TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - <\/p>\n
The Florida Supreme Court on Thursday unanimously rejected a Republican political consultant's efforts to keep his redistricting records private, promising to give the public its first glimpse of documents that helped lead to the state's congressional districts being thrown out this summer. <\/p>\n
While different justices signed onto two separate opinions about the case, both found that Pat Bainter and his consulting firm, Data Targeting, Inc., waited too long to claim that releasing some of the documents would violate his First Amendment rights. <\/p>\n
The documents were requested by voting-rights organizations challenging the state's congressional districts. <\/p>\n
Writing for five members of the court, Justice Barbara Pariente used unusually harsh language to paint Bainter's efforts as part of a months-long stalling tactic as the battle over the congressional map played out in a Leon County court. <\/p>\n
\"We simply do not countenance and will not tolerate actions during litigation that are not forthright and that are designed to delay and obfuscate the discovery process,\" Pariente wrote. <\/p>\n
In the opinion, the court ruled that Bainter tried for months to keep the documents shielded without saying that releasing them would violate his First Amendment rights. Bainter only made that claim after a Leon County judge held Bainter and the company in contempt, Pariente wrote. <\/p>\n
\"By responding to the deposition questions and acknowledging discussions with other political consultants without ever revealing the true nature of those communications or asserting a First Amendment privilege, in conjunction with the failure to timely assert this qualified privilege after the deposition testimony and months of additional hearings, we conclude that Bainter waived his ability to later claim that the documents revealing these communications were privileged on that basis,\" Pariente wrote. <\/p>\n
Joining Pariente in the opinion were Chief Justice Jorge Labarga and Justices R. Fred Lewis, Peggy Quince and James E.C. Perry. In a separate opinion, Justices Ricky Polston and Charles Canady supported the outcome. It was a rare, unified decision from a court that has often splintered on redistricting opinions. <\/p>\n
The voting-rights groups, which include the League of Women Voters of Florida, argued that the Republican-dominated Legislature drew congressional districts that violated the anti-gerrymandering \"Fair Districts\" constitutional requirements, approved by voters in 2010. <\/p>\n
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