State Rep. Janet Adkins, R-Fernandina Beach, has been in the news this week for calling on more inmates to be included in U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown’s, D-Fla., district and the congresswoman fired back on Thursday.
Earlier this week, Politico broke the news about Adkins’ comments to a closed door GOP meeting held last month as she talked about the continued congressional redistricting and how to deprive Brown of African-American voters.
“You draw [Brown's seat] in such a fashion so perhaps, a majority, or maybe not a majority, but a number of them will live in the prisons, thereby not being able to vote,” Adkins said at that meeting.
Brown responded on Thursday though she did not draw fire directly on Adkins. An opponent of the Fair Districts amendments from 2010, Brown has been critical of the base map the Legislature used but ultimately rejected as it tried to redo the congressional lines in a special session held last month. Currently, the matter is before the judicial branch.
“I have been saying from the outset that the newly proposed boundaries of Congressional District 5 make it a nonperforming district not only for an African-American, but for a member of the Democratic Party,” Brown said. “Clearly, those who drew up the map knew that the new congressional district has 18 prisons in it. And they also know that in the state of Florida, felons cannot vote; so not only was the black voting age population (VAP) decreased from 50 to 45 percent, many who were counted in this 45 percent are incapable of voting, so the number is, in reality, nowhere near 45 percent.
“Indeed, the diminishment of the black voting age population in this newly drawn district, which consists of 18 prisons that hold 17,000 prisoners, would give the newly drawn Congressional District 5 one of the highest prison populations in the state,” Brown added. “Moreover, the percentage of black inmates is proportionally higher than in the rest of the state’s population, wherein African-Americans make up only 16 percent of the total population, yet make up 46 percent of the prison population. And since the federal government requires states to count prisoners as residents of the towns where they are held, not where they are from, the official number of African-Americans in the newly drawn CD 5 is completely distorted, again, making the district extraordinarily difficult for a minority candidate to win."
Adkins’ comments have drawn the fire of the Florida Democratic Party but the Nassau County legislator told Politico she was more concerned about education than redistricting at this time.
Reach Kevin Derby at kderby@sunshinestatenews.com or follow him on Twitter: @KevinDerbySSN
