Redistricting: A chance to change a broken system in Florida

Al’s Loupe

Redistricting: A chance to change a broken system in Florida

By Alvaro F. Fernandez
alfernandez@the-beach.net

State Senator Mario Diaz-Balart strangely decided to take a step backwards in his political pursuits in the late 1990s and ran for state representative, a position he had already held in Florida. The reasoning became crystal clear after the 2000 census. Because of the growth in population, Florida would be adding two congressional seats in 2002 and the state House of Representatives was charged with drawing the new congressional maps — as required by law every 10 years after the census count. As a new state representative, but oddly, with seniority, former Senator Diaz-Balart was tapped to head the committee in the state House running redistricting and charged with drawing the new maps for Florida’s congressional delegation.

As foreseen, two new congressional districts were added, one in South Florida and the other in Central Florida, around the Orlando area (where the districts ended up was a decision charged to the Diaz-Balart committee). Eventually running and winning the first election for the two new seats in the U.S. House of Representatives were (drum-roll, please) Diaz-Balart in South Florida (in a district drawn to perfection… by him) and Tom Feeney in Central Florida. Feeney, by the way, was the Speaker of the Florida House who had appointed Diaz-Balart to run the redistricting committee.

Some would refer to this political maneuvering as more of the corruption we’ve become accustomed to here in Florida. Strangely, though, it is (and was) not. It is perfectly legal under the rules of a congressional redistricting system built to assure that incumbents stay in power (and become almost impossible to beat) and that the political party in power stay that way, even when the numbers tell you that there should be more democrats holding office, for example, as can be pointed out here in Florida.

I tell you this story because voters in Florida have a chance to change how redistricting is being done in the state beginning immediately after the next census. Below I have reproduced a Miami Herald editorial which explains how a nonpartisan organization, Fair Districts Florida, plans to untangle this mess we call redistricting. Interestingly, the organization’s chairman is a well-known republican attorney and former state legislator. But most interesting is the fact that civil rights groups, black legislators, and many Hispanic leaders have endorsed the proposed referendum in 2010 as a possible step forward in how politics is done in Florida. The only members of a minority community NOT on board are the South Florida Hispanic legislators who, except for one, are all of Cuban descent or the sons and daughters of Cubans. They are also all republicans.

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TAKE BACK DEMOCRACY

A Miami Herald editorial

It’s no wonder a group of legislators last year tried to quash a state petition drive to reform how Florida redraws its congressional and legislative districts. The drive threatens lawmakers because it would put an end to the blatant gerrymandering that protects incumbents and the political party in power at redistricting time.

The legislators suing to stop the petition lost — deservedly so. The petition challengers were Republican. But there is little doubt that if the Democrats controlled the Legislature they would have tried to stop it, too. It’s all about keeping political power.

Now voters have a chance to take democracy back and get a fair system of representation.

The goal of the drive, sponsored by the nonpartisan FairDistrictsFlorida.org, is to obtain 676,811 legitimate signatures by Feb. 1, 2010, to put two constitutional-amendment proposals on the ballot that year. The group’s campaign chairwoman is Miami lawyer Ellen Frieden, a Democrat who served on the 1997 Constitutional Revision Commission, where redistricting reform failed to gain final approval. Chairman of the group is Tallahassee lawyer Thom Rumberger, a former Republican legislator who participated in the 1992 redistricting battle and later vowed to change it. The FairDistrictsFlorida.org petition is worth signing. It may be Florida voters’ only chance at having more candidates in congressional and legislative races that truly reflect the state’s growing political diversity.

Based on census

The U.S. Constitution requires states to redraw their federal and state lawmakers’ districts every 10 years, using new U.S. Census data. There’s a good chance that Florida will get one, maybe even two, new congressional seats after the census next year, so the stakes are even higher for proponents and opponents of reform.

The people who stand to lose or gain the most in the redistricting reform battle are Floridians, who in one sense don’t get to choose their representatives. Instead, incumbents choose which voters to put in their contorted districts to ensure reelection.

Florida’s Constitution requires only one thing when lawmakers redraw district lines — that they be contiguous, meaning district borders must be complete, no gaps. Other than that, lawmakers can slice and dice the state’s communities into as many pieces as suits their political goals. And they do.

This explains why Fort Lauderdale, with a population of 180,000, is cut up into four congressional districts that literally put people living across the street from each other in different districts. Winter Park, population 29,000, likewise has four Central Florida members in Congress.

Little in common

It explains why state Senate District 27 includes both the cities of Palm Beach and, 112 miles away, Fort Myers, whose residents have very little in common besides being Florida residents of coastal communities.

In terms of equity, it explains why, though Florida’s registered Democratic voters slightly outnumber Republicans, the Congressional Delegation is two-thirds Republican and the Legislature is overwhelmingly controlled by Republicans.

Two amendments

Though 20 percent of the state’s voters are registered as nonaffiliated, there are no independent representatives.

Republicans were in charge when the districts were redrawn in 2002 — but Democrats would have done whatever it took to protect their party if they had been in power, too.

What to do to stop the political gerrymandering? The language on the two proposed constitutional amendments in the petition points the way:

• Congressional and legislative districts may not be drawn with intent to favor a party or incumbent.

• Districts must maintain the equal opportunity of minority communities to elect representatives of their choice and participate fully in the political process.

• Districts must be contiguous and to the extent possible compact and adhere to existing local boundaries.

• Districts must be roughly equal in population.

If approved, these amendments would have several salutary effects. They would enshrine the voting rights of minority communities in the state Constitution, as they now are protected in the U.S. Constitution. They would make it much harder to manipulate redistricting to serve any special interest other than the voters’ good.

Skeptics — and there are plenty — will ask how to stave off political manipulation. It will require vigilance on the part of voters. Since the Legislature — rather than a commission appointed by lawmakers (as has been proposed in the past) — would do the redistricting, the process would be open to public scrutiny. If it appeared that lawmakers were trying to rejigger districts to protect incumbents or a political party, they would have to justify it under the above criteria.

If lawmakers persist in trying to gerrymander, the proposed districts can be challenged in court, where judges would have clear criteria, based on voters’ wishes for fair districts, upon which to decide what is constitutional. In the 2002 redistricting litigation that challenged the Legislature’s political gerrymandering, plaintiffs said the districts weren’t compact or community based. The Florida Supreme Court rejected the challenge because compactness and community-based boundaries weren’t ”constitutionally required.”

Passage of the two redistricting amendments would correct that oversight.

Florida voters’ rights are at stake — as is Florida’s future well-being. Our elected representatives make the decisions that will determine our children’s quality of education, Florida’s economic growth, the protection of natural resources and a host of other vital issues.

Floridians must have the right to select these decision-makers knowing that each of their votes counts equally — and hasn’t been lumped into one district simply to protect an incumbent — when deciding who will lead them into the future. Redistricting reform can guarantee that right.

http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/editorials/story/1106190.html