The Redistricting Process Gets More Political

On Tuesday, the Manatee County Commission voted to advance two draft maps for redistricting, one designed by the consultant the county hired and another one that board chair Vanessa Baugh claims to have drawn. Let’s take a moment to read between the lines.

As I detailed in my last column on the subject, there is a lot to parse in the redistricting process, which is done once every ten years following the national census. Populations need to be fairly evenly distributed among the districts and community and natural boundaries are to be used as much as possible. Our county’s growth, which has overwhelmingly occurred within two of the five districts, complicates that, as does district 2, which must grow in population, but is a so-called minority district, which the Voting Rights Act prohibits from being redrawn in a way that would make it less likely to have minority representation.

In other words, it’s a tough job even before politics enter the equation, and, let me be clear, regardless of what commissioners will say publicly, the process is all about politics. Developers do not spend millions of dollars buying majorities on county commissions in Manatee and Sarasota counties to sit idly by while the process of how easy or difficult that will be in the future is determined–and largely by officials that they themselves put in office.

In Manatee County, there really isn’t a two-party system. Aside from district 2, which was essentially created so that a Black Democrat could win a seat, Democrats are primarily frozen out from county races by the broadly Republican population outside of the urban corridor. There’s often an R and a D contesting most races, but it stands for team Republican or team Developer, and lately, the developer who has increasingly been driving the political playbook in Manatee County is Carlos Beruff.

Beruff pulled off a major coup in 2020 when all three of the candidates he backed through traditional means and/or dark money PACs–George Kruse, Kevin Van Ostenbridge, and James Satcher–all rode his dollars into victories. Ever since gaining even greater influence than he already had (and he had a lot), the developer has been increasingly involving himself in non-development matters, regularly lobbying commissioners on matters from personnel to policy.

With board chair Vanessa Baugh having already come into office on developer money in 2012, the four commissioners have largely managed to get Beruff everything he's wanted, including the firing of former county administrator Cheri Coryea. Ever since, he seems to be targeting Republican commissioners Carol Whitmore and Misty Servia, each of whom refused to go along on the Coryea issue, their pro-development voting history notwithstanding.

At the last redistricting meeting, commissioners seemed to agree to advance several of the draft maps presented that day to the county’s consultant who was to make minor modifications for the purpose of ensuring that any statutory compliance issues that might have been present upon closer inspection could be cleaned up. However, Baugh apparently drew a new draft map that wound up among those debated on Tuesday.

This set off a back and forth between Baugh and Servia, with Servia suggesting that the minor changes to an existing map that were made by Baugh essentially did little more than draw in a single community that also happened to house someone who has apparently made it very clear that they planned to challenge her for the District 4 seat.

Baugh clutched her pearls and responded with indignation–as if the architect of Vaccinegate would ever do such a thing–but let’s unpack this a bit. First of all, it does seem highly unlikely that Baugh drew the map herself, especially since, at the last meeting, she submitted a brand new map during the meeting itself. In that case, it seemed much more likely that someone had sent it to her during the meeting, probably the same person who drew that map she submitted just ahead of Tuesday's meeting.

If you remember back to the famous meeting in which Van Ostenbridge moved to fire Coryea just days after having been seated, Baugh submitted a clunkily worded draft ordinance–seemingly meant to give the board the ability to remove then chair Whitmore ahead of the reorganization meeting–that she struggled so much in reading, it was nearly impossible to imagine her having written it. Despite eight years in office and a staggering degree of confidence in her own abilities, Baugh remains one of the least knowledgeable commissioners when it comes to anything procedural.

I don’t know who the potential candidate in question is, but, if I had to guess, I’d say that the map presented by Baugh on Tuesday was crafted by a political operative and at Beruff’s direction. The irony in this, of course, is that Servia is arguably the most pro-growth commissioner on the board. As a private sector planner, she did a lot of work for Beruff and while he hasn't supported her politically, many other commercial and residential developers throughout the state have.

But Servia is a true believer when it comes to growth and development, which is to say that, unlike Beruff's recent charges, she's not a rubber stamp who'd likely be indifferent if a paycheck weren't involved. I rarely agree with Servia on growth issues because we have extremely different takes on sustainability and what government should and shouldn't do when it comes to policies of growth management.

Because I have always believed that sustainable growth and its management is the single biggest issue our county faces, it never ceases to surprise me how often I seem to be siding with Commissioner Servia. But once Beruff, the single biggest threat to sensible growth policies, demonstrated that he was no longer content to get everything he wanted in his realm but essentially wanted to run the county itself via surrogates in government, it became clear there was indeed a bigger threat.

Anyone who follows the county commission can see that board members have become dumber and more ethically bankrupt with each passing election. Despite our differences on what I'd now call the second biggest issue our community faces, Servia is highly-intelligent, extremely hard-working, and can be generally be counted on to vote her conscience, which is way more than the kingmakers will tolerate these days. And while the new guard has become increasingly partisan and at times even suggested that they represent their supporters more so than all of the county's citizens, Servia has been one of the most open and engaged commissioners I've covered.

In an era when most elected officials would rather hammer on culture war issues and never talk about policy, Servia goes out of her way to encourage public participation and debate on all matters the board governs and has fiercely resisted the tactic of partisan distractions. She responds thoughtfully and sincerely to constituents of all political stripes and genuinely seems to consider their input, even when she disagrees with their position.

At Tuesday's meeting, Van Ostenbridge, Kruse, and Satcher came off as fairly dispassionate about the specifics of the maps, although they banded together to ensure Baugh's draft was at least one of two that will be presented to the public for feedback before the board makes its selection.

Barring any last-minute audibles, it seems that the board will select from the two drafts in question, one crafted by a professional, another by a politician, or, more likely, a surrogate. As such, it will be interesting to see where those other three ultimately come down. While Kruse is a countywide commissioner and therefore has no district, Satcher has to give up territory and Van Ostenbridge must take more on, so they'll have their own future fortunes to consider, but it seems likely that the guy who writes the big checks favors the one submitted by Commissioner Baugh.

Dennis "Mitch" Maley is an editor and columnist for The Bradenton Times and the host of ourweekly podcast. With over two decades of experience as a journalist, he has covered Manatee County governmentsince 2010. He is a graduate of Shippensburg University and later served as a Captain in the U.S. Army. Clickherefor his bio. His 4th novel, Burn Black Wall Street Burn, was recently released and is availablehere.