Florida Voters Pass Milestone Measures to End Gerrymandering

This is a hoot. The districts we have now were drawn by Democrats, and conservatives still win most of them.I say we just draw a line down the center of the state and then horizontal lines based on population for our districts.No favoritism there. Let the hanging chads fall where they may. Maybe, just maybe, we can run Alcee Hastings out of his 90% minority district then.

Mr. Pinsky needs to do a better job of researching before publishing an article. This topic is more complicated than he suggests.—Florida’s post-1990-Census redistricting maps for both the US House and the Florida Legislature were court-drawn and intentionally concentrated minority voters into minority-majority districts. The unavoidable side effect of this action was to dilute Democratic strength in the other districts, thereby electing several more Republicans than would have occurred otherwise. It was the courts, not elected officials, that mandated this action.--Florida’s post-2000-Census redistricting maps had to be approved by the courts under the same rules.--Mr. Pinsky fails to point out the inherent conflict within the text of the amendments themselves, which require minority representation and, at the same time, forbid favoring or disfavoring a political party or incumbent. The fact is that you cannot do both. . . .Hence the lawsuit, filed yesterday morning or early afternoon--which Mr. Pinsky did not mention in his article which was posted late last night (ET)—by two US Representatives from Florida challenging the newly-passed Amendment Six.—Again, all biases aside, this article was very poorly researched.

Why is that when you read this you get the idea the author is liberal. He needs to recheck his facts. This was done because of what was done in large city. This was not a concern about republicans. Write the facts.

The writer of this report begins with an unsubstantiated attack on republicans. "Almost obscured by Florida's high-profile races for governor and U.S. Senate, voters passed two amendments to the state's constitution Tuesday intended to radically limit the ability of the Republican-controlled legislature and governor's mansion to gerrymander state and congressional districts." Meanwhile the only substantiated objections to fair redistricting were uttered by democrats. "Some Cuban-American Republican and African-American Democratic incumbent members of Congress opposed the measures, charging it would reduce the number of majority-minority districts, which tend to be concentrated in urban areas." Wake up! these DEMOCRATIC minorities who had unfairly favorable districting which encapsulated their supporters were the REASON for this amendment.