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Senate Begins Work On Changing New Evers, Gaetz Districts
March 15, 2012
Senators began looking Wednesday for ways to respond to the Florida Supreme Court’s decision to throw out the upper chamber’s redistricting maps, including districts that include Escambia and Santa Rosa counties.
A northern district across Escambia, Santa Rosa, Okaloosa, Walton and Bay counties held by Sen. Greg Evers, R-Baker and the southern portion of the counties making up a district held by Sen. Don Gaetz, R-Niceville were among the eight tossed the Supreme Court.
The court did not like how the counties were split because it said lawmakers could not justify dividing the Panhandle into two districts that ran east-to-west, dividing a number of counties, instead of a north-south alignment.
Wednesday, Senate leaders reiterated their stance, which has come under criticism from some Democrats, that the Supreme Court affirmed the lion’s share of the Senate map by specifically citing just eight districts in its ruling. Any changes are likely to be narrowly aimed at fixing those districts, they said.
“If you know that 32 seats have met the criteria, why upset those 32 if you possibly can (avoid it)?” said Senate President Mike Haridopolos, R-Merritt Island.
But the chamber was also colliding with the reality that any change to the eight districts singled out are likely to ripple across the state, as the requirement that districts be relatively equal in size mean that adjustments in one set of lines will cause another to shift.
“We shouldn’t go remedying things that were not pointed out as problems,” said Gaetz. “Having said that, I don’t think that you can only affect eight districts.”
And Democrats, some of whom warned that the first draft of Senate maps did not meet the anti-gerrymandering Fair Districts amendments approved by voters in 2010, were pushing for more. They have insisted that simply tweaking the existing maps won’t do the job.
“Just because facially, the court didn’t say that this district or another district had some issues doesn’t mean that there aren’t some issues there that we could not possibly address,” said Sen. Nan Rich, D-Weston.
Aside from the incumbents who could see their lines significantly altered, the thorniest potential issue was how to unwind a system for numbering districts that justices also found unconstitutional. All 40 Senate districts are up for re-election this year, meaning that some senators will be elected to two-year terms and some to four-year terms.
But because of the way the state’s term-limits laws work, the districts can be numbered in such a way that most members of the chamber could serve for up to 10 years — longer than the constitutional, eight-year limit for lawmakers. The system adopted by the Senate, which would have allowed that, was struck down by the court for favoring incumbents.
The question now is how to allocate the numbers. Among the alternatives being weighed by the Senate: numbering the districts to ensure no one serves more than eight years; arranging numbers randomly, at least in relation to the odd-even split that determines the length of terms won in 2012; using geography to decide the numbers; or finding some other “orderly pattern” to assign them.
“My own view is that the system ought to be as random as possible,” Gaetz said after the meeting.
But members seemed divided on the question.
Sen. Gwen Margolis, D-North Miami Beach, advocated trying to limit extra time as much as possible, because of the intent of term limits.
“It seems to that the people voted for ‘Eight is Enough,’ and that’s probably what we should be looking at,” Margolis said.
Others were less certain. Sen. Bill Montford, D-Tallahassee, complained that giving four-year terms to lawmakers who got only two in the 2010 elections, could also fatigue voters if they had to return to polls again in 2014.
“It’s not just the incumbent that I think we should focus on, but it’s the question of the community and citizens themselves,” Montford said. “How many elections should they have to endure?”
House members met briefly Wednesday but will not return again until the week of March 26 to approve a redistricting plan. Redistricting Chairman Will Weatherford, R-Wesley Chapel, said his committee could meet March 26, with the plan going to the full House the following two days.
The News Service Florida contributed to this report.
Comments
7 Responses to “Senate Begins Work On Changing New Evers, Gaetz Districts”
YEp this hole thing was a demoncat reorganize the hill folk bill to start with.
Time to change the water in that thing David!
REGARDING:
“it’s apparent that the justices don’t know much about northwest Florida. ”
They don’t have to know the current make up of the counties to decide whether to follow the amended state constitution or not.
Originally each county had one senator no matter how large or small the county was. Then the US Supreme Court decided it violated the principle of one man-one vote even though it was based on the manner of having senators in the US Constitution. The US Supreme Court can not be legally wrong because the Constitution says so, so now they have to be more or less the same population represented per senator. That doesn’t mean we will have a senator only for cities and another senator for country and another senator for blacks and another senator for Hispanics and another senator for women and another senator for men. At some point we have to vote even if the people running aren’t exactly like ourselves.
The voters of the State of Florida got tired of the gerrymandering and ordered districts be compact and in line with other physical and political boundaries. Eight of the senate districts they produced failed that legal requirement.
WE are hopeful they will comply with the law next time even if it means people in Pensacola get to take part in my choice for state senator and I get to take part in their choice for state senator.
David for even better government
than we already enjoy
I find the games being played by Senator Don Gaetz to be an embarrassment. He clearly does not have the interests of the rural voters in the Panhandle at heart nor, for that matter, does he have the interests of the people of the Panhandle at heart. He should, and could, have drawn maps that were “compact” and contiguous that went East to West by simply following a rational line such as I-10 and Highway 20. Instead, he chose to cut and curve lines that the court opinion actually said made his district meet a .16 out of 1.0 compactness test. The Evers seat was actually .74 out of 1.0 in compactness. It is apparent that Don Gaetz drew his own seat as the committee chairman to benefit himself. He is the chairman of the committee. Those of us in the agricultural business community asked him to draw these lines East to West in a manner that would protect our agricultural economic engine but met the compactness standard. Instead, he drew the lines without regard to the Constitution to protect himself. And in doing so, he has hurt the northern Panhandle beyond repair. I hope that Greg Evers – who has been a great representative of all of us in the Panhandle – does run against him. Gaetz may just find himself following in the ultimate footsteps off the ledge of Dempsey Barron who was also defeated in an election prior to his own Senate Presidency. Gaetz came to the Panhandle by way of Wisconsin and then Miami. Greg came as a 5th generation Santa Rosan. He has represented North Escambia, Pensacola, North and South Santa Rosa and North Okaloosa well. We can count on him to worry about the Panhandle, our people and our way of life. Greg, don’t back down. Be the David that takes out this Goliath. We are with you all the way.
Chris It is refreshing to hear someone speak, who knows what they are talking about.
From what has transpired in the past few days, it’s apparent that the justices don’t know much about northwest Florida. Whereas many counties are homogenous in population density and have similar commerce throughout the county, the counties in the panhandle are predominately rural and less dense in the north, and more densely populated in the south. Where the north is more agricultural, the south is more industrial / tourist oriented. To lump the representation of the population strictly by county is akin to lumping Wyoming with New York. New York will always wind up getting the lion’s share of the attention and Wyoming will get very little. I feel that a better solution for us, who live here, is to draw the lines east-west, across county lines, so that population with like needs will be represented equally.
There you go now, our representatives can’t get anything straight, or developed with a sense of honesty it will take the full house and senate. They were re-districting to make their hands richer off our backs.