Gerrymandering proposal axed - High court will let voters decide in '08

Gerrymandering proposal axed - High court will let voters decide in '08

March 24, 2006

Daytona Beach News-Journal (FL)

Initiative too broad, state high court says

By Aaron Deslatte

The News-Press Tallahassee Bureau

TALLAHASSEE -- The Florida Supreme Court on Thursday tossed out an attempt to strip politicians of the partisan power they hold to draw their own district boundaries.

Common Cause, a government watchdog group, had hoped to ask voters this November to give that power to a nonpartisan 15-member commission -- a change supporters argued would end the decades-old practice of gerrymandering political boundaries to keep Republicans or Democrats in power.

But the Republican-dominated Legislature, Gov. Jeb Bush, and congressional Republicans from South Florida had blasted the effort as a thinly veiled partisan attempt to regain seats for Democrats.

By a 6-1 vote, the Supreme Court ruled the amendment dealt with too many subjects and could mislead voters because the appointed commission members would have partisan biases of their own.

The once-a-decade job of drawing new districts following results of the federal census has provoked bitter legal and political fights in the last two decades, as incumbents have tried to strengthen their re-election chances and minority-party members fight to undermine them.

In 1992, Republicans sued to have the Democratic-drawn maps thrown out, and Democrats returned the favor in 2002.

Critics of reapportionment say it has created a political landscape where incumbents rarely ever lose re-elections.

But House Speaker Allan Bense, a Panama City Republican who devoted $50,000 in taxpayer money for legal fees to fight the amendment, said the current partisan redistricting process has worked for both parties.

Supporters of the amendment, which include former Democratic Sen. Bob Graham, former education commissioner Betty Castor, and some Republicans, predicted the ruling would give them guidance for how to re-craft the amendment to meet Supreme Court muster.

"The court has given us a road map on how to construct an initiative that would be approved," said Ben Wilcox, executive director of Common Cause Florida .

Common Cause's national arm in Washington devoted much of the $2.8 million raised for the race to collect 611,000 voter signatures to put the amendment before voters.

Wilcox said his organization and others would continue to push for redistricting reform, but was unsure if he would have the same financial backing.

"If there are any losers, it's the people of Florida losing the opportunity to take power away from the politicians," he said.

The court ruled the commission would still be partisan, because Republicans and Democrats in the Legislature would have power to name 12 of the 15 members to the commission.

Justice Harry Lee Anstead was the lone dissent, but he authored no dissenting opinion.

Thom Rumberger, a co-chair of the Committee for Fair Elections group and a GOP lawyer during the 1992 redistricting fight, predicted the issue wouldn't fade away despite the ruling and redistricting defeats at the polls in California and Ohio .

"People don't get the opportunity to pick their candidates or participate very clearly in the democratic process," he said. "It's an idea whose time has come."

Author: Aaron Deslatte

Section: National

Page: A2

Dateline: Tallahassee