Former Congressman Alan Grayson (D-Orlando) said, he views as “very positive”, the recent decision by a Federal Court in Miami to reject the challenge to the Fair Districts amendment brought by U.S. Reps. Corrine Brown, a Jacksonville Democrat, Mario Diaz-Balart, a Miami Republican and the Florida GOP-controlled House of Representatives. He said it is surprising that anyone could question the need for fair districts in Florida, even after 63 percent of voters approved new standards for redistricting last November.
“We have 600,000 more Democrats than Republicans in the State of Florida, and yet because of gerrymandering – the strange lines that are drawn – we end up with 19 Republicans and 6 Democratic congressmen and it is the same think in the state Legislature,” Grayson said. “We have reached a point where it is literally true that the voters no longer choose their reperesentatives, but the representatives choose their voters by drawing the line in wayt that suit themselves and keep other people from competing against them. That’s not democracy.”
Grayson blasted the GOP for spending millions of taxpayer dollars to thwart the will of the people, noting that the court had simply ruled, one person, one vote and people deserve to choose their representative and not the other way around.
“The Republican Party of Florida has spent over $10 million dollars of taxpayers money trying to fight the will of the people here,” Grayson said. “$10 million dollars of our money has been spent on lawyers to prevent the will of the people from going into effect. And I think it is shameful and I think their day of reckoning will soon come.”
Brown, Mario-Diaz-Balart and the state GOP House have challenged the Fair Districts amendments in court, bizarrely maintaining that the new anti-gerrymandering standards could dilute minority representation in Washington, in particular, and also in Tallahassee.
Grayson pointed out that minority representation is guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution and the Fair Districts amendments specifically do not affect these constitutional rights, including that of equal representation. He added that every major African American elected official in the state supports the Fair Districts Florida amendments.
