Amendment 7 - Changes in Redistricting to Preserve Minority-Access Districts

*** BULLETIN: AMENDMENT REMOVED FROM BALLOT ***

Florida Supreme Court upholds lower court

Government watchdogs and voting rights groups have long argued that the redrawing of state and congressional political boundaries every 10 years is wrought with politics as the majority party attempts to craft districts that favor its candidates. Numerous attempts to make the process fairer have fallen short.

But in early 2010 a group called FairDistrictsFlorida.org gathered enough signatures and obtained the required judicial approval to have two amendments placed on the ballot.

Those amendments, assigned numbers 5 & 6, would require that political boundaries be drawn compactly and not favor any candidate or political party in congressional or state races.

Calling the proposals unworkable, leaders of the Republican-led Legislature responded several months later by crafting Amendment 7, which they said would complement Amendments 5 & 6 by allowing other factors to be taken into account when drawing the district boundaries.

Backers of Amendment 7 said it would help preserve minority-access districts, but critics argued that it was nothing more than an effort to confuse the voters. They said it was written in a way that would effectively override the intended benefits of Amendments 5 & 6 if all three measures passed.

Opponents filed suit in circuit court, arguing that the amendment was misleading. A judge agreed on July 8, striking the measure from the ballot. That decision was appealed to the state Supreme Court, which heard arguments Aug. 18. The court on Aug. 31 upheld the lower court ruling, striking the proposed amendment from the ballot.

Read the amendment here.

History
The U.S. Constitution requires states to use new U.S. Census data every 10 years to redraw their federal and state lawmakers' districts. Each decade, the boundaries of congressional, state house and state senate districts are redrawn. This was originally intended to ensure that districts are roughly equal in population.

The state Legislature approves redistricting plans, which means the political party that controls the Legislature controls redistricting. No matter which party has control of the Legislature, that party's main goal is to protect its majority and its incumbents in the drawing of new district boundaries. This is called gerrymandering, a term that dates from 1812 and originated with Elbridge Gerry, a Massachusetts politician given to political maneuvering.

While Gerry was in office, his party drew a district shaped like a salamander to ensure his political party won election. In Florida, too, gerrymandering results in oddly shaped boundaries. For example, Fort Lauderdale, with a population of 180,000, is cut into four congressional districts that literally put people living across the street from each other in different districts. Winter Park, population 29,000, has four Central Florida members in Congress. And state Senate District 27 ties together Palm Beach on the east coast and Fort Myers on the west, though the residents of those cities have little in common. District 55 is a narrow strip that starts in southeastern St. Petersburg, crosses the Sunshine Skyway bridge, snakes south through Manatee County and ends in Sarasota.

Though Florida's registered Democratic voters slightly outnumber Republicans, the congressional delegation is two-thirds Republican and the Legislature is overwhelmingly controlled by the GOP, a phenomenon critics say is partly a result of gerrymandering.

That is not to say that Democrats would not gerrymander. In taking Rebublicans to task for challenging Amendments 5 & 6, the Miami Herald said, "there is little doubt that if the Democrats controlled the Legislature they would have tried to stop it, too. It's all about keeping political power."

After the 2004 elections, Common Cause and others formed the Campaign for Fair Elections, which gathered signatures to place a pair of amendments on the 2006 ballot. One proposal created a 15-member citizens commission to draw the boundaries for legislative and congressional seats. The second would have required the commission to draw new boundaries for the 2008 elections. The initiatives died, however, when the Florida Supreme Court ruled that the 81-word ballot summary exceeded the allowable 75-word limit.

Supporters
Republicans in the Florida Legislature supported Amendment 7. The Legislature passed it on a largely party-line vote, with Democrats voting against the measure in both chambers. The amendment's supporters said Amendments 5 & 6 would actually harm minority representation.

Supporters also pointed to a 2009 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in North Carolina that political districts must maintain boundaries along county lines when more than 50 percent of the voters in that district are members of minority groups. Such restrictions, they claimed, would make the provisions in Amendments 5 & 6 difficult to enforce and would invite legal challenges. In addition, supporters said, the FairDistrictsFlorida proposals would harm minority representation by redrawing districts with less than a 50 percent minority voting-age population that traditionally elect minority candidates. All of that, supporters said, would make the provisions in Amendments 5 & 6 impossible to satisfy. It is impossible, they said, to draw a district that neither favors nor disfavors a particular candidate. Losers can always claim the district favored the victor.

Opponents
Most Democratic legislators, and a coalition of groups including the NAACP, The League of Women Voters, Common Cause Florida, the AFL-CIO and the Florida Education Association, contend that Amendments 5 & 6 are workable, are fair and need no further clarification. Minorities and other communities of interest can remain intact under Amendments 5 & 6 because they generally reside in relatively compact areas, they argue.

They point to language in Amendment 7 making it clear that the initiative targets Amendments 5 & 6 rather than complements them. The amendment reads, in part: "The state shall take into consideration the ability of racial and language minorities to participate in the political process and elect candidates of their choice, and communities of common interest other than political parties may be respected and promoted, both without subordination to any other provision of Article III of the State Constitution." The words "without subordination" mean the provisions in Amendment 7 can override those in Amendments 5 & 6.

Ellen Freidin, who spearheaded the FairDistricts movement, said putting a competing amendment on the ballot was an intentional ploy to confuse voters and retain control of the process. "They want to maintain their power to draw districts to favor incumbents and whomever they want to favor, or to knock out somebody who doesn't play by their game," Freidin said.

What they're saying

"This is the most arrogant, preposterous disingenuous attempt to thwart what the people of this state have already said by their signatures that they want." -- Rep. Janet Long, D-Seminole

"Amendment 7 is a sham. In placing it on the ballot, the Legislature wants the people to think it does one thing when it clearly does another. While FairDistricts Amendments 5 and 6 contain mandatory and enhanced protections for minority voters, Amendment 7 makes those protections optional. The potential impact of Amendment 7 on minority voters in the state of Florida is deeply troubling.” Adora Obi Nweze, President of the Florida NAACP

"These legislators claim that Amendment 7 is needed to ‘clarify’ provisions of the FairDistricts Amendments 5 and 6. But that claim is deceptive and false. They are just trying to hold on to their power. ” -- Deirdre Macnab, State President of the Florida League of Women Voters

"We had over a dozen meetings on the issue, and no one could even tell us how 5 and 6 worked.” incoming Senate President Mike Haridopolos

"Amendment 6 is riddled with inconsistencies and, if passed, would set unworkable standards in drawing districts.” -- Lincoln Diaz-Balart, R-FL

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