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Political shift underfoot
By THOMAS C. TOBIN Drive south down Fourth Street S near the tip of St. Petersburg and look to the left. You see sturdy green lawns, homes near the waterfront, more white faces. Republicans. Look to the right and the homes are more modest, the cars a tad older, the people more racially mixed. Democrats.
But when you're mapping the political fortunes of the fourth-largest state, generalizations work fine. Which is why -- under the newly drawn congressional districts approved by the Legislature this month -- Republican U.S. Rep. C.W. Bill Young gets the waterfront, and U.S. Rep. Jim Davis, a Tampa Democrat, gets the west side of Fourth Street S. This and other lines drawn by Republican legislators zigzag through the Tampa Bay area in ways that would switch thousands of residents' congressional representative in Washington. The new lines must clear the Justice Department before this fall's election. In St. Petersburg, 20 percent of the city's voters, many of them black, would be placed in a congressional district that's predominantly based in Tampa. Davis represents the district. In the Hillsborough suburbs, it's more of the same. Temple Terrace would be carved among three congressional districts. Politics would be altered as well in Dunedin and Palm Harbor, where Young would take over a swath of western Pinellas. Twenty-year congressman Mike Bilirakis, R-Tarpon Springs, keeps his hometown, along with much of the territory east of U.S. 19. The changes are the work of state Republican lawmakers, who are in charge of the once-a-decade task of redrawing district boundaries. Like the Democrats who preceded them in power, they intend to make the most of their dominance in the state capital by packing districts in ways that favor their own party. But many of the residents affected by the plan were unimpressed in front porch interviews last week. Democrats and Republicans, whites and blacks, retirees and working people: The proposed realignment struck them as odd and unnecessary. "I don't see any logic to it," said Esther Keyes, who, with her husband, William, has lived on the north side of Pinellas Point Drive S for 23 years. As registered Republicans and fans of Young, the Keyeses, who are white, do not relish being represented in Congress by a Democrat who hangs his hat in Tampa. The view from their porch is of pricier waterfront homes just across the street that would remain in Young's district. "Oh my God!" Janice Edwards exclaimed when shown a map of the redrawn districts. The 44-year-old nurse's assistant lives along a stretch of Fourth Street S where her neighbors across the street would be represented by Young. Though Davis is a fellow Democrat, Edwards is more concerned about where the congressman lives. "I wouldn't even know him," she said. "I don't see how he could very well say he's for this little part of Pinellas County. He lives in Tampa. That's where his number one support is going to be." Temple Terrace, meanwhile, is at the confluence of three congressional seats, the result of legislators pushing Bilirakis' district farther south into Hillsborough County and pushing north the district of U.S. Rep. Adam Putnam, R-Bartow. Davis' district borders both of them to the west.
"Oh man, don't tell me that," said Thomas Johnson, who lives with his family on 52nd Street and likes Davis. "We are definitely Democrats." Referring to Putnam, he asked: "Is that the guy with red hair?" Another neighbor, Pablo Ramirez, 26, wonders how Putnam, who comes from a farming community in the next county, would understand his neighborhood's problems. "Temple Terrace is much closer to Tampa than to Polk County," he said. "I would like to know the last time Bilirakis was in this area and saw what he could do," said Don Downs, a 17-year resident of Whiteway Drive. "Does he attend functions in this area?" Back in St. Petersburg, the new line creates a 15-square-mile puzzle piece of Democratic dominance that would be added to Davis' heavily Democratic district. The two areas would be held together by a sliver of Manatee County and the Sunshine Skyway bridge. Everything outside the puzzle piece would go to Young: The new high-rise condos along Beach Drive in downtown St. Petersburg, with units costing up to $2-million. The bayfront homes with picture windows along St. Petersburg's southeastern shore. The gulf beaches to the west with scores of reliably Republican condo-dwellers. Inside the line, away from the water, are black and racially mixed neighborhoods that tilted heavily toward Al Gore in the 2000 general election. The Republican plan seeks to make Young's congressional district impervious to any future challenge by a Democrat. One result: The percentage of black people in Young's district would drop