Redistricting measure heads to high court

Tallahassee Democrat

By Aaron Deslatte
CAPITOL BUREAU

It's official: Backers of a constitutional amendment to take a nuclear bomb of partisan politics away from Florida lawmakers have gathered the voter signatures to do it.

With Supreme Court approval, voters in November will be asked to set up a new way to draw district boundaries with a proposed constitutional amendment.

The Committee for Fair Elections wants to give the once-a-decade job of redrawing state legislative and congressional districts to an ''independent'' commission whose members would be appointed by Republicans and Democrats, along with the Florida Supreme Court's chief justice.

The theory is that they will draw fairer maps that don't load districts too heavily with one party's voters to make them uncompetitive in elections.

The group announced earlier this week it had collected 900,000 signatures - well above the 611,000 needed statewide. And now elections officials have certified that signatures have been gathered from enough geographic regions of Florida to qualify the amendment.

GOP warns of gridlock

Republican lawmakers have hired lawyers to challenge the petition next month before the Supreme Court, which must certify it's not misleading and covers only one subject.

Critics - most of whom would lose clout if the amendment passes - have said it is misleading. Allowing Republicans and Democrats to appoint six seats each to the 15-member commission - and requiring 10 votes to pass a plan - would almost certainly lead to gridlock, because at least one partisan appointee would have to vote for the other side to pass anything. If the commission fails, the Supreme Court would draw the districts.

Rep. Dudley Goodlette, R-Naples, who was appointed by House Speaker Allan Bense to oversee the legal team challenging the amendment, said he felt they were on strong legal ground to argue the signature-gathering was misleading.

The committee originally tried to place three inter-related issues on the ballot, and Goodlette said voters were frequently presented with all three petitions bundled together and asked to sign all three without reading each one.

''The way in which it was presented is misleading to the people who signed it. And that's one of the issues before the court,'' Goodlette said.

Bense approved spending $50,000 to put GOP lawyer George Meros on the case. Republican state Sens. Charlie Clary of Destin and Jim Sebesta of St. Petersburg , as well as Democratic Sen. Al Lawson of Tallahassee , have challenged the amendment. And three Miami congressional Republicans - Mario Diaz Balart, Lincoln Diaz-Balart and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen - have joined them.

Ben Wilcox, who heads the Florida Common Cause organization behind the amendment, said its intent was clear.

''I think voters on both political sides are going to look at this say it should be done by an independent third party.''

Gay-marriage ban still short

Another amendment drive to write a gay-marriage ban into Florida 's Constitution is still well short of the signatures needed, although its backers have lined up significant resources to push it next week.

Florida4Marriage chairman John Stemberger said Friday that backers of his push had lined up 36 trucks and four airplanes to meet the Wednesday deadline to get amendments on this year's ballot.

By Friday, he estimated they were about 200,000 signatures short. Bankrolled by churches, religious organizations and the Republican Party of Florida, the group has trucks that will roll on Feb. 1 to deliver signatures to county elections supervisors, and four planes to get them to Naples, South Florida, Panama City and Jacksonville, he said.

''We call that 'Operation Pony Express,' '' Stemberger said.

Although lawmakers are toying with the notion of putting the issue before voters themselves this year, Stemberger said his group would shift focus to making the November 2008 ballot if they fail next week.LOCAL

Originally published January 28, 2006