The pitched battle over congressional map-making in Florida could begin and end in U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown's district.
Conflicting objectives over minority representation, "compactness" of districts and consolidating community interests are sparking controversy and further complicating an already-byzantine map-making process.
Instead of clarifying matters, last year's voter approval of the Fair Districts amendments may well heighten the chances that the whole exercise will wind up in court.
Rep. Brown, D-Jacksonville, broke ranks with fellow Democrats in opposing Fair Districts last fall. She argues that the supposed reforms would demolish her "majority minority" district and others like it, such as Rep. Alcee Hastings' Congressional District 23 in South Florida.
Brown's CD 3 currently extends from Jacksonville to the northern reaches of Orlando. Winding in a snake-like fashion, the contorted district picks up minority enclaves in Volusia and small slices of several other counties.
The U.S. Department of Justice requires that Southern states, including Florida, receive pre-clearance for new district maps to ensure that minority representation is maintained.
Fair Districts asserts that it protects majority-minority districts, but the amendment lists this objective as only one benchmark of many. The campaign for Amendments 5 (legislative) and 6 (congressional) stressed the need for compact districts that honored city and county boundaries.
Ultimately, the Fair Districts and DOJ goals come into conflict, yielding very different congressional lines.
Henry Kelley, a tea party leader from Fort Walton Beach, proved the point by devising side-by-side congressional maps -- one using minority representation as the prime directive and the other using Fair Districts' "non-gerrymandered" guidelines.
"Brown's district -- which was court-ordered in 2002 -- skews Northeast Florida and creates a ripple effect that affects 10 million Floridians," Kelley says.
The net effect, Kelley discovered after 10 hours on the state's mapping software, is to perpetuate the kinds of tortured congressional boundaries that currently divide counties and criss-cross the state.
But "the voters voted for contiguous and compact districts in 2010," Kelley said of Fair Districts.
So, making that the chief priority, his other map redrew Brown's district to cluster eight contiguous counties in Northeast Florida. From there, the 26 remaining CDs fell into more logical formations.
Polk County, for instance, would become its own congressional district, with just a small eastern segment of adjacent Hillsborough County added to round it out.
Because seven Florida counties have populations that exceed the threshhold for a congressional district, divisions are inevitable. It's just a question of how many dividing lines must be drawn.
In Kelley's preferred map, 47 of Florida's 67 counties would be "whole" -- that is, represented by a singular member of Congress.
Only 40 counties would remain whole if Brown's district were to remain intact.
Kelley believes his alternate map would pass muster with the DOJ and the Civil Rights Act, but multiple legal and political hurdles must be cleared.
Though liberal groups promoted Fair Districts, many of their constituencies -- notably minorities -- will surely oppose a strict application of Fair Districts' "compact" directive.
Brown is already on record supporting provisions that protect minority-majority districts such as hers. But she adds:
"This discussion is not about me.Rather, it is about allowing minorities to have representation throughout our state, and to have the option to choose a representative of their choice.
"It is about giving those who went without a voice for 129 years a chance to be heard in the halls of Congress, and an opportunity to influence the decisions made by policymakers that directly affect them, their families, and their communities."
Yet maintaining Brown's gerrymandered district will, as Kelley demonstrated, send dominoes toppling haphazardly across established political jurisdictions. Florida faces more busted county lines if the DOJ's race-based districting formula prevails.
Critics of the the DOJ "majority-minority" requirement argue that times have changed since the segregationist days of the 1960s.
They note, for example, that Allen West, an African-American, won the predominantly white CD 22 last year.
More cynically, others predict that the entire redistricting process will end up with unelected judges -- not elected lawmakers -- drawing Florida's new congressional boundaries.
"That's what was intended all along," said one skeptic speaking on background.
Said another: "Before this is all done, you'll have MoveOn.org suing MoveOn.org."
The same might be said of conservative groups that have generally, but not universally, opposed Fair Districts.
Interestingly, Kelley says his reformed map, drawn in the spirit of Fair Districts, actually reduces the number of Democratic districts in the state. Currently, Republicans hold 19 of Florida's 25 congressional seats.
Tea partier Kelley, noting the lack of specific, hierarchical criteria in Fair Districts, suggests that all interested parties ought to do what he did: draw their own maps at the state's redistricting website.
"Don't just accuse the [Legislature's appointed redistricting] commission. Quit complaining and put something up," he says.
The statewide public input meetings on redistricting resume Monday in Lakeland.
Making Corrine Brown's district (CD 3) more compact: See this.
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Reach Kenric Ward at kward@sunshinestatenews.com or at (772) 559-4719.