from 8 percent to 2 percent. Republicans are "scared to death" the district would fall into Democratic hands when Young, who is 71, retires someday, said Mary Repper, a Clearwater political consultant who has worked to elect candidates in both parties. The veteran congressman is an unusual breed, widely revered and easily re-elected by voters from both parties and all races. But many agree that the Republican who tries to fill his shoes will have a harder time. While Young's constituents were happily sending him back to Congress in the 1990s, they also favored Democrats Al Gore for president in 2000, Bill Clinton for president in 1992 and 1996 and Lawton Chiles for governor in 1994. "There would have been an excellent chance for Bill Young's seat to go Democratic," Repper said. "Now," she said, "there's no way that a Democrat's going to be able to win that unless there's some huge scandal with the Republican candidate. I can't imagine it. They have pretty much forced the Democrats into Davis' district." To make up for the 30 or so Democratic precincts that would be joined with Tampa, the Legislature has voted to strengthen Young's hand in north Pinellas, giving him about 37 precincts in the Republican strongholds of Dunedin and Palm Harbor. "It's a ploy, you understand," Repper said. "I've watched the Democrats do it for years. It doesn't surprise me that Republicans learned the lessons." By twinning southern St. Petersburg with Tampa, lawmakers have created a new district of shared "urban concerns," said state Sen. Jack Latvala, R-Palm Harbor, who engineered the plan. Also, he said, 36 percent of its registered voters would be minorities, creating an opportunity for another minority member of Congress. That should please any judge who examines the plan, Repper said. Young did not want to lose southern St. Petersburg, Latvala said, but the decision was guided by the House's proposal, which copied an existing legislative district that already straddles Tampa and St. Petersburg: that of state Sen. Les Miller, D-Tampa. Among those who object to the new congressional districts are St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Baker, a Republican, who said before the new district lines were finalized that the Legislature was "dissecting the city" and making "a huge mistake." Democrats have balked too, saying it does not reflect the evenly split Florida electorate the nation saw in 2000. That year, voters in the five congressional districts that cover the Tampa Bay area were evenly split between Al Gore and George W. Bush. Today, the party registration is roughly equal as well. But if the Legislature's redistricting plan is approved and the November elections go as Republicans expect, the region would be represented by four Republicans and one Democrat. "We see some other forces at work that aren't in the best interests of south St. Petersburg," said Pinellas County Commissioner Kenneth Welch, a Democrat who represents the area. As for Latvala's argument that southern St. Petersburg and Tampa share "urban concerns," Welch responded: "We have much more in common with north St. Petersburg and north Pinellas than we would have with a Hillsborough-dominated district. When you talk about communities of interest, (the Republican plan) doesn't make a whole lot of sense." People inevitably moan when the lines are first drawn in a redistricting, but in time they come to like them, Repper said. "The truth is we've been electing Democrats and Republicans to represent the Tampa Bay area for decades now." Les Miller, the state senator whose district was the model for the proposed new Davis seat, said he has no trouble splitting time between constituents in Hillsborough and southern St. Petersburg. The two areas share similar concerns, and he keeps an office in St. Petersburg, he said. If Pinellas constituents complain, he tells them: "No, I don't live in Pinellas County, but it's not that long a drive." Neither Young nor Bilirakis responded to interview requests. Davis promised he would work hard for the people in his new district, whether they live in Hillsborough or Pinellas. But he criticized the process that brought about the change. "There's too much self-interest," he said, referring to both political parties. "Legislators cannot resist." He conceded that his knowledge of Pinellas is spotty. As a teenager, the future congressman traveled to Bartlett Park to play in summer tennis tournaments. As a lawyer, he appeared now and then before Pinellas judges. One of his sons attended the Tampa Bay Devil Rays baseball camp in Pinellas last summer. "I don't know it nearly as well as I would like to," Davis said. "I will have to get out and start knocking on doors." -- Times staff writer David Karp contributed to this report.
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