Florida incumbents worried over 'fair district' movement

SP Times ^ | December 11th | Howard Troxler

[Halfmanhalfamazing]

Of these four ideas, the first is closest to becoming reality. There's a citizen petition drive to change the way Florida draws voting districts, aiming for the 2010 ballot.

This effort is called Fair Districts Florida. Its Web site is www.fairdistrictsflorida.org. It is circulating two petitions, one for congressional races and one for the Legislature.

Under these two constitutional amendments, voting districts could not be drawn "to favor or disfavor an incumbent or political party."

[Halfmanhalfamazing]

http://www.fairdistrictsflorida.org/

[FormerACLUmember]

Amen. It is near impossible to unseat incumbants.

[KoRn]

I see that Janet Reno, among a few other dems are running this outfit. One has to be skeptical. They also don’t specifically say what it is they are wanting to do. On their site, all they have are generalizations.

[Halfmanhalfamazing]

http://www.fairdistrictsflorida.org/aboutus.php

I hope more take note of that. Admittedly, I didn’t notice it.

Good catch.

[denydenydeny]

Something tells me those bizarrely shaped minority districts won’t be touched.

[wintertime]

Under these two constitutional amendments, voting districts could not be drawn “to favor or disfavor an incumbent or political party.”
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There is a better way:

A computer will draw congressional lines with the smallest mathematically possible and **EQUAL** length perimeters. About a 50 meter tolerance would prevent a line from actually being drawn though a house.

Gee! Even I could do it with my puny little computer. It isn’t rocket science unless the goal is to influence election results...now that’s hard!

[muffaletaman]

Here is a local city council example.

The city of Houston annexed Kingwood NE of Houston against the will of the majority of inhabitants.

THEN to prevent this from diluting minority voter districts, they connected Kingwood - 22 miles NNE of Downtown Houston - with Clear Lake City (also previously annexed against their will) - 18 miles SE of downtown Houston, by means of a railroad right-of-way... see the District E map here:

http://www.houstontx.gov/council/maps/e.html

http://www.houstontx.gov/council/maps/maps2006/e-1.jpg

The word “egregious” come to mind...

[Neidermeyer]

We have districts like that in Florida also ,, I’d like to see all districts be drawn with roughly equivalent populations , with straight lines , and no more than 4 sides , of course natural boundaries can make a side.

[fieldmarshaldj]

Hell, no. This is about electing more Democrats to office.

[cradle of freedom]

Take a look at moonbat Alan Grayson’s Florida 8th district. Look at the eloganted north-south shape of the district and notice how a notch has been cut out of the district around the Orlando area. I was just wondering who the governor was in the year 2000. Was it a democrat?

[fieldmarshaldj]

Republicans were in charge of redistricting for this decade, and Jeb Bush signed off on it. Orlando was partly cut up because Blacks (Dems) had to be placed into FL-3 (mandated by the Justice Dept.). Geographically contiguous districts in populous states are often hard to do because of the racial requirements (for Black & Hispanic districts). FL-8 was designed to elect a Republican.