It’s a weird day in political La-La Land when the Tea Party members and Democrats agree on an issue.
Last November, state voters decided in favor of changing the manner in which state legislative districts and congressional districts are drawn. Amendments Five and Six, as they were known respectively, passed easily thanks to the support of groups mentioned above. The goals of the amendments are to “not have districts be drawn to deny racial or language minorities the equal opportunity to participate in the political process and elect representatives of their choice, districts must be contiguous. Unless otherwise required, districts must be compact, as equal in population as feasible, and where feasible must make use of existing city, county and geographical boundaries.”
Florida has some of the most gerrymandered districts in the country. These districts are drawn solely to favor an incumbent or a specific political party. One does not need to go far to see the gerrymandering in action. The campus is split in two; anything north of University Avenue, as well as the President’s Home, is in a different district from the rest of the campus. This district stretches south to Orlando and north to downtown Jacksonville. Additionally, the state’s ratio of Republicans to Democrats is absurdly disproportionate to voter registration partisanship as well as presidential results. In fact, the Republicans have a veto-proof majority in both branches of the state legislature, mainly due to gerrymandering.
Furthermore, the amendments are critical given that the state gained two additional congressional districts. The lion’s share of the growth is due to sharp increases in the Hispanic population in southwest Florida as well as rapid growth in central Florida. Thus, these districts would be more politically competitive than if they were drawn unfairly by the legislature.
Despite all the outrageous situations of gerrymandering and the overwhelming mandate of the voters to rectify the situation, Gov. Rick Scott decided to pull a request for federal approval of the amendments three days after taking office. The request former Gov. Charlie Crist had in place since last December is required to ensure that the plan would be in compliance with the Voting Rights Act and preserve the Hispanic minority population on the state’s west coast. Nevertheless, the governor claims he is unsure how it would be implemented. This lack of interest in going forward with the voter’s plan also resulted in a lawsuit filed against the governor for pulling the request for federal approval. Interestingly, Oklahoma and California, which implemented similar amendments, do not seem to have similar apprehension toward them. Each of these amendments received more than 600,000 more votes than Scott did, and it is an insult to the voters of the state.
Critics of the amendments claim the whole process is a sham for Democrats to usurp power. This is disproved easily by the fact that one of the largest opponents to the bill is in fact U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown, a Democrat. Brown represents the district described previously, claiming that the amendments would weaken the ability for minorities to attain appropriate representation. It is important to note that minority rights advocacy groups such as the NAACP and the Hispanic Democracia-Ahora have actually asked to join the case as defendants. Both are major proponents of the amendments.
All we ask of Scott is to go forward with the amendments and allow Florida to become a state with fair representation where politicians do not pick their constituents, but where constituents pick their politicians.
Chad Mohammed is a second year chemical engineering major. His column appears on Thursdays.
