but its target is
not hetrogenous voting districts with slim republican majorities.
This time it's about The State Boundary and its target is Florida's resources.
St. Pete Times Editorial:
Any boundary extension based on common sense would put Tract 181 mostly, if not entirely, under Florida's jurisdiction. But the map Nelson's office obtained from the Interior Department shows
Louisiana's redrawn line jutting at a 45-degree angle into Florida's side of the Gulf, putting most of Tract 181 inside Louisiana's new seaward boundary.
...
Hypocrisy and trickery are nothing new to Congress or the Bush administration. And Florida's other senator, Republican Mel Martinez, has made it even easier to pull off this chicanery. Martinez says he cut a deal with Norton to keep oil rigs 100 miles off Florida in exchange for his vote to drill in the arctic. Tract 181 lies beyond the 100-mile line, so Martinez saved nothing except his reputation for being an easy dupe for the Bush administration.
emphasis added
Here is a map of the area,
courtesy of fact check.
As you note from the map, that the 87°30' is the western boundary of Florida. This north-south line will be cut if "Louisiana's redrawn line jutting at a 45-degree angle into Florida's side of the Gulf" is redrawn.
Unfortunately, these boundaries at sea have little or no actual defined boundaries. As is the case in Florida's counties. Where loose definitions of 'perdendicular to the shore to the 3 nautical mile state line' can provide interesting exceptions, as in the case of the eastern boundary between Franklin and Wakulla Counties. This is an 'armpit' so to speak and literal interpretation would have multiple counties co-owning tracts of sea.
Now we have states contesting the boundaries of ownership past the 3nm boundary to the EEZ, 197 miles away, in another armpit example. For a second forget what Florida has to say about Lousianna stealing its sea. What does Mississippi and Alabama have to say about getting pushed aside too.
Here's a Republican geography lesson. If you do not like a geographical boundary, just redraw it. Good thing we have software to make it quick and easy.