Saying they would cause “chaos,” former Secretary of State Kurt Browning joined an effort Monday by two members of Congress to defeat two proposed constitutional amendments that would revamp the way districts are drawn.
Browning, who had a largely non-partisan reputation as Secretary of State before he resigned in April, joined Republican U.S. Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart and Democratic U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown in launching a “Protect Your Vote” campaign to sway voters against the amendments. The amendments have been dubbed the “FairDistricts” measures, but Browning said Monday that if they were approved, the forthcoming redistricting process would be anything but fair.
“I believe there will be chaos like we’ve never seen before, if these amendments pass in 2010, as we go toward the 2012 election,” he told reporters after a news conference in Tallahassee.
“What’s going to happen is a chaotic process that we already have with redistricting is going to be even more chaotic because of all the additional litigation that is going to be filed in the courts, to the point where we believe that the courts will end up drawing the boundaries and taking it out of the hands of elected representatives,” he said.
Browning, a former Pasco County Elections Supervisor, was the first secretary of state in many years whose expertise was in elections.
Browning also said he’s been through enough redistricting efforts – 2012 would be his fourth decennial redrawing – to know that the Fair Districts measures are unworkable.
“You cannot meet the standards that (Amendments) 5 and 6 will put on the Legislature,” Browning said. “You can’t maintain compactness, you can’t maintain contiguous districts, you can’t maintain minority representation all at the same time. It doesn’t work.
“Florida is not a square state. You can’t come in here and just draw straight lines and say ‘you’re in this district, you’re in that district,'” he said.
The “Protect Your Vote” campaign, which registered as a political action committee last week, is supported by Associated Industries of Florida and the Florida Chamber of Commerce, who each have representation in the new PAC’s leadership.
The FairDistricts amendments, which were fiercely opposed by the Republican-led Legislature this spring, would prohibit political boundaries from being drawn in a way that is intended to help a political party or protect an incumbent’s district. Florida’s next round of redistricting is set to occur in 2012 and both parties have been gearing up for the always-controversial process.
Browning acknowledged that supporters of the amendments got a head start in the coming campaign because they had to collect signatures, though he said the “Protect Your Vote” initiative has “plenty of time” to sway voters.
The FairDistricts campaign has raised more than $4 million in favor of the amendments. A spokeswoman for the effort to defeat them indicated that less will likely be spent on defense.
“Absentees are on their way out the door now at supervisors’ offices. We know we have a job ahead of us,” Browning said.
Backers of the amendments said the two congressmen leading the fight against them are wrong.
“Some of us have literally spent the last 45 years fighting for, advocating for, and going to court to enforce and protect the Voting Rights Act of 1965,” American Civil Liberties Union Executive Director Howard Simon said in a statement. “Reps. Diaz Balart and Brown are sadly mistaken about Amendments 5 and 6. These constitutional amendments are the most important changes that voters can make right now that will strengthen minority voting rights and protect the right of minorities to elect representatives of their choice.”
The Florida NAACP took it a step further, calling the push to defeat amendments 5 and 6 “a throwback to a very dark time in our history.”
“It should frighten all Floridians to know that some elected officials will stop at nothing to protect their political status by trying to avoid having any rules to stop them from continuing to draw districts that serve themselves rather than the people of this great state. More disturbing is the blatant use of scare tactics with African Americans and Hispanics to justify the continued gerrymandering of districts that benefit only politicians,” NAACP president Adora Obi Nweze said in a statement.
Despite the criticism, Brown and Diaz-Balart stood by their stances and brushed off the lack of support from groups like the ACLU and NAACP.
“In politics, I’ve learned after being elected almost 30 years, it’s no permanent friends, it’s no permanent enemies, it’s permanent causes,” Brown said. “What (FairDistricts supporters) are trying do – which is impossible – is take the politics out of politics.”
Diaz-Balart was similarly dismissive, saying “these are the same individuals and the same huge interest groups that have been trying to not allow minorities to have the ability to elect candidates in this state that Corrine Brown and I have been dealing with now for over 20 years.”
“These are the bleaching amendments,” he said. “These amendments will have the effect of bleaching the state of Florida as it was before 1992, when minorities did not have the ability to elect candidates of their choice.”
Voters will decide whether the FairDistricts amendments should be added to the Florida Constitution Nov. 2.
By Keith Laing
The News Service of Florida
