FL: Victory for democracy!!! DoJ gave pre-clearance to REDISTRICTING

[AmBlue]

This just now arrived in my e-mail and I don't see it posted here anywhere yet. This is a great victory for voters in Florida, but as it says, our legislators will continue to use our tax dollars to fight us. Un-freaking-believable..... so this is QUITE a sweet victory (for now).
____________________________________

We wanted you to be the first to know that the Justice Department has approved the FairDistricts Amendments. This is great news because it clears the way for full implementation of the new redistricting standards.

Your FairDistricts Amendments have now been approved by the Florida Supreme Court, by the Justice Department, and of course, overwhelmingly by the voters of Florida.

This is your victory - borne of your commitment to fairness in Florida government and your hard work.

Congratulations! I'm thrilled to share this moment with you.

While this is a setback for those who oppose FairDistricts, we know that the Tallahassee politicians will not stop their attempts to continue drawing districts to favor themselves and their political allies. So we cannot rest on this latest victory. We cannot rest until Florida's districts are drawn fairly and approved in court. We need the resources to continue to stand up for the fair districts we have all fought so long and hard for.

Please help us continue in this fight.

Best Regards,
Jackie

Jackie Lee
Executive Director
FairDistricts Now, Inc
www.fairdistrictsnow.org

:toast: :bounce: :party: :patriot: :toast: :bounce: :party: :patriot: :toast: :bounce: :party: :patriot: :toast: :bounce: :party: :patriot: :toast: :bounce: :party: :patriot: :toast: :bounce: :party: :patriot: :toast: :bounce: :party: :patriot: :toast: :bounce: :party: :patriot: :toast: :bounce: :party: :patriot: :toast: :bounce: :party: :patriot: :toast: :bounce: :party: :patriot: :toast: :bounce: :party: :patriot: :toast: :bounce: :party: :patriot: :toast:

[FLAprogressive]

1. Awesome news!!1

[Snoutport]

2. Yay! Florida democracy needs every win it can get!

[AmBlue]

3. You can say that again, snoutport...

It's been a long time since I've felt anything worth rejoicing for down here.

[Mojorabbit]

4. I can't believe we have a win! nt

[AmBlue]

6. ...and I can't believe someone just unrecc'ed this

The problem with ALL those that oppose this law is that they are saying--plainly and simply-- that they no longer believe in democracy. It's ALL and ONLY about winning, no matter the cost, no matter the collateral damage.

When did we stop believing in democracy (with a small "d") in America? I want to know. Show your cowardly, un-American face and explain that to me!!

[Tiggeroshii]

5. Hmm... So does this only make criteria for redistricting, or does it actually

...give an independent panel to draw the districts as well? Either way it certainly seems to be quite an improvement from the traditional gerrymandering!

[AmBlue]

7. It leaves the drawing of the districts to the legislators.

However, it requires that they draw them in normal, contiguous shapes, like rectangles and squares. No more amoeba-like monstrosities that snake and stretch all over the place. Here is the actual text of the bill:

"The legislature at its regular session in the second year following each decennial census, by joint resolution, shall apportion the state in accordance with the constitution of the state and of the United States into not less than thirty nor more than forty consecutively numbered senatorial districts of either contiguous, overlapping or identical territory, and into not less than eighty nor more than one hundred twenty consecutively numbered representative districts of either contiguous, overlapping or identical territory."

[individual rights]

8. I thought that "amoeba-like" districts were created to help minority candidates.

[AmBlue]

9. Um, no...

It's called gerry-mandering and it's what politicians do when THEY pick their voters, rather than the VOTERS picking their legislators.

Our state has more Ds than Rs, yet our legislature is wholly-controlled by the Rs. Gerry-mandering has been very successful in our state. The VOTERS want it to stop. NOW.

[individual rights]

11. Hmm...this minority congresswoman from Florida would disagree...

http://jacksonville.com/opinion/blog/403455/david-hunt/2010-05-25/corrine-brown-taking-redistricting-court

[AmBlue]

12. The people of this state have spoken.

And she's just trying to get re-elected. People trump politicians. Get it?

[individual rights]

13. Oh, I get it...even so, if the new districts result in the loss of minority seats,

the DOJ will surely have a closer look.

[quaker bill]

14. Actually that is the whole point

Minority seats in FL are created by draining all the surrounding districts of democrats. The minority districts will be +25 to +30 for dems and the surrounding districts will be at least +5 to +10 for republicans. In short they spend the as many dem votes as they can re-electing small numbers of dem incumbents by huge margins so the rest of the seats are safe for republicans. It has gotten worse with each redistricting cycle, this is why the ammendment passed.

If it is done correctly, I have no doubt that some dem incumbents, Ms. Corrine Brown in particular, will be faced with a very competitive race for a change. In general, voter registration and distribution suggests that there should be parity to dem majorities in both houses of the state legislature and that the congressional delegation should be even to slightly dem favorable. This is not the result we have been getting. Done right some people will lose their seats on both sides of the aisle, and a great many more will be at risk of losing any election. Overall this favors dems and more progressive candidates. It does not necessarily favor minority candidates.

