Earlier this year, Florida voters put two initiatives on the November 2010 ballot to require non-partisan redistricting for state legislative seats and U.S. House seats. They will be on the ballot as Amendments 5 and 6. In response, the state legislature put another redistricting proposal on the ballot, Amendment 7, which would counteract the initiatives. See this story.
However, on July 8, a lower state court judge removed Amendment 7 from the ballot on the grounds that it is not only too vague to be constitutional, but that it would remove from the Constitution provisions that require districts to be contiguous. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the news.
The gerrymander battle in Florida is one of 50 fronts in the WAR for REAL Democracy in the U.S.A.
P.R. and App.V.
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I 99.9 percent predict that the MORON lower court will be reversed on an emergency appeal on the obvious ground that the case is premature — since the voters have not yet voted on any of the 3 amendments.
Amendments 5 and 6 are pretty fuzzy. So basically what will happen is that the For people will campaign showing current maps and campaigning for “fair districts” Which as defined by the amendment says that race is the preeminent and overriding concern. It then goes on to say that things like compactness, county and city boundaries may be considered.
They certainly won’t show some examples of what sort of maps that they would draw.
No matter what the legislature passes, it will get taken to court, and the court will draw a map and the voters will not recognize it as being drawn to the “rules” they had approved. They’ll think, we passed some fair rules, but then the courts got involved and created these new monstrous districts.