Corrine Brown and Mario Diaz-Balart Continue Fight Against FairDistrictsFlorida Measures

Democratic U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown and Republican U.S. Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart are going to have a media event in Tallahassee on Monday to continue their fight against redistricting measures backed by FairDistrictsFlorida that will be on the November ballot. At the event, the two members of Congress will announce the kickoff of the No on Amendments 5 and 6 campaign. Both of them have been vocal opponents of the measures all throughout the year.

These amendments are nothing more than a deceitful attempt to turn the clock back to the days before 1992 when Florida did not have any African-American representation in Congress, and I had to battle with the courts to obtain congressional districts that could be occupied by minorities, said Brown, one of the few prominent Democrats to come out swinging at the measures. Clearly, given that minorities make up more than one-third of the state of Floridas population, I see any attempt to decrease our political representation on a state or federal level as a serious civil-rights issue for the state.

These amendments are deceptive and misleading to voters, and are an attempt at sabotaging the ability of minorities to elect candidates of their choice, insisted Diaz-Balart. The decision taken by the Florida Supreme Court last month to allow the amendments to appear on the November ballot has the potential of irreparably harming the electoral process, and is a clear disregard for the law. It is a shame that politics has gotten in the way of fair judgment.