Opinion: Right to vote was stolen

A Times Editorial

Right to vote was stolen

Imagine a thief who steals your property, and then steals more of it to pay the high-priced lawyers who get him acquitted. No, this isn't about some scruffy cutpurse whose liberty depends on an overworked public defender. It describes, only somewhat loosely, the sleek, prosperous Republican majorities of the Florida Legislature, who spent $7-million of the taxpayers' money successfully defending the greatest political theft in Florida history.

What they stole was your right to vote. That most precious of liberties, which young Americans even now are being trained to defend with their lives on the far side of the world, is meaningless unless it can be exercised in the context of competitive choices. The sordid intent of this year's legislative and congressional redistricting schemes was to decide the elections before they were held. And how it succeeded: With all 160 legislative seats on the ballot, about half were effectively unopposed and no more than 14 saw close competition either in the primaries or the general election. With 25 congressional seats at stake, the mapmakers contrived to secure both new ones for the GOP; only one of the other races was even marginally close, and as intended the Republicans purged Democrat Karen Thurman. The rigging was cynical, bold and transparent, and it is to the eternal shame of the judiciary that the thieves got away with it.

Democrats still constitute the plurality of Florida voters, with 42 percent. When strong Democrats run statewide -- the only "district" that can't be rigged -- they often run well. Al Gore scored a statistical tie in 2000, in the same 2000 election that sent Bill Nelson to the U.S. Senate, and Bob Graham 's popularity remains high. But in the state House, Republicans now have more than two-thirds -- 81 seats to 39, and in the Senate the ratio is 26-14. If that were the way voters truly preferred it, no one could object.

But that is not how, or why, it was done. Hear Tom Slade, the former state Republican chairman who is known for his candor, as quoted this week in Knight-Ridder newspapers:

"The state is basically a very competitive two-party state. But African-Americans and Republicans have had something of an unholy alliance at the expense of white Democrats. The creation of every black Democratic district creates two Republican districts. Now, as far as the eye can see, Republicans will control both houses in Florida."

The Republicans are laughing about this, you can be sure, and so are their lawyers -- all the way to the bank. With your money. Worse, with your right to vote.