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Florida redistricting amendments sail through
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — Voters approved two amendments Tuesday that would set new rules for how legislative and congressional districts in Florida are redrawn each decade.
Amendment 5 dealt with legislative districts, while Amendment 6 addressed U.S. congressional districts. With 98 percent of precincts reporting, voters affirmed both amendments with more than 62 percent of the vote. The amendments required 60 percent of voter approval to pass.
The battle over the amendments pitted several of Florida's best-known black and Hispanic lawmakers against advocates who said the current methods create gerrymandered districts that protect incumbency. Gerrymandered districts have contorted or unusual shapes. They are created to get particular voters into a district, whether for racial, economic or political reasons.
Until Tuesday, Florida's only redistricting requirement was that districts be contiguous, or share a common border.
The new amendments require that both legislative and congressional districts be compact, equal in population and make use of existing city, county and geographical boundaries. The amendments prohibit drawing districts to favor or disfavor an incumbent or political party.
Similar efforts had failed in Florida three other times.
"I really think that it has something to do with the mood of the people who are tired of the hyper-partisanship that they're seeing in politics today," said Ellen Freidin, campaign chairwoman of FairDistrictsFlorida.org, the group leading the push for the amendments. "Those who voted for them ... recognized that they didn't want politicians to continue choosing their voters and rigging districts for their own political gain."
Some black and Hispanic lawmakers, led by U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown, D-Fla.,had argued that the new standards could threaten Florida's six congressional districts where blacks and Hispanics are either in the majority or close to being in the majority.
Brown didn't return several phone calls Tuesday night but she said last month that she would challenge the amendments in court if they passed.
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Comment by Patricia M. McBride on November 4, 2010 at 4:04pm
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Yup. She is just the gift that keeps giving, isn't she? Go gattas :). Since we have a president and a number of other black Americans who have gotten elected on their own in regular districts, why on earth does she need special treatment?
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Comment by Tracy on November 4, 2010 at 3:55pm
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Did you see this? Corrine filed a lawsuit
http://www.firstcoastnews.com/news/mostpopular/news-article.aspx?st...
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It didn't do much for me Tracy. I think a great deal is at risk for our state. There is a battle going for democrats to control our state (along with Texas as they are bastions of conservative support as well). I was appalled at how close we came to having a governor that would favor the Obama health care bill.
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Wow ! this makes me sick...
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Already have something from the republican party that is worrisome of the situation. Here it is:
"I am very distressed about the passage of Amendments 5 and 6. Floridians don't seem to understand what they have approved.
While waiting in the "green room" at a local TV station at 6 am this morning, my
Democrat counterpart told me she was "thrilled" with the passage of these amendments. She said that "Nov 2nd will go down as the end of Republican rule in Florida". She said that in the 2012 elections the entire State Legislature and every county government will be remade to be "fair" and Democrats will control at least half of every governmental body. She thought the Amendments were more significant long term to "fairness" in Florida than Democrat candidates winning yesterday's election.
If she is right, some of our individual candidates may have won their last victory yesterday. As things stand now, I predict that the Florida Supreme Court will end up drawing district lines that will make our work significantly more difficult in 2012.
The campaign season is too late to educate issues and principles. We must discuss issues and principles with our citizens year round. Citizen Education must become a major tenet of the ongoing campaign process.
We must insist that our elected Republican officials conduct themselves in accordance with our stated principles. They can't use our good name and rely on our dedicated campaign support during elections and then turn away from our principles after they are elected.
I want to learn what we can do better next time. I will be available to hear your suggestions on Monday, November 8th at 6 pm at the Jacksonville Beach Republican Office on 3rd Street and on Thursday, Nov 11th at 6 pm at the Republican Headquarters on Beach Blvd at the Emerson St overpass. Please come with ways we can make things better."
If you want to be involved in this discussion, the 2 locations and dates are listed. I will most certainly be at the discussion at Beach Blvd. headquarters. This is something that must be addressed from this day forward and can't wait until a week before the elections of 2012. Personally, I think there has to be a way to uncover snowbirds that vote here and vote in their actual home of record, and I am adamently against Corrine or any other minority person getting to keep their district if the rest of us lose anything that passes for "fairness". I already have a state senator that won't even respond to anything anything period.
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I know.I was so hoping that we could drop at least 2 of the horrible judges.What the heck were people thinking? And the amendments 5 and 6 ,I thought Corrine would be jumping for joy at that opportunity.If she is really serious about challenging it,I would shockingly have to support the effort I guess.I'd rather keep the old system and know which of the parties that are doing the redistricting than have the people pretend to be"non-partisan" as in the case of judges.
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Of course, we didn't manage to get rid of the liberal judges on the supreme court, and since no matter how the redistrict is handled, the liberals are going to drag it into court trying to get lines drawn that favor their party (the democrats). That is what amendments 5 and 6 were all about (getting more democrats elected or taking over the state of Florida........if these were so good, they would do them in every state and not JUST Florida). So, the supreme court of Florida will most likely be doing the redistricting and with the current make up of the courts, it won't be good for the majority of people in the state but suspect it will favor the democrats even though it is supposed to be a non-partisan redistrict. Just wait and see what the arguments are; it won't be considered fair until only democrats can win.
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Don't know.That's why I was puzzled.
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She is fighting any change to her district and is using her skin color which at this point, with a black president, does seem a bit nutso. Also, many black representatives running in non gerrymandered districts won, so where is her logic?
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Wow Corrine was against this?
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