Posted on 07/12/2014 2:06:48 AM PDT by nickcarraway
Last night a circuit court judge in Florida voided the state's congressional map, citing a "secret, organized campaign" by Republican operatives that "made a mockery of the Legislature's transparent and open process of redistricting." The ruling concluded that District 5, held by Democrat Corrine Brown, and District 10, held by Republican Dan Webster, will need to be redrawn. From a purely practical standpoint, this means redrawing any surrounding districts as well, and possibly many of the state's 27 districts overall. "If one or more districts do not meet constitutional muster, then the entire act is unconstitutional," Judge Terry Lewis wrote.
The ruling is something of a barn-burner, and well worth a read. Lewis opens it up with a quote from George Washington warning of "cunning, ambitious and unprincipled men" who will "subvert the power of the people" and "usurp for themselves the reins of government." Below, three big takeaways.
1. Half-measures won't solve the gerrymandering problem
In 2010, Florida voters attempted to fix the issue of partisan gerrymandering by passing two amendments to the Florida Constitution that became known as the Fair District amendments. The amendments limit -- but do not eliminate -- the state legislature's discretion in drawing district boundaries, by forbidding districts drawn "with the intent to favor or disfavor a political party or incumbent."
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Yep! One of Lawton’s boys! FSU grad to boot! And, now this decision? Three strikes!
Your proposal makes sense - except it still gives too much leeway to these pukes. They have proven, with this one district, that they are not to be trusted, and need to be SEVERELY restricted in what they can do.
Maybe give them a ratio of 16 - and let them sweat trying to make it work.
With your idea, there would have to be a coastline/natural boundary adjustment.
BUMP!
BUMP!
BUMP!
Also, Lewis overturned a 1999 law requiring that parents of minors be notified 48 hours before their daughters have an abortion."
Voting Rights Act. Check it out.
“In Miller v. Johnson (1995), the Court explained that a redistricting plan is constitutionally suspect if the jurisdiction used race as the “predominant factor” in determining how to draw district lines. For race to “predominate”, the jurisdiction must prioritize racial considerations over traditional redistricting principles, which include “compactness, contiguity, [and] respect for political subdivisions or communities defined by actual shared interests.”
This says the opposite of what you claim.
The original act stated that a state could not redistrict in such a way as to dilute a community’s vote. Nowhere does it say that there must be a safe minority district.
Exactly what do you think these districts are for ? They’re explicitly drawn for the purposes of electing a Black (or Hispanic, in some cases) member. Any attempt to substantially dilute or break up said districts is forbidden (as per the VRA, Justice Department, et al). Several states, including Florida, must have the maps submitted to Justice in order to assure they meet said requirements.
I’m not entirely clear on what you’re specifically arguing here. In the case of Corrine Brown’s seat, the FL legislature can’t simply “undraw” it. I thoroughly disagree with the so-called “fair districts” initiative, since it interferes with the right of the FL legislature to be able to exercise its duty to draw a partisan map that benefits the majority (as it is already partially hamstrung by the VRA/Justice requirements to draw the aforementioned Black (Dem) districts).
The Feds shouldn’t even have a say in approving/disapproving lines, unless there’s a gross violation of the number of individuals residing from one district to another (i.e. 500,000 in District A, 800,000 in District B, 400,000 in District C, etc). I personally oppose the VRA, since it explicitly favors the voting rights of one racial group at the expense of another. I live in a legislative district under the VRA, and as a non-Black Conservative, I have no representation whatsoever, and my vote is worthless.
I stated that there is no federal law requiring a safe district for - i.e. guaranteeing a win by - a minority.
There is no such law. This district in Florida violates the act, and specifically violates the ruling I mentioned.
Yes,not only can Florida undraw it -they must, according to the law.
That district was not drawn to assure the election of a black person, it was drawn to include as many blacks as possible in one district, thereby diluting their influence in other districts...which is expressly against the law.
This is shoddy, underhanded, despicable politics at its worst. This was drawn up by a rotten sack of scum buckets.
