A Leon County judge declined to again hold in contempt political consultants involved in a lawsuit over redistricting, despite complaints from a coalition of voting-rights groups looking to have the state’s congressional districts overturned, reports the News Service of Florida.
Circuit Judge Terry Lewis instead simply referred hundreds of pages of contested documents back to former Supreme Court Justice Major Harding, who will review the documents to determine whether they are protected because of the consultants’ constitutional rights or because they reveal trade secrets.
The voting-rights groups say they haven’t been told enough about what’s in the documents to determine whether they should object to keeping them secret.
Lewis had already held consultant Pat Bainter and his Gainesville-based firm, Data Targeting, in contempt once in the dispute over the papers, which the voting-rights groups want to help prove that lawmakers improperly considered politics in redrawing the lines in 2012.
Lawyers for the coalition also noted a potential issue in the case: Former House Speaker James Harold Thompson, a law partner of Harding, has endorsed a brief at the Supreme Court backing up the Legislature’s contention that lawmakers should be shielded from testifying in the case.
More here.
