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All districts in all states should be drawn up by people that are either independent, centrist, or completely uninterested in politics.
All states' districts should be in a simple grid, the districts being a collection of squares (or rectangles, or circles, or triangles...) varying in size only to accommodate population variances and irregular state line borders.
did the ruling include public proceedings and disclosures for the newly drawn map including plaintiff input ?
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did the ruling include public proceedings and disclosures for the newly drawn map including plaintiff input ?
.
Yes, that was essentially why the ruling was made. It was proven that in the public proceedings, Republican operatives were playing the parts of "regular folks" and they were all backing the same plan they had drawn up themselves.
That goes directly against Florida's state constitution.
Personally, I think it should be federal law that says that political parties can not be allowed to draw their own maps because this kind of stuff happens on both sides.
We should really have an independent elections commission that takes census data and gives us congressional districts that are fair and proportionate. Some of these gerrymandered districts throughout the country make a total mockery of our democracy, as the judge said.
When Democrats are in charge during a census, they take the data and try to make it work for them and Republicans do the same, only the the GOP kind of went overboard 4 years ago and I think that's why it has made the issue come to a head.
Just as employers should have nothing to do with one's healthcare, political parties should not be in charge of creating the electoral map. It only encourages bad behavior.
did the ruling include public proceedings and disclosures for the newly drawn map including plaintiff input ?
.
Yes, that was essentially why the ruling was made. It was proven that in the public proceedings, Republican operatives were playing the parts of "regular folks" and they were all backing the same plan they had drawn up themselves.
That goes directly against Florida's state constitution.
Personally, I think it should be federal law that says that political parties can not be allowed to draw their own maps because this kind of stuff happens on both sides.
We should really have an independent elections commission that takes census data and gives us congressional districts that are fair and proportionate. Some of these gerrymandered districts throughout the country make a total mockery of our democracy, as the judge said.
When Democrats are in charge during a census, they take the data and try to make it work for them and Republicans do the same, only the the GOP kind of went overboard 4 years ago and I think that's why it has made the issue come to a head.
Just as employers should have nothing to do with one's healthcare, political parties should not be in charge of creating the electoral map. It only encourages bad behavior.
Legislative staff told not to discuss congressional districts - ABC-7.com WZVN News for Fort Myers, Cape Coral & Naples, Florida
Legislative staffers have been told not to discuss how new congressional districts are being crafted, as the House and Senate released schedules Tuesday for the upcoming special legislative session.
Senate Reapportionment Chairman Bill Galvano, while issuing a lip-tightening advisory, also Tuesday filed a placeholder bill (SB 2-A) for the new district lines.
....
just to elaborate upon your point, democrats received 1 million more votes than the GOP in the House. the fact that they are the majority is an obscenity.
The constitution is an obscenity in the mind of the leftist.
Ok, that was pretty stupid, even for your standards.
Righties love the Constitution. Oh, except for the parts they want to rip out of it when they are insanely butthurt, like the 17th amendment, maybe the 16th, and why in the fuck should women be allowed to vote, anyway? Dammit, it should be rich, WHITE plantation owners who vote, DAMMIT!!! Yepp, kill that amendment, too!
What are you babbling about?... Constitutional amendments are constitutional
the award for stating the unnecessarily obvious goes to.....The constitution is an obscenity in the mind of the leftist.
Ok, that was pretty stupid, even for your standards.
Righties love the Constitution. Oh, except for the parts they want to rip out of it when they are insanely butthurt, like the 17th amendment, maybe the 16th, and why in the fuck should women be allowed to vote, anyway? Dammit, it should be rich, WHITE plantation owners who vote, DAMMIT!!! Yepp, kill that amendment, too!
http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/house-races/214646-florida-republicans-propose-new-congressional-map
The new proposed maps, which are similar to current lines, would make Webster's Republican-leaning congressional district a bit more Democratic. The redraw would also shed parts of Rep. Corrine Brown's (D-Fla.) heavily African-American district to make it more compact and slightly less Democratic-heavy, along with making minor changes to five nearby districts.
Democrats will likely fight the new maps, though Republicans have the numbers to pass them. The legislature is likely to vote on the map on Friday.
Still, it's unclear at this point whether the judge will find the new map suitable and whether it can be in place for this election. The judge could rule that it's too close to the late August primary to decide them and potentially hold a special election.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2014/08/07/floridas-proposed-redistricting-redraw-looks-pretty-familiar/
another Florida sham in the makings.
