Okay, it turns out it isn’t obvious after all. So here we have a county which should have 5 senators by population, 4 of which are gerrymandered to be Hispanic and a fifth of which are black but you believe they do not want to let the blacks have a representative?

David realizing some things aren’t obvious to some
and are obvious but wrong to others

It doesn’t. It says “Meanwhile, Sen. Miguel Diaz de la Portilla said he would take his fight to create a fourth majority-Hispanic seat in Miami-Dade County to the Senate floor. Diaz de la Portilla, R-Miami, would turn the district represented by Sen. Gwen Margolis, D-North Miami Beach, into one where non-black Hispanics would comprise 66.2 percent of the voting-age population.”

So who does that leave? We turn to the 2010 Census to see
http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/12/12086.html

White persons, 73.8%
Black persons 18.9%
American Indian and Alaska Native persons 0.2%
Asian persons, percent 1.5%
Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander 0.0%
Persons reporting two or more races 2.4%
Persons of Hispanic or Latino origin 65.0%
White persons not Hispanic 15.4%

There’s just no way to give the Asians or Alaskan Natives a district no matter how hard they tweak things. Now, from above 4.5% of the Hispanics must be black or some other non-white group. Unless you absolutely carve out a district to be mostly white not Hispanic (and that would be racist so don‘t expect it to happen except by another of those strange senatorial coincidences), you’re most likely to make one which is majority black.

Hence my comment.

David of Celtic origins, hence not Anglo
explaining the obvious

As to ” “I believe that there are people all across the state of Florida that will be very, very deeply offended by the Florida Senate casting lots to make a decision,” said Sen. Ronda Storms, R-Valrico.” Ronda is correct but only because some people are probably offended that the sun rises only in the East, not giving the other cardinal directions equal time.

She might consider that the early Church cast lots to pick the replacement Apostle for Judas Iscariot, trusting in the Lord to make the bones come up the way He favored.

Acts 1:26
“And they gave forth their lots; and the lot fell upon Matthias; and he was numbered with the eleven apostles.“

(If I ever take up gambling, I’m going to justify it with the thought that if the Lord wants me to win, He’ll throw the game my way. Clearly He doesn’t want most people to win at gambling since most lose.)

As to whether the practice is illegal or not, simply let them exempt themselves from the laws applied to the rest of Floridians.

David for snake eyes