Florida Voters in 2010 passed the “Fair Districts” amendments for both legislative and Congressional races in our Florida Constitution. The amendments were very clear that districts could not be gerrymandering when drawn. It is important to note that these amendments passed was supermajorities in 2010, the year of the GOP/teaparty wave, which shows that they had strong bi-partisan support among voters in this state. Both Democratic and Republican voters made it clear... play fair.
Unfortunately, legislators did the opposite. They drew the maps in secret using a "shadow process", and completely ignored the will of the Florida voters. Case in point, Florida District 5-Corrine Brown's district. This monstrosity packs every minority cluster from Jacksonville to Sanford, which allows the surrounding districts to be "bleached" for the GOP base.
The Democratic party of Florida said FL-5 “as enacted by the Florida Legislature stands out among all of the districts as presenting both the most numerous and most flagrant constitutional violations”.
If you want to see what a fair district map SHOULD look like, Click here.
Incredibly, Corrine Brown is fighting alongside the GOP with this battle. Sure, gerrymandering hurts voters and is illegal; and sure, it manages to give the GOP a guaranteed majority despite the state having more Democratic voters by a 2-1 margin. But hey, she might have to fight in a fair district so screw the party and screw the voters. Despicable.
No sane or fair judge can say FL-5 is in anyway not drawn to cluster as many Democrats into one district as possible, a flagrant violation of the Florida Constitution. We either have laws in this state or we don't. It's cut and dry. Believe it or not, I'd be screaming the same thing if the situation was reversed and Democrats were gerrymandering, which by the way, they did back when they had the power. If the Democrats back in the 90s did the right thing and ensured fair districts, it would have been a hell of a lot harder for the GOP to do what they are doing to us today.
I don't mind losing, but we Floridians deserve a fair fight.
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