TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — “I can hear the moans.’‘
That was the lament of Sen. Darryl Rouson, a 66-year-old Black Democrat from St. Petersburg on Wednesday as the Senate voted to pass the congressional redistricting map that is expected to reduce Black representation in Congress.
A lawyer and son of educators, Rouson said, “I don’t consider the governor a racist” for demanding a map that protects fewer Black voters for the first time in 30 years when the state has more congressional districts than ever but, he added, “there is no explanation” for a policy that will hurt people.