Democrats’ Sneaky Plans in Florida Redistricting

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the only thing that is going to begin to solve this problem is describe exactly what we expect in an area district. That is four straight sides except where a defining obstacle such as an interstate, river, or national park is used as one of the lines.
anything that permits districts to be drawn based on any other consideration other than head count is inherently discriminatory to someone. therefore it should not be done. lets face it folks, as long as some other consideration is permitted to be involved, some political group Will use it to gerrymander the proceedings.
we need to go ahead and demand a straightforward system based on something this simple. my 12 year old son doesn't understand gerrymandering, but he does understand a simple straightforward idea based on representing people, not democrats, republicans, skin colors, other national identities, and so on.

eric ward of FL 4:54PM October 27, 2010

This statement about "a recent study" is misleading. The studies have shown a couple interesting points. Daniel Loeb from MIT showed that Amendments 5 and 6 are contradictory and would lead to political gridlock as the legislature and courts tried to implement that which cannot be implemented. The professor from UMich showed that mandating compact districts does not necessarily create competitive districts, albeit that professor did not delve into the other contradictory issues in 5 and 6...he was primarily focusing on that one point. An interesting book to read on the subject is "The Big Sort."
Your statements about Amendment 7 are simply not true, and just a bunch of rhetoric from newspaper columns. Amendments 5 and 6 don't factor in traditional redistricting principles like "communities of interest" (look at Miller v Johnson and about 24 State's redistricting laws), and 5 and 6 fail to strike the necessary balance for drawing minority districs. Amendment 7 simply attempted to create process that did these two things and allowed for balancing of the standards. FairDistricts' Chairperson, Ellen Freidin, testified repeatedly to the Legislature that the Legislature would have to "balance" the principles in 5 and 6, but then in court her attorneys characterized this notion of "balancing" as a evil. That's what actually happened. Listen to the Legislature's podcasts and then watch the Amendment 7 Supreme Court trial replay on the Florida Channel's website, and you'll see that is the way it happened.
Lastly, the Florida Constitution already gaurantees there is litigation on the state legislative plans, and additional both the state legislative maps and the congressional must go before US-DOJ. There will certainly be litigation, so that is not the issue. The issue is that there is no way to fully comply with the amalgamation of standards in 5 and 6, the way they are laid out. Therefore, there is an open door to any kind of litigation, regardless of how well intended the maps may be drawn.
The question then comes down to whether the courts decide that a best faith effort from the Legislature, where they tried to comply with all the standards for all districts, is reasonable. If the courts take an absolute position on the Amendments, there is no way to comply, and then we have maps drawn by 7 judges who are not elected and do all their deliberating behind closed doors.
How do you both not favor, nor disfavor, an incumbent or political party? How do you protect every minority district and not violate the first question about incumbents and political parties? How do you draw compact districts and not boot some of the minority elected office holders? How do you draw districts that match city boundary lines and do so compactly? The answer is you will violate Amendments 5 and 6 many times over, all in your efforts to comply with 5 and 6.
Get a clue!

Mookie of FL 11:41AM October 19, 2010

For what it's worth, a recent study determined that Amendments 5 & 6 would not materially change the makeup of the Florida legislature.
Also, I find it interesting that the writer of the piece on this issue failed to mention Amendment 7, which the Florida Supreme Court removed from the ballot.
That one, pushed through by the Republican-dominated legislature, is a much better example of sneaky tactics than 5 & 6. Amendment 7 was advertised as an attempt to clarify 5 & 6, but in fact it would have removed several protections against gerrymandering.
Finally, I agree that passage of the redistricting amendments would result in litigation. Presumably there would be even more than there already is after the district lines are drawn every 10 years. But don't think there aren't already court challenges. It seems to me, what would change would be the playing field when these battles erupt, as they always do.

George of FL 12:36AM October 19, 2010

If your inbred ass had bothered reading it, you would have known that Jeb Bush's wife, Columba, was from MEXICO! See how easy it would have been to prevent yourself from looking like a complete moron.

Jeb 2012 of FL 7:48PM October 18, 2010

You want to come down here and see what the congressional districts look like? Absolute mess.
Florida gets a bad wrap for a lot of things, most of it warranted. That being said, when Jeb Bush was governor married to a Cuban, Republicans didn't rule down here and manipulate things?
No party is better than the other. They each lobby in their best interests to the extent they can do what they feel is right. No crying about it.