This is a big story. A REAL big story, and one with some far-reaching implications:
TALLAHASSEE: Judge throws out Florida's congressional map - Florida - MiamiHerald.com
TALLAHASSEE -- A judge threw out Floridas congressional redistricting map Thursday, ruling that the Legislature allowed for a secret, organized campaign by partisan operatives to subvert the redistricting process in violation of the state Constitution.
Leon County Circuit Court Judge Terry Lewis ruled that two of the states 27 districts are invalid and must be redrawn, along with any other districts affected by them, to bring the map into compliance with the states new Fair District amendments.
The 41-page ruling, issued late Thursday, invalidates the entire congressional map and raises questions now about whether the map will be redrawn before the November elections or revised later. The case, brought by a coalition led by the League of Women Voters, is expected to be appealed and ultimately decided by the Florida Supreme Court.
Any change in the political lines for Congress would have a ripple effect on other races, though not until the 2016 election cycle.
Lewis rejected challenges to districts in South Florida and Tampa Bay, but said that District 5, held by Democrat U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown of Jacksonville, and District 10, held by Republican U.S. Rep. Dan Webster of Winter Park will need to be redrawn, as will any other districts affected thereby.
The judge agreed with the coalitions prime argument: that Republican legislators and staffers collaborated with political consultants to create a shadow redistricting process that protected incumbents and the GOP.
Judge invalidates two Florida congressional districts | Tampa Bay Times
Lewis drew no conclusions that House Speaker Will Weatherford, former House Speaker Dean Cannon and Senate President Don Gaetz were aware of the scheme, but he raised doubts that they were not in some way complicit. The judge detailed the involvement of Cannon's aide, Kirk Pepper, and repeated evidence that came out at trial about Pepper forwarding draft maps to GOP operative Marc Reichelderfer.
Lewis also noted that legislative leaders and the political operatives destroyed almost all of their emails and other documents related to redistricting and concluded that the circumstantial evidence surrounding all of those developments, and the evidence that the consultants attempted to influence the same districts he has found problematic, proved the GOP operatives were trying to influence the process.
"There is no legal duty on the part of the Legislature to preserve these records, but you have to wonder why they didn't,'' he wrote. "Litigation over their plans was 'a moral certainty' as their lawyers put it earlier in the case, and intent would be a key issue in any challenge."
Lewis tore apart the defense of the most controversial district in Florida's map District 5, a snake-shaped boundary that runs from Jacksonville to Orlando and was first drawn by a court 20 years ago when Brown was first elected.
Lewis said the changes made to the other district, 10, "benefited the incumbent Representative Webster" and violated the Fair Districts rules.
Lewis also raised questions about the decision by House and Senate leaders to ignore the potential political performance of most districts they drew and why they didn't concern themselves with the authors of publicly submitted maps.
Florida's electoral map in flux after court ruling | Reuters
"The court found that the Republican consultants made a mockery of fair districting and that there was a secretive, organized campaign, a shadow process of map-drawing," Macnab added.
The was the latest development in a protracted legal fight that began after the state House and Senate redrew Florida's congressional districts in 2012. Republicans control both houses of the state legislature.
"What is clear to me from the evidence ... is that this group of Republican political consultants or operatives did in fact conspire to manipulate and influence the redistricting process," Lewis wrote in the 41-page ruling.
University of Central Florida political science professor Aubrey Jewett said the ruling would bolster Democratic strength in the so-called I-4 corridor running across central Florida.
One prominent Democrat affected by the ruling, U.S. Representative Corrine Brown of Jacksonville, said the ruling dealt a blow to black voting rights. The judge ordered the redrawing of her congressional district and an adjoining Orlando-area district represented by Republican U.S. Representative Daniel Webster.
The plaintiffs who challenged the redistricting claimed that Republican legislators packed as many black voters as possible into Brown's district, which she was likely to win anyway, so that districts bordering on it would be more heavily white and likely to vote Republican.
Those districts include Webster's district in the Orlando area. Six of the seven congressional districts adjoining Brown's district are represented by Republicans.
A Florida judge just voided the state?s congressional districts. Here?s what you need to know. - The Washington Post
Lewis singles out the 5th District, saying it is "visually not compact, bizarrely shaped, and does not follow traditional political boundaries as it winds from Jacksonville to Orlando." Its finger-like appendage jutting into Seminole County "was done with the intent of benefitting the Republican Party." The 5th District was originally drawn in the 90s with the intent of creating a majority-minority district, and by extension a safe Democratic seat. Democrat Corinne Brown has held that seat since 1992.
But as I've described in detail before, when you concentrate minority voting power in one district, you necessarily dilute it everywhere else. You end up with district-level segregation: minority districts for minority voters. Judge Lewis notes this in the Florida case -- the appendage from District 5 going into Seminole County had the net effect of increasing the minority population in District 5, and decreasing it in neighboring District 7, making that district more friendly to Republicans...
