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Redistricting question is off the ballot

Justices strike that constitutional amendment vote but clear the way for a vote on a same-sex marriage ban.

By STEVE BOUSQUET
Published March 24, 2006

TALLAHASSEE - The Florida Supreme Court on Thursday rejected a ballot proposal that would have asked voters to shift the power to redraw voting districts from the Legislature to a special committee.

The decision, which means the redistricting initiative will not appear on the ballot in November, was a major victory for Republicans who control the Legislature and most of Florida's seats in Congress and a defeat for Democrats who hoped to regain political influence through a bipartisan commission.

In their 6-1 decision, the justices said the proposal violated the requirement that ballot proposals deal with a single subject. They also said the brief summary of the plan, the paragraph that would have appeared on the ballot, was misleading in 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 said. "We find the ballot summary to be misleading in this regard." Justices said the proposal violated the single-subject rule by creating the redistricting commission and by adding the current voting system, known as single-member districts, to the state Constitution. It is now a state law, not part of the Constitution.

In a separate ruling, the high court unanimously approved putting on the 2008 ballot another citizen initiative that would put a ban on same-sex marriages in the Florida Constitution. Sponsors had hoped to send it to voters this year but failed to get enough petition signatures by the February deadline.

The redistricting initiative was led by a group called the Committee for Fair Elections, which argued that incumbents in both parties are driven by self-interest to skew the system and draw districts that make them virtually immune from competitive challenges.

The group collected more than 611,000 signatures from voters to place the amendment on the Nov. 7 ballot. But Thursday's decision blocks the proposal from reaching voters in 2006.

"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 group has spent more than $2.6-million, much of it to pay for signature-gatherers to collect petitions from voters. Much of that money came from the citizens' watchdog group Common Cause, which has long argued that it is a blatant conflict of interest for politicians to draw their own districts.

Among Republicans, a sense of vindication swept through the Capitol as news of the decision spread.

"There is a great deal of relief in the Legislature right now," said Senate President Tom Lee, R-Valrico. "The court has had the wisdom to recognize that the redistricting amendment did not belong on the ballot."

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.

Thursday's decision raises questions about whether Common Cause, the League of Women Voters and other champions of the initiative committed strategic blunders in drafting their proposal. Common Cause's criticism of the court's decision rang hollow Thursday to some supporters of the redistricting initiative.

"Here you had a group talking about putting responsibility back in the process, and they're dodging responsibility," said Bernie Campbell, a Democratic consultant in Tampa. "The standards of getting on the ballot are fairly clear. You sort of know these rules when you go in."

From the start, Republicans pounced on use of the term "nonpartisan" as a fatal flaw because 12 of 15 commission members would be appointed by the two parties' leaders in the Legislature.

"I'm not going to get into the blame game," said Common Cause's attorney, Mark Herron. "This is what the committee wanted to advocate, and that's what we advanced."

The good news, Herron said, is that the court specifically cited the flaws in the group's proposal, making it much easier to rewrite the proposal and try to get on the 2008 ballot.

"The court provided a road map," agreed Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Dania Beach, who worked on the proposal.

Rep. Jack Seiler, D-Wilton Manors, said he had "some disagreements" with his fellow Democrats on the wording of the ballot summary.

"It is a loss to the citizens of Florida," he said.

Every 10 years after the census, the Legislature redraws the boundaries of state House and Senate and congressional districts. It is a cutthroat process in which the party in power seeks to maximize its influence while complying with the federal Voting Rights Act and the state and U.S. constitutions.

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, and Democrats still narrowly outnumber Republicans in overall voter registration.

Improving technology has made the district line-drawing more sophisticated, allowing districts to be drawn down to a city-block level and producing wildly contorted districts in some cases.

Sen. Nancy Argenziano, R-Dunnellon, represents a district that touches 13 counties from Citrus north to Baker, west of Jacksonville.

Rep. Frank Peterman, D-St. Petersburg, has a House district tailored to maximize minority representation that takes in parts of Pinellas, Hillsborough, Manatee and Sarasota counties.

Asked whether some current districts were gerrymandered for partisan advantage, Bense said: "I'm not going to comment on that. ... Everyone, generally speaking, watches out for their part of the world."

Bense has spent nearly $50,000 in tax dollars to oppose the initiative, which he saw as a threat to the constitutional separation of powers. He also said both parties would have packed the commission with extreme partisans. Under the Common Cause proposal, the courts would have drawn districts if at least 10 of the panel's 15 members could not agree.

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.

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

Gov. Jeb Bush opposed the measure, and his criticism of Common Cause prompted the group to disclose the names of more than 40 large donors who provided much of the money to pay for the campaign.

Bush's chief spokesman, Alia Faraj, called the initiative "a flawed proposal that would have created gridlock." Carole Jean Jordan, chairwoman of the state Republican Party, said the justices rejected a "political power grab" designed to give Democrats power with the courts' help that they could not achieve at the ballot box.

Times staff writers Joni James and Adam C. Smith and researcher Deirdre Morrow contributed to this report. Information from the Associated Press also was included. Steve Bousquet can be reached at bousquet@sptimes.com or 850 224-7263.

The Florida Supreme Court on Thursday found two major flaws in the proposed constitutional amendment that would have changed the way political districts are drawn. The high court criticized the phrases marked in bold. The first phrase violated a requirement that ballot proposals deal with only one issue. The second phrase was declared misleading because party leaders would have chosen members of the commission.

[Last modified March 24, 2006, 02:43:23]