the headline "State Sen. Bill Galvano tells Bradenton Kiwanis Club about redistricting, 2016 legislative session ."