The Rose Institute at Claremont McKenna College has published another in-depth guide to redistricting, this time focusing on the Florida. With a non-partisan redistricting ballot measure in 2010, Voting Rights Act requirements, and the addition of at least one new congressional seat, the Sunshine State is expecting one of the most interesting redistricting battles anywhere in the country:

An initiative called FairDistricts will be on the ballot in 2010 proposing a constitutional amendment to restrict gerrymandering. It would require the legislature to draw compact districts that conform to pre-existing political and geographic boundaries. Currently the only restrictions on redistricting in the state are that all districts must be contiguous and the map must follow federal law and the Voting Rights Act. (…) If the Fair Districts initiative passes, it will leave control of redistricting in the Legislature’s hands but impose significant restrictions on how it can draw the lines. The degree of that control will almost certainly be the subject of multiple post-redistricting lawsuits.

In addition to the legal and constitutional issues, Florida is also a very diverse state, politically, ethnically, and geographically. The Rose Institute report delves into all these factors, in every major region of the state. It’s well worth a read.

For a primer on how Florida conducts redistricting, a state-by-state fact sheet is available over at Redistricting Facts.