It's time to tackle dirty little secret of politics
Scott Maxwell | TAKING NAMES
March 18, 2009
If you live in Orlando and find it annoying that your "local"
representative in Congress lives 140 miles away in Jacksonville, listen
up.
If you're tired of getting ballots that don't offer you any real choices,
pay attention.
And most importantly, if you think voters should pick their politicians
— rather than politicians hand-picking their voters — I've got
good news for you.
It is time to rise up and reform!
Right now, politicians get to draw their own districts most any way
they want. And boy, do they.
They've turned this state into a psychopath's jigsaw puzzle, with misshapen
legislative and congressional districts that split communities in two
and can be longer than 100 miles and yet as narrow as a few hundred yards.
It's all designed to stifle competition and stack the deck before you
even get to the polls.
Want proof that our current districts are distorted and contorted? Well,
consider the following about these U.S. House members:
- Republican John Mica lives more than 130 miles from many of the residents
he represents. Much of the congressman's district is actually in Flagler
and St. Johns counties. In fact, just about the only part of Orange
County included in Mica's district is the swath of land around his Winter
Park home.
- Democrat Corrine Brown's long and narrow district, stretching from
Orlando to Jacksonville, is so stacked with Democrats — by a margin
of 3-to-1 — that a Republican would have a better chance of getting
elected president of MoveOn.org.
- Republican Ginny Brown-Waite's 5th District is so big and unwieldy,
she could drive 250 miles and visit only seven of the eight counties
in her district.
Thanks to carefully drawn lines, not a single congressional or legislative
incumbent lost a re-election bid in 2004.
So why are our districts so whacked-out?
Because politicians played games with them.
Just ask Tom Feeney. He was state House speaker the last time the Legislature
drew new districts. And surprise, surprise: Feeney's peers decided to
create a new district — right around Tom's house.
But the controlling party did more than just gift-wrap Feeney a congressional
district that year.
It also stuffed so many Democrats into Brown's district that there were
enough Republican voters left over to give GOP candidates the advantage
in all of the others. Even though Democrats outnumbered Republicans overall
in Central Florida, Republicans outnumbered Democrats in five of the six
Central Florida districts.
Both parties at fault
Both parties have tried to play these games.
Democrats used comparable moves back when they ran the show. And it stunk
then, too.
"It happens in dark rooms at night with the computers," said
Thom Rumberger, a Tallahassee attorney and Republican Party patriarch
who was once part of the system he now wants to reform. "Both sides
do it. That's why I'm trying to make this an issue of fairness rather
than partisanship."
That's also why Rumberger is leading a bipartisan coalition that wants
to give voters the chance to vote on fair-districting as a constitutional
amendment next year.
The premise of the amendment: Florida's political districts must be compact,
using geographic boundaries that can't be stretched far and wide for political
purposes. And if legislators ignore residents' wishes and try to do themselves
political favors, they could end up in court.
Who fought change?
So who's fighting the effort to inject common sense into our democracy?
Well, in the past, you did.
At least your tax money did. That was thanks to then-House Speaker Allan
Bense, who devoted $50,000 in taxpayer money to a successful court fight
to keep an earlier version of the amendment off the ballot.
Fortunately, the fair-district proponents persevered. And now they're
back.
Rumberger is sure they'll have opposition again — possibly from
lobbyists who will "empty their pockets" to do anything nervous
incumbents ask.
But even the slickest of campaigns will have a tough time persuading
voters to reject fair-districting. This common-sense approach to democracy
is way overdue.
For more information on this movement and the petition needed to get
the fair-district amendment on the ballot, visit fairdistrictsflorida.org.
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