Jacksonville: Yes on Amendments 5, 6: A welcome change

[Patricia M. McBride]

Bring on the lawsuits cause if they pass these, that is what we will have and judges will be doing the districting. Guess we better get rid of those guys on the supreme court heah?

No reasonable person is happy with the political redistricting process in Florida.

Every decade, the Legislature draws ridiculously shaped legislative and congressional districts in blatant - and almost always successful - attempts to get incumbents re-elected.

State Constitutional Amendments 5 and 6 attempt to correct this problem by saying districts must be at least somewhat compact and cannot favor any party or incumbent.

Also, "where feasible," districts must use existing city, county and geographical boundaries.

Contorted boundaries

That would be an improvement. Just look at the current districts.

Democrat Corrine Brown's wildly contorted 3rd Congressional District, for example, runs from Jacksonville to Gainesville to the Orlando area and back to Jacksonville.

That, says the Rose Report of Claremont McKenna College, leaves Brown with a strongly Democratic and mostly black constituency that voted 73 percent for Barack Obama in 2008 - one that always re-elects Brown by easy margins.

So many Democratic neighborhoods were pulled into Brown's district that adjoining ones, represented by Ander Crenshaw and Cliff Stearns, are heavily Republican.

And their districts are only slightly less bizarrely shaped than the one represented by Brown.

Why not just draw the lines as compact as possible and "let the chips fall where they may," as the amendments seem to require?

But it may not be that simple.

The amendments also prohibit new lines drawn "to deny racial or language minorities the equal opportunity to ... elect representatives of their choice."

That's a good statement of principle, but the wording is nebulous enough that it could be interpreted as meaning new district lines must not hurt minority candidates.

And it will be impossible not to hurt some minorities if the lines cannot be gerrymandered to help incumbents.

After all, some incumbents are minorities.

No perfect solution

If Crenshaw's District 4 borders are squared up, for example, that could push a lot of Republican voters into Brown's 3rd District.

No matter how the lines are drawn, critics argue, there will be a rash of lawsuits - and the boundaries ultimately will be decided through litigation.

But while no one wants taxpayers billed for a series of expensive and protracted lawsuits, ridiculously gerrymandered districts are poor public policy.

These amendments probably would make the districts a little less contorted - maybe a lot less so.

That is why we recommend that voters should support the reasonable Amendments 5 and 6.

[Patricia M. McBride]

Robert, this was the stance of the newspaper and is not my stance nor is it the stance of much of anyone except the leftist media. These amendments are supports by Soros backed groups, the unions, the ACLU and the NAACP. They are horrid amendments which will make it easier for election fraud to occur which is why these folks want them to pass and the TU is helping to that end as they are very liberal.

[Robert E Walters]

You may be right but when the NAACP and ACLU are supporting an amendment I have to ask myself "Why?"