Perspective: Redistrict with limited input

TALLAHASSEE -- At one of Jimmy Carter's conventions his staff set up headquarters in a large room that was open to the public so everyone could see it. Work stations were marked with cardboard signs bearing such well-known names as Jody Powell and Hamilton Jordan, but only a few drones were on hand and the big shots somehow never managed to show up.

It was, as someone reported later, all for show. The real work was going on where the real work of a political convention is always done: in the candidate's hotel suites. The apparent purpose of the Potemkin village downstairs was to flatter the uninitiated into thinking they had been allowed to see something important. It did no harm, but no good either.

This came back to mind with the news that leaders of the Florida House and Senate have scheduled 20 hearings around the state to "encourage the public's participation and input" as to how they should redistrict the Legislature and Congress.

Common Cause and the League of Women Voters will testify earnestly about how districts should be as compact as possible and why people's votes should not be wasted by packing them into "safe" districts where there is no real competition. City governments, county governments and chambers of commerce will send delegations to testify earnestly why they need the undivided loyalties of their senators and representatives.

The legislators will listen earnestly. They will nod in sympathy.

And they will ignore everything they heard except when the advice happens to coincide with their real purposes, which will be as follows, in approximate order of priority:

(1) A congressional seat for House Speaker Tom Feeney.

(2) A State Senate seat for House Majority Leader Mike Fasano.

(3) Assure the re-election of all the other majority party leaders who aren't term-limited and want to come back.

(4) Elect more members of the majority and fewer Democrats.

(5) Force unbeatable Democrats like U.S. Reps. Peter Deutsch and Robert Wexler to run against each other.

(6) When possible, get rid of troublesome legislators (i.e., the handful of Republicans like Nancy Argenziano who occasionally think for themselves, or persistent Democratic critics like Rep. Tim Ryan of Dania) by pairing them against each other.

(7) When (6) isn't possible, zone the homes of potential troublemakers into districts that are safe for the other party.

This will need to be done very carefully. Though the Supreme Court says race-based districting is now a no-no, it permits districts to be rigged with political objectives in mind. On the other hand, the Voting Rights Act still forbids any action that would diminish the opportunity of minority voters to elect someone of their choice. This means that white, non-Hispanic voters are the ones most likely to find themselves voting on unfamiliar candidates next year.

Though far from anyone's ideal of how power should be distributed in a democracy, redistricting has been ruthless for two centuries. The Supreme Court's historic decisions compelling all districts to be equal in population did not require anything else about the process to be even marginally fair. Though the Voting Rights Act empowered minorities, it has had its own mightily curious results, such as Florida Senate District 21, occupying parts of Hillsborough and Manatee counties along with an isolated (and intentionally powerless) bloc of voters in Pinellas County across the bay. One writer compared the district's appearance to a "squashed bug."

Jim Hargrett, then-representative from Tampa, drew that district (with Republican help) so that it would elect a black Democrat from Tampa who would most surely be him. Though it originally ranged as far as Polk County, it conveniently stopped just a few blocks short of the Plant City residence of the only potential candidate he had reason to fear. Conveniently for the Republicans, it also stretched just far enough to include the St. Petersburg residence of a white Democratic senator, Jeanne Malchon. She chose to retire from the Legislature rather than move into what remained of her old district, which is how Republican Charlie Crist, now Florida's education commissioner, became a senator.

The worst aspect of district-rigging is not that communities are split or orphaned, but that voters are taken for granted and left with no choice. It is the single biggest reason (followed closely by the stupendous scandal of campaign finance) why there were two-party contests for only 7 of 21 Senate seats and only 47 of 120 House seats last year. In a truly fair redistricting, there would no safe seats; everything would be up for grabs.

But the Legislature's 20 public hearings could serve a purpose after all by documenting the contrast between what the people want and what they will get. Then there might finally be some support for the initiative, People over Politics, that would put an independent commission in charge of redistricting. Come to think of it, those hearings will be great places to collect signatures.

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