Your opinion of the duty of the legislature is skewed, and clearly displays what’s wrong in all this.
It is NOT their duty to draw districts to benefit the majority. It is their duty to draw reasonable, cohesive, and logical districts - they have misused that responsibility to benefit the majority.
Someone needs to get that appealed and fast
Well, in this instance, the law and the judges are correct - the greasy, slimy politicians are completely wrong.
Just look at the district, it screams “shady dealing!”.
Did they have their primaries yet?
If they redraw the districts, won’t they need new primaries?
You bring up a good point - I would assume a redrawing must wait until after the elections this year.
But electing a Black Dem (in a Black district) is the intent, let’s not be naïve here.
As for our disagreement on the purpose of the FL legislature, let’s also not be naïve... If the GOP legislature doesn’t aggressively and mercilessly not draw the lines to benefit and keep a majority, no one else will. Anything involving “fairness” or “independence” with respect to redistricting are codewords for “screw Republicans.”
Don’t believe me ? Look at California or Arizona. Arizona is a majority Republican state. Votes GOP for President, for the statewide offices, for the legislature. When the movement to take the line-drawing away from the legislature was pushed through, the so-called “Independent” body proceeded to draw a 5 Democrat-4 Republican House delegation for 2012. This is outrageous, since it should be 7 Republican-2 Democrat. It was 5R-3D prior for 2011-13, with our just coming up short of winning 2 more of those 3 Dem seats.
Living in a state where the Democrats had their proverbial foots on the neck of the emerging Republican majority (and even AFTER we established a voting majority, maintaining a Dem majority on a minority of the vote) for 140 years, I have absolutely no qualms that the legislature must act aggressively to keep the radical left at bay and to maintain their authority to be able to draw said lines.
If I could get away with drawing 27 districts in FL that looked like shredded paper strips from Key West to Pensacola to maintain an overwhelming majority for the GOP, I’d do it in a heartbeat.
BS, that's what White democrats say. Spread the Blacks out to elect 2 White democrats instead of a Black democrat and a Republican. The federal voting right acts would actually prohibit decreasing the Black % in Brown's district under a certain point. That's is a good thing. A GREAT thing actually, it helped us win many seats in the South back when democrats drew all the lines down there.
Florida's "fair redistricting" ballot initiative is BS that was pushed by the democrats. Packing democrats of whatever color into safe rat districts, leaving a majority of seats majority Republican, is the ONLY logical and patriotic thing for Republican legislators to do. This is WAR. Democrats use whatever means necessary, so must we. Super-majority Black districts are a GREAT thing for us politically, however uncooth you find them. And the Blacks like them too, because they known damn well Blacks don't win the democrat primary in districts without a high Black population. White democrats are the ones that are unhappy, they want their plantation back.
This judge is targeting GOP Congresswoman Webster for partisan reasons, he's the "rotten sack of scum bucket".
Then you would be just as wrong as the dems you complain about.
I don’t know the judge’s motivation, but the district in question leaves the gop vulnerable - there is no justification for such a district, and they were scum bags for drawing it like that - regardless of what was done by anybody else in the past.
I have no reason to support the r-rats over the d-rats; they’re both rats. This kind of crap is done by rats, and either kind of rat is destroying the country - don’t kid yourselves.
That’s your opinion. Either play hardball with a party destroying this country: show no mercy, or let them roll over you. You can’t play fair or nice when the opposition has no rules, only to cheat, steal, win at any cost.
Mind you, I don’t couch this in terms of Democrat vs. Republican, but in terms of Constitutionalist/Pro-Freedom vs. Anti-American/Anti-Constitutional/Fascist-Communist tyranny. We already know one party is the enemy, and I favor just as equally running out the collaborationists in the GOP that share the opposition agenda.
Well I do, he's a liberal dimmycrat, as this link indicates. His former law partner is full of it when he said "It's hard to put a position on politically where he stands". He also has terrible grammar, the law partner.
His motivation is therefore crystal clear. I thank god he didn't get to decide the 2000 election.
While it's not scientific, I don't like his face, he looks like a lib j*g-off to me.
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