That said, I am unclear what use it is to ethnic minority communities to have a small handful of elected legislators on the wrong side of a republican supermajority. There is no effective representation in this, they might as well stay home, the results would be the same as there is not even enough of them to deny a quorum, even if they all stayed home. Having a seat at the table is nice, being able to speak once there is much, much better

[AmBlue]

16. If it favors Ds then that is because we have a majority of Ds in FLA.

But it should be noted that this bill had strong bi-partisan support. People of all political stripes are sick and tired of the lopsided playing field in this state. Consequently, once this bill is implemented many incumbent seats will indeed be challenged and Corrine Brown's is no exception. That is what democracy and term limits are all about, is it not? The majority should rule. And I agree with what you said quaker bill, the R supermajority would-- generally speaking-- nullify any and all D efforts to legislate in the current arrangement, so what good does it do for one D to cling so tightly to her seat when the rest of the state is so horribly gerry-mandered?

The voters of Florida did not set out to protect any one single politician or party or group's seats in putting this issue on the ballot. And we certainly did not set out to disenfranchise minority voters. Fairly drawn districts will result in fairly elected legislators and a more pragmatic balance of power in Tallahassee that better reflects the sensibilities of Florida voters, regardless of what party is in the majority statewide. In the service of democracy (with a small d), our main concern should not be electing a D or an R at all costs, but rather having elections that serve the voters and that reflect and serve the overall needs and demographics of our state.

Apparently, the Department of Justice agrees.

[quaker bill]

18. agreed with one quibble

I do not care for term limits. The voters should be free to elect anyone they like as often as they want to.

I supported the ammendment and was happy to vote for it and happier yet to see it prevail. I favored hometown democracy too, but the Chamber and Home Builders assn. took care of that.

It takes an absurd level of gerrymandering to get the disproportional representation we have in such an evenly balanced state. That is what we have and it is well past time to change it.

[AmBlue]

19. I agree with you as to the number of terms.

Voters should be able to re-elect whomever they wish, as often as they wish-- especially if they are a particularly effective and capable legislator. What I was referring to is the length of any elected official's given term which is what gives the people the opportunity to replace them when they are not doing their job well.

I hear you on the Hometown Democracy effort and heartily agree. We'll have no natural lands left in Florida at this rate and poorly-planned development too boot. By they time the cretins in control are finished with our poor state, there will be no one left who wants to live here. I sure do miss Governor Graham! I'd even be happy as a clam right now if we could have Charlie Crist back. (now watch me get flamed!)

[quaker bill]

22. There is alot of land in conservation

but I expect to see some of it "surplussed" pretty soon.

[toddwv]

10. A great step, unfortunately

politicians are REALLY good at skirting the intent of laws.

[sixmile]

15. The republics will fight to the death to prevent this -

Gerrymandering is the only reason they have a majority in the Florida legislature. The State is more Democrat than republic and they have drawn the existing districts for their advantage only. Hopefully it will stop, but I'm not that optimistic.

[AmBlue]

17. I think they have met their equal. The voters are equally determined.

The Florida Supreme Court, Department of Justice and the media have overwhelmingly sided with the voters on this issue as well. I know there is still a fight ahead, but these are all very encouraging signs. Why do you think Rick Scott and the R majority in the legislature are cutting early voting short and making it harder for voters in our state to get to the polls? They can't win by majority vote, so they settle for disenfranchisement attempts. It's the epitome of arrogance and is beyond sickening that they use the voters' own tax dollars to fight the explicit wishes of Florida voters that is now Florida law. Sadly, we are seeing these types of disenfranchisement efforts play out in more states than just Florida (a la Wisconsin). Intentional disenfranchisement is despicable and antithetical to democracy itself.

The voters of this Florida are determined to enforce this law, and I think we're going to win.

[SoCalDem]

20. I'd love to see a computer make the districts

based purely by population and then let the chips fall where they may...R or D.

Politicians should not be able to tweak their districts so they can keep their jobs. It should always be about the people who live there..

[backscatter712]

21. It's not so easy to make a sane algorithm to do that.

I've played around with some simple software (I don't remember where I found it), though the example I use is Colorado, where the population is centered mostly along the Front Range of the Rockies, from Fort Collins, through the Denver metro area, down through Colorado Springs, and finally Pueblo.

Create a computer program that chops the state into districts based solely on population, and the first thing the computer will do is draw a line straight through the Front Range, chopping Fort Collins, Denver, Colorado Springs, and Pueblo in half.

Drawing district boundaries takes into account things like keeping population centers together, trying to put boundaries on natural boundaries such as rivers or mountain ranges, in some cases, keeping minorities from being screwed by ensuring they're not packed or cracked unintentionally (or doing what they do in Illinois and creating majority-minority districts that are shamelessly gerrymandered, because the locals in those areas want it that way), perhaps putting in things like compactness requirements (which are designed to discourage creation of "spider" or "moose-antler" districts).

There's sophisticated software being used as we speak to create districts, however, that software (Surprise surprise surprise!) takes into account voter political affiliations and is explicitly designed to gerrymander.