Florida is still Gerrymandering- what does that mean to Florida's future? And isn't gerrymandering illegal?

Gabrielle D'Alemberte

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Would it seem fair that election districts are not impartially drawn? Would it seem fair if some districts actually have some houses on a particular street, while other houses owned by people within another political party, are grouped into a different district? It's called "gerrymandering" and it means "apportionment of electoral districts in such a way as to give the political party in power an advantage in electing its representatives."

Gerrymandering is described as boundary delimitation- emphasis on the "de". It is adjustment by incumbents in order to achieve the ideal voter base for one’s platform. Adjustments have been proven to be made, based on a variety of factors including socio-economic status, race and land values, just to name a few. But the term "adjustments" is used to stack the deck to ensure a particular party, or in some instances a particular candidate, wins.

The two aims of gerrymandering are to maximize the effect of supporters’ votes and to minimize the effect of opponents' votes. One strategy, packing, is to concentrate as many voters of one type into a single electoral district to reduce their influence in other districts.

In Florida the gerrymander practice still runs rampant. It's no surprise that the Legislators that sit in office are charged with the redistricting, despite that it often means they are making decisions about districts where they stand for re-election. Does this seem equitable?

Elbridge Gerry is credited as the inventor of gerrymandering technique involving the bang-up job done with Massachusetts’ districts that were carved out to look like a dragon. Political redistricting has historically followed the U.S. Census- usually once every 10 years. Once, at the beginning of every decade each state government adjusts its voting districts to be "consistent" with increased or decreased population. That's the charge- nothing more. At least that’s how it’s supposed to be done. To eliminate or exclude a race or minority group would be prejudicial, but so is it to pack all voters of one party into a fraction of the districts. That's the way we do it in Florida these days, which is why although 46% of the voters are in one party, Democrats, only 1/3 of state and Congressional elected officials are from Florida's majority party. Fair voting districts can be drawn, like in Iowa, where the lines are very symmetrical and don't favor one party over another, giving the voters a chance to actually weigh in on who represents them.

More recently, redistricting happens at the whim of the majority party. Florida is just about as good of an example as any, having only three incumbent state legislators voted out of office since 2004. That’s out of 120 House members and 40 senators according to Ellen Freidin, campaign manager at Fair Districts Florida. Fair Districts Florida is a non-partisan committee looking to end political gerrymandering. She added that gerrymandering stifles competition for an area and that the problems go largely unnoticed once district lines are drawn. "Districts are designated and planned to be won by a party or an individual, so there usually aren't any meaningful challenges," she said.

In Florida, the act of redistricting has gotten out of control. By clicking on a random district found at the Florida elections website reveals the utter chaos involved in drawing up a voting district. An outsider to the greater St. Petersburg area would assume that one district would encompass this large but certainly not massive peninsula. They would be wrong. This particular gem stretches across the Bay and vertically for miles while laterally being no more than a few miles. State Senate District 27 starts in Palm Beach extends past the Everglades and into the far west counties of Naples Florida- a world apart.

This problem affects the federal level where U.S. Representatives’ district lines have completely gone awry. Rep. Robert Wexler’s district encompasses an hour and a half drive in one direction from West Palm Beach to Pompano Beach, completely different areas, I can assure you. Some elected officials aren't connected to their own counties, let alone counties adjacent to counties adjacent to the next counties. As an example, former House Rep. Lorrane Ausley who now running in the state senate seat, will have to meet constituents in ELEVEN counties considered in her "district". She will likely make the effort, but can the same be said of most?

Fair Districts Florida (www.fairdistrictsflorida.org) identifies the last three presidential elections and split senators as indicators of Florida’s political affiliation. One would assume that it is a divided state, but looking at the state legislature numbers, Republicans have been the majority party nearly 2-1 since 2002, not even close.

Competition is one of the main factors to a healthy democracy and even more important is the will of the people. In these redistricting scenarios, legislators choose their voters which is the opposite of how it’s suppose to be. Even worse is the controlling majority redistricting on such broad scales as the entire state. The future of Florida elections would fall nothing short of the recent Iranian elections if the voters are not measured by their support but rather their domicile in this hijacked version of democracy.

Fortunately, the rest of the United States is interested in reforming the gerrymandering practices of "back-door politics". Reform efforts are on both sides of the aisle, with both Sen. John McCain and President Barack Obama supporting such change. At home, Florida has drawn bi-partisan support for the idea and every newspaper in all of Florida has written editorials in favor of the change. So what's the hold up? Well, those people in office who don't like the idea of running a fair race, and like the stacking in their favor.

The mission statement of Fair Districts Florida is simple : Legislative/Congressional districts or districting plans may not be drawn to favor or disfavor an incumbent or political party. Districts shall not be drawn to deny racial or language minorities the equal opportunity to participate in the political process and elect representatives of their choice. Districts must be contiguous. Unless otherwise required, districts must be compact, as equal in population as feasible, and where feasible must make use of existing city, county and geographical boundaries.

Let's see who opposes that.