A fair deal

Suwanne Democrat
Friday Feb 5, 2010

With all due respect to state Sen. Charlie Dean, the man's ties to Suwannee County are tenuous at best. But then, a number of counties in Dean's district could say the same thing. The former Citrus County sheriff is simply stretched too thin - or rather, District 3 itself is. An example of legislative gerrymandering at its best, District 3 begins in Citrus and snakes its way north, taking in all or parts of Baker, Columbia, Dixie, Hamilton, Jefferson, Lafayette, Leon, Levy, Madison, Marion, Suwannee and Taylor counties. As noted previously in this column, the district resembles a large "C" shakily scrawled across the northern half of the state. (See "Our View: Map-making," in our online archives.)


The odds of somebody from Suwannee or a neighboring county ever winning the seat? Pretty unlikely. The bulk of the district's voters, as well as campaign funds, are to be found in Citrus and Marion counties alone.


Now comes the Fair Districts movement, about which we wrote in the aforementioned column. FairDistrictsFlorida.org proposed a simple, and we think reasonable, solution to the plight of Suwannee and other underrepresented Florida counties: no more crazy-quilt districts. And maybe - just maybe - a better chance of electing a local man or woman to represent us in the Florida Senate.


Here's the proposal, in the form of a ballot summary: 


Legislative districts or districting plans may not be drawn to favor or disfavor an incumbent or political party. Districts shall not 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.


A twin proposal would do the same for Congressional redistricting.


When we last wrote on this topic it wasn't clear enough signatures would be gathered to get these measures on the November ballot. We're pleased to report that FairDistrictFlorida.org's petition drive was successful. The Florida Supreme Court recently certified a pair of constitutional amendments - Number 5, on legislative redistricting, and Number 6, on the Congressional side - for voters' approval.


These amendments won't in themselves solve the problem of legislative under-representation, but they're the best shot we've had in a while.

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