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Supreme Court rejects redistricting initiative

The decision to reject the ballot initiative that would have taken away redistricting powers from legislators is a major victory for Republicans who control the Legislature.

By STEVE BOUSQUET
Published March 23, 2006

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TALLAHASSEE -- The Florida Supreme Court on Thursday rejected a proposed ballot initiative that would have stripped the Legislature of its power to redraw political districts and given it to a 15-member commission.

The decision is a major victory for Republicans who control the Legislature and most of Florida's seats in Congress, and a defeat for Democrats who had hoped to regain power by seizing control of redistricting from the GOP.

In a 6-1 decision, justices agreed with Republican legal arguments that the proposal violated the requirement that ballot proposals must be limited to one subject, and that the summary was misleading to voters by describing the proposed commission as "independent and nonpartisan."

"While the commission itself may operate in an independent, nonpartisan fashion, the method of selecting the commission members is decidedly partisan," the court wrote. "We find the ballot summary to be misleading in this regard."

Justices said the proposal violated the single-subject rule because it would create a new redistricting commission and change the standards for districts by requiring single-member districts in the Constitution.

"A voter would be forced to vote in the "all or nothing" fashion that the single subject requirement safeguards against," justices wrote. "Thus, we conclude that the proposed amendment does not comply with this constitutional requirement."

Republicans hailed the court's decision.

"The Supreme Court was able to get beyond partisanship and ruled against this political power grab that would have created an unelected, unrepresentative, and unaccountable body to do through the courts what the Democrats could not do through the ballot box," said Carole Jean Jordan, chairwoman of the Republican Party of Florida.

The initiative was led by a group called The Committee for Fair Elections, which collected more than 611,000 signatures from voters to place the amendment on the Nov. 7 ballot. But Thursday's decision ensures that the proposal will never reach the ballot in November.

The committee raised more than $2.6-million to pay signature-gatherers to collect petitions from voters across the state. Much of the money came from the citizens' watchdog group Common Cause, which says it is a conflict of interest for politicians to draw their own districts.

"The losers are the people of Florida," said Ben Wilcox, executive director of Common Cause Florida. "We were trying to get a chance to take some of the power away from the politicians and put it in the hands of the people."

The redrawing of districts every 10 years to reflect population changes is among the most politically-charged duties of any legislative body, and the party in power seeks to maximize its strength. New technology allows lawmakers to draw districts to the city-block level.

The next redistricting changes would affect the 2012 elections.

Advocates say legislators, motivated by partisanship and political survival, have drawn gerrymandered districts that have all but eliminated competitive legislative elections in Florida, leading to overwhelming Republican dominance in a state where Democratic voters narrowly outnumber Republicans.

Justice Harry Lee Anstead was the lone dissenter in the case.

Justice Charles Wells, while concurring with the majority, added his lone opinion that the proposal additionally violated the single-subject requirement by combining both legislative and Congressional redistricting in the initiative.

Republican lawyers had argued before the court that the initiative violated the single-subject rule because legislative and congressional redistricting are separate issues.

The amendment was challenged by three state senators, Democrat Al Lawson of Tallahassee and Republicans Jim Sebesta of St. Petersburg and Charlie Clary of Destin;, House Speaker Allan Bense, R-Panama City; and three Republican U.S. House members, brothers Mario and Lincoln Diaz-Balart and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, all of Miami.

Bense spent up to $50,000 in tax dollars to oppose the initiative, which he saw as a direct threat to the constitutional separation of powers.

The Committee for Fair Elections' honorary co-chairmen include Democrat Bob Graham, a former governor and U.S. senator; Carrie Meek, a former Miami congresswoman and Betty Castor, a former education commissioner; and Republicans Bob Milligan, a former state comptroller and Orlando lawyer and environmental activist Thomq Rumberger.

Gov. Jeb Bush also opposes the measure, which would have helped Democrats become more competitive in legislative and Congressional races.

Republicans control 85 of 120 seats in the Florida House of Representatives, 26 of 40 seats in the state Senate and 18 of 25 seats in Congress. As late as 1994, Democrats controlled both houses of the Legislature.

Times researcher Deirdre Morrow contributed to this report, and information from The Associated Press was used.

Reporter Steve Bousquet is at bousquet@sptimes.com or 850 224-7263.

[Last modified March 23, 2006, 14:02:03]