...Democrat Corinne Brown, who's held the 5th District for more than 20 years, last night issued a blistering statement opposing the judge's ruling. As the Tampa Bay Times' Alex Leary describes in great detail, Brown partnered with Republicans to create that district in the 1990s. She's siding with them again in Florida's redistricting case, and it's easy to see the mutual benefit there: Brown gets a safe majority-minority district, while Republicans benefit from diluted minority representation in all the districts surrounding Brown's.
In effect, she's choosing political self-interest over the interest of her party...
...The Florida ruling adds up to a scathing indictment of the redistricting process in that state, and by extension the similar processes that happen in most other states. As long as redistricting remains in the hands of the partisans, real reform is unlikely.
The WAPO article links to the judge's ruling, but I could not get the link to work:
Navigator
The site may have gotten overloaded. I will update as soon as possible.
An important detail: this ruling has no effect on the 2014 mid-terms, but it will have an effect on the 2016 elections.
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And a personal note, on this thread over electioneering, a very large OP that covers the first five postings:
http://www.usmessageboard.com/clean-debate-zone/333884-electioneering.html#post8424470
I gave recommendations for how to do fair and impartial redistricting in all 50 states.
When you read what is happening in Florida (and could well happen in other states), I think that the argument I made has more and more merit with time.
Also, I want to make a specific note that in terms of Gerrymandering, the Democratic Party is often every bit as guilty as the Republican Party. This is a phenomenon that absolutely must stop.
http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/house-races/214646-florida-republicans-propose-new-congressional-map
The new proposed maps, which are similar to current lines, would make Webster's Republican-leaning congressional district a bit more Democratic. The redraw would also shed parts of Rep. Corrine Brown's (D-Fla.) heavily African-American district to make it more compact and slightly less Democratic-heavy, along with making minor changes to five nearby districts.
Democrats will likely fight the new maps, though Republicans have the numbers to pass them. The legislature is likely to vote on the map on Friday.
Still, it's unclear at this point whether the judge will find the new map suitable and whether it can be in place for this election. The judge could rule that it's too close to the late August primary to decide them and potentially hold a special election.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2014/08/07/floridas-proposed-redistricting-redraw-looks-pretty-familiar/
The legislature is likely to vote on the map on Friday.
they just convened today Thursday and they plan on voting on a (their) new map tomorrow ...
oh, and how did the public input work on that one - when caught cheating just have the cheaters do the rewrite because everyone knows they wouldn't think of doing it again ... Judge Terry Lewis
.
NC's 12th was upheld and it makes Fla's 5th look like a day at the beach. What's the difference?
NC's 12th was upheld and it makes Fla's 5th look like a day at the beach. What's the difference?
All districts in all states should be drawn up by people that are either independent, centrist, or completely uninterested in politics.
All states' districts should be in a simple grid, the districts being a collection of squares (or rectangles, or circles, or triangles...) varying in size only to accommodate population variances and irregular state line borders.
All districts in all states should be drawn up by people that are either independent, centrist, or completely uninterested in politics.
All states' districts should be in a simple grid, the districts being a collection of squares (or rectangles, or circles, or triangles...) varying in size only to accommodate population variances and irregular state line borders.
You didn't happen to vote for the thug in the White House, did ya'?
NC's 12th was upheld and it makes Fla's 5th look like a day at the beach. What's the difference?
True Ds are the dupes not the employees of organized crime. By the way what do they have planned for the 200th anniversary, in 2028? This is after all one of the longest marriages in history.All districts in all states should be drawn up by people that are either independent, centrist, or completely uninterested in politics.
All states' districts should be in a simple grid, the districts being a collection of squares (or rectangles, or circles, or triangles...) varying in size only to accommodate population variances and irregular state line borders.
You didn't happen to vote for the thug in the White House, did ya'?
You know, the moment you call our sitting President, who was duly elected twice in a row, a thug, you already long lost the argument, whichever one it may have been.
Class bespeaks itself. Ditto for lack thereof.
True Ds are the dupes not the employees of organized crime. By the way what do they have planned for the 200th anniversary, in 2028? This is after all one of the longest marriages in history.You didn't happen to vote for the thug in the White House, did ya'?
You know, the moment you call our sitting President, who was duly elected twice in a row, a thug, you already long lost the argument, whichever one it may have been.
Class bespeaks itself. Ditto for lack thereof.
ah yes, you must find him a rock star? gives you thrills, orgasams?
how about the supreme court? When did we ALLOW any judge to make policy, override the will of the voters, etc in this country?
and why doesn't it bother you?
