Designer Districts for Politicians: Good, Bad and Ugly

The Redistricting Panels of the City of Orlando and Orange County got down to some decision making this week in the usual political hot-house. Public participation was minimal, but it should be noted that, (however small) it is way above previous years. Media is paying a little attention to the decisions about where districts lie, a questions which sets the playing field for the next decade. Broadcast media finds this hard to cover as the story does not fit neatly into the he-said/she-said editorial box in which they often operate.

Complications of views and positions, and the fact that the stakes are huge and nobody participating is entirely a free agent, means that the “sausage making” of politics surges in this process. It’s ugly. But there is some good and some bad.

The Good (so far)

City of Orlando Advisory Committees wrapped up their work a week early thanks to a harsh program of frequent sub-group meetings imposed by Wayne Rich. Because the small group meetings were intimate, the public could converse about ideas with representatives of the Advisory group and get feedback and exchange ideas. It worked. Results have some problems, but the rancor diminished over time as the Committee saw reality. That plan will go to the City Council with general consensus support in October. City of Orlando participants managed to focus enough to get a good solid Hispanic District in East Orlando. It’s over 50% Hispanic of voting age and it works.

The County Commission Advisory group has been able (after torturing itself and the public in a six hour meeting on Wednesday) to get back to admitting that it might be a good idea to listen to the loudly expressed idea that a Hispanic Majority District had to be created to recognize the changed population of the County. Having deep-sixed such a plan just last week, they reconsidered and with a two-thirds vote because of huge backlash in the Hispanic Community and in the media.

The School Board Advisory Group, lagging the others a little, got a bunch of plans into place for consideration next week. They are bitterly divided and loyal to the people who appointed them. Some members have dropped off and had to be replaced because they could not take the work load. New informed members are stepping up. They have still not gotten to the point of making a firm commitment to Hispanic voters for a 50% Hispanic District, but they have a proposal on the table and will have to be moved to do the right thing now that the District has 40% Hispanic students.

The Bad (so far)

The City of Orlando created a District which is 64% Black in District 5, but cut the Black population of District 6 down to 42%. Observers pointed out that this could easily spell the end of the long history of two Black Commissioners for Orlando within the decade. The recommendation which will go to City Hall also contains a bunch of districts that ANY casual observer would describe as extremely gerrymandered.

The County Advisory group continues to try to force the districts into the old mold of the Districts of the last two decades regardless of the huge changes all can see. Three Committee driven plans which take immaculate care of small communities but do not recognize the 308,000 Hispanics remain on the table. All of these plans, developed by members at the instruction of various commissioners, try to force the square peg of reality into the round hole of the old Districts. As a consequence, minority representation drops rather than rises as it should. Black population in District 6 falls in these plans from 59% to barely 50% and the committee had to scramble (and lose votes from various members) to meet basic legal thresholds.

The School Board group still has not tipped its hand on whether they will finally accept reality and create a Hispanic District and they are struggling mightily to retain the old system which allocated a District to each of the Historic big five high-schools, (Boone, Edgewater, Winter Park, Apopka, Jones) without allowing for representation from areas containing the other fourteen County high-schools which have emerged over the last thirty years as the County has grown and changed.

The Ugly (past and present)

The City process started so late and was so rushed that the Community barely woke up and it was over. This was insider baseball at heart. The result is that the priorities of Metro-West and the bizarre individual business-focused interests of the Commissioners trumped other – more significant – considerations of actual voters. Self-serving politicians let their representatives know, in no uncertain terms, what they wanted and their representative dutifully carried out the plan. Ings wanted the homeowners of Metro-West in his District and Lynum didn’t, so he got them, at a certain future cost to Black voters. The gerrymandering that this produced spread all over the city. And the turf war about a small business district led the Committee for the second time in a decade to divide district three and four down an alley half a block off Mills avenue. Utter nonsense.

The County continues to try to pretend that things have not changed in fifty years. They assert that small movements in lines will accomplish the necessary fixes and – consequently – ignore the fact that there are a million extra people living here now and that many of them do not speak English from day-to-day. They also strive to ignore basic civil rights law as their attorney gives them bad advice. The lobbyists who drive the county process (both the Chair and Vice Chair are registered County lobbyists and several members have had lucrative financial arrangements with the County) just want to keep their friends in office happy, so that they can sell introductions. It is a great way to run a railroad, but no way to do the people’s business. The School Board group is still letting the current School Board Members interfere daily with their deliberations. Thanks to weak consideration of appointments by some who wanted to believe that this process would be simple or easily directed, they have had to replace members in the last weeks of the process. All in all, this is more about taking care of incumbents than taking care of the people.

I want to set up a process to get advisors who will say that I should run the world and then get them to issue such a report. That is how it is done and the whole process needs to change when this is over; but by then everyone will forget. We need independent bodies to create districts and they would probably come from a lottery of applicants. That is the only way I can see change coming. Right now it is all still window dressing for incumbent protection. The citizens voted to change that at the State and Federal Level, but at the local level, it is business as usual.