Corey W of FL 7:38PM October 18, 2010

George,
I liked your response, and it presented some points. While I agree with some on on 5/6, I do not agree with all of them, and again, I think some important points have been overlooked. Here are some of my thoughts, and I would love hear comments and counterpoints.
- Is the language of 5 & 6 misleading? Being as controversial as there are, amendments 5 & 6 have already made it to the FL Supreme Court, and they ruled that the language was not misleading. As the court ruled against earlier attempts by this fairdistricts group to put this gerrymandering measure on the ballot, I'm inclined to believe that iterative process has generally improved things.
- "Intent" to favor or disfavor and incumbent or party...yeah...that one's gonna be hard to prove. I agree with your friend that there's a lot of ambiguity to that one, and it would be difficult to prove things here.
- With respect to contiguity and proportional populations, your friend is also correct in stating that these are already requirements. She fails to mention that more concrete measures (i.e., compactness, use of existing county lines, etc.) that amendments 5/6 add are not current requirements under the FL constitution. I think 5 & 6 help here.
- Your friend raises concerns about minority language in the amendments, but I think something is missing. Issues relating to minority access to voting go back to the voting right act of '65, and with respect to that, I'm a little surprised that your attorney friend did not mention the recent US Supreme Court decision involving redistricting in NC. Specifically, the NC constitution was at odds with the VRA, and the court ruled in favor of the NC constitution (feel free to research yourself for more details), saying that the VRA only applies to districts with a + 50% minority voting block (& crossover districts don't count). While it was not included in your post, your friend lists concerns about gerrymandering to create "majority-minority" districts, and the combination of this ruling with amendments 5 & 6 (e.g., use of county lines) directly challenges the use of gerrymandering for this purpose. That is why there is a divide between past leaders of the NAACP and the current position taken by the NAACP.
- As a parting comment, if you genuinely believe that "Corrine Brown is against 5 & 6 because they make it harder for her to get re-elected", I think you have to admit that this is happening because those amendments are doing what they are designed to do about her gerrymandered district.
I have tried to address what I could in a limited space, but I would greatly appreciate others commenting on or raising counter points to what I have mentioned. It's great way for me to continue learning about these issues.
Respectfully,
~Tom

Tom of FL 6:49PM October 18, 2010

Corrine Brown is against 5 & 6 because they make it harder for her to get re-elected. She's had that seat for 18 years, that's more than enough. I met the guy running against her, Mike Yost, and he has my support. www.Yost2010.com
One of my friends is an attorney and had a great write up about these amendments on her blog:
http://www.sunshinestatesarah.com/2010/10/my-thoughts-on-this-years-amendments.html
...The problem is that...these amendments don't actually fix the problems they claim to address. In fact, it is my opinion that the ballot language is fraudulently misleading on 5 and 6 and leaves out some very crucial information. The end result will be significantly more litigation, and the decision making power removed from our elected officials and instead transferred to non-elected bureaucrats and judges.
One of the most important missing words in the ballot language (but present in the actual full text of the amendments) is the word "intent." The full language of 5 and 6 forbids drawing districts with the "intent" to favor or disfavor an incumbent or political party, or with the "intent" to adversely affect minority voting rights. This requires an attempt to read the minds of those drawing the districts and divine some sort of malicious purpose.
The reality is that no matter how we draw our districts, whether we impose a square grid over the entire state or let a blindfolded chimpanzee draw the lines, it will benefit one party or candidate more than another, even in the absence of any "intent" to do so. Amendments 5 and 6 do nothing to reform our redistricting process and instead just open up additional arenas for litigation, most dangerously through the potential arguments over what "intent" was present during the process.
Districts are already required to be contiguous, and proportional in population. The U.S. Constitution, the Florida Constitution, and many, many federal and state statutes already forbid racial discrimination or interfering with someone's right to vote based on race. And what precisely constitutes a "language minority"? Will all dialects of Spanish be treated the same? Will this amendment be interpreted to require ballots be printed in every language we can identify as currently spoken by a Florida resident? We have a large Hispanic population in this state, and providing bilingual ballots increases access for a lot of people, but how expensive and cumbersome will it be to also print those ballots in French, German, Polish, Swahili, Greek, Farsi, and (for all the Borat fans) Kazakh?
More troubling, what does it mean to deny minorities the "opportunity" to elect a representatives of their "choice?" Isn't the act of voting itself how people elect a representative of their choice? ... Personally, I've always been a big fan of judging people based on the "content of their character, not the color of their skin" as MLK Jr. encouraged.

George of FL 3:11PM October 18, 2010

The "Spendocrats" motto!

Havahavana of CA 2:13PM October 18, 2010

In Florida, you are correct in stating that democrats "generally" favor the redistricting measures. This is not true, however, for all democrats. One of the exceptions to this involves congressional district 3 that snakes into Jacksonville, Gainesville, and Orlando. The representative from this gerrymandered district is a democrat, Corrine Brown, who is quite vocal in opposing the redistricting measures (see Protect Your Vote campaign).
You also state that this measure is only being pushed in a state that you say is "arguably republican" (it's probably more of swing state). While you are true in citing a lack of legislative initiative in certain blue states, you have missed California. In 2008, it passed a proposition (#11) that was intended to address gerrymandering, and opponents of that already have a new proposition (#27) that is intended to repeal the first initiative. Gerrymandering is an issue in all states, not just one that are red (e.g., Texas) or blue (e.g., New York).
When district are gerrymandered, incumbents generally win elections. For example, roughly 3 out of 420 Floridian incumbents lost elections in the last 6 years (and this has been fact checked by Politifact), and this makes the representatives less accountable to voters. Regardless of party affiliation, whoever has power will most likely oppose attempts to limit power. I think each state should have laws on the books that attempt to limit gerrymandering, and that is the goal of Amendments 5 & 6 in Florida.

Tom of FL 1:50PM October 18, 2010