Fair Districts: Balart Bros. Show Redistricting Matters
In 1992, a Freshman Republican was elected to represent the Miami area in the US House. The GOP majority in the Florida legislature district had just designed his district as a safe Republican South Florida "Hispanic access seat." His name: Lincoln Diaz-Balart.
In 2002, a Freshman Republican was elected to represent the Miami area in the US House. As the chair of the redistricting panel in the GOP led State House in 2001, he had personally designed his own safe Republican South Florida "Hispanic access seat." His name: Mario Diaz-Balart.
The Balart brothers might have been elected anyway, but the districts that were drawn for / by them virtually guaranteed them easy wins.
Historically, the rules for drawing new districts have been very loose - districts needed to have the same population and be contiguous, and factors such as race and party could be used to create safe seats.
Traditionally, the party in power colludes with the minority party, throwing them a few safe districts and segregating their voters in the process. This leads to a bunch of safe incumbents who can not be held accountable.
Republicans had the legislative power in 1991 and 2001 and, largely due to their mad redistricting skills, they are virtually guaranteed to retain a legislative majority for the 2011 redistricting process.
The current Republican drawn map is full of districts like FL-11, US Rep. Kathy Castor's Tampa area district which includes part of the city of Tampa, carves out a slim piece of shoreline in Hillsborough County, pops down to Sarasota, and then jumps across the entire Tampa Bay to include a chunk of South St. Petersburg.
Out of 420 elections for legislative seats in Florida in the last 6 years, a grand total of three incumbents have been defeated. Three.
This November, Florida voters will have a chance to enact meaningful changes to a redistricting process that has historically been a gerrymandering free for all.
Amendments 5 and 6 are citizen initiatives that will enshrine fair redistricting rules into the state constitution, forcing an end to the practice of lawmakers custom designing their own voter pools.
Aside from Amendment 5 covering Legislative districts and Amendment 6 covering Congressional districts, the ballot summaries and language are identical. Here's Amendment 5:
STANDARDS FOR LEGISLATURE TO FOLLOW IN LEGISLATIVE REDISTRICTING
BALLOT SUMMARY: Legislative 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.
Full text:
In establishing Legislative district boundaries:
(1) No apportionment plan or district shall be drawn with the intent to favor or disfavor a political party or an incumbent; and districts shall not be drawn with the intent or result of denying or abridging the equal opportunity of racial or language minorities to participate in the political process or to diminish their ability to elect representatives of their choice; and districts shall consist of contiguous territory.
(2) Unless compliance with the standards in this subsection conflicts with the standards in subsection (1) or with federal law, districts shall be as nearly equal in population as is practicable; districts shall be compact; and districts shall, where feasible, utilize existing political and geographical boundaries.
(3) The order in which the standards within sub-sections (1) and (2) of this section are set forth shall not be read to establish any priority of one standard over the other within that subsection.
Simple. Easy to understand. Fair.
The GOP, of course, hates everything about these amendments, but they have failed in multiple attempts to derail the process, including a recent court smack down of their clumsy attempt to confuse voters with dueling amendments, and it looks like Amendments 5 and 6 will be on the ballot in November.
Fair Districts Florida needs help right now with volunteers and money. They have been fighting this fight for years and are very close to victory. A win could make a real difference. A sixty percent super majority is required for passage.
Our present system permits politicians to choose their voters instead of voters having a fair chance to choose their representatives. Legislators use sophisticated computers, voter registration data and past election returns to predict how particular voters will vote in the future. Then they choose which voters are most likely to vote for them and their party and place just enough of those voters in "safe" districts -- ones they are sure they can win. Those in charge also pack large numbers of unfavorable voters in into a few districts so the unfriendly voters will have a chance to win in fewer districts.
Each district is rigged to accomplish a particular result. Districts are set up to be either Democratic or Republican and opposing party candidates do not have a chance. Only 7% of Florida’s legislative elections are really competitive. Voters do not have a real choice in selecting their representatives because the elections are rigged before they even start.
Another result is that there are rarely serious challenges to incumbents. In the last 6 years, there have been 420 elections for State Senator and State Representative. Only three incumbents have been defeated! After all, their districts are specially designed for them! With virtually certain seats, legislators have no incentive to be responsive to their constituents and they see no reason to compromise for the public good.
...The new rules or standards proposed by FairDistrictsFlorida.org will prohibit drawing districts to favor an incumbent or a party. The standards will require that districts be compact and community based. Communities -- like Seminole County -- will not be divided among multiple representatives. And Florida will have strongest constitutional language in the country to ensure that redistricting is not used to reduce the representation of racial and language minority voters.
Politicians like Mario Diaz-Balart will no longer be able to pick their own pool of voters. They will have to compete fairly and attract support from a wide cross-section of their communities.
Districts like Kathy Castor's FL-11 will be redrawn to include entire communities based on existing political and natural boundaries instead of being cobbled together from bits and pieces of 3 different cities and counties.
The races for Senate and Governor are sucking all the air out of the room right now, but Amendments 5 and 6 could be far more important for the long term health of representative democracy in Florida.
Join with organized labor, the ACLU, the NAACP, the League of Women Voters, Democracia Ahora, the vast majority of Democratic politicians in the state, over 600,000 Florida voters who signed petitions to get these measures on the ballot, and some moderate and former Republicans to support Fair Districts Florida.
This really is a BFD.
ACTION: Support FairDistrictsFlorida.
Florida Voters: Vote YES on Amendments 5 and 6.
Editing The Constitution: Amendment 3
Note: Every 2 years, Florida voters get a chance to literally edit the state constitution, as proposed changes to the actual text of the document are placed on the ballot. This post is part of a continuing series.
Florida's 2010 Amendment 3 can be seen as a legacy of sorts of former Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio. The amendment, backed by Charlie Crist, Florida Realtors, and the Florida Chamber of Commerce, could wreak havoc with municipal budgets as it seeks to slash property tax revenue by $1 billion over three years.
As proposed, Amendment 3 offers first-time buyers more equal footing with homeowners, says David Hart, vice president of legislative and governmental Affairs for the Florida Home Builders Association. The proposal calls for a first-year tax break averaging about $500 for a $200,000 home. Benefits would be phased out over five years, with the special exemption ending in year six. Total benefits on that same $200,000 home would be about $1,500.
"We support it because in the case of the additional property tax benefit to first-time buyers, it helps level the playing field with longtime homestead property owners who’ve enjoyed the benefits of Save Our Homes,” Hart said. While the organization has not taken an official vote on the measure, Hart said the group thinks it will motivate buyers and spur housing starts and construction jobs....
Critics of Amendment 3 fear local governments and school districts would suffer the brunt of further property tax breaks under the proposal. If approved, the amendment will cost those local entities about $1 billion in lost revenue over three years, state economists estimate. The amendment is "of great concern to us because we’ve seen funding for schools go down over the last couple of years,” said Mark Pudlow of the Florida Education Association.
Even more alarming is the state’s shift from state funds to local property taxes to pay for schools and at the same time cut property tax revenue, Pudlow added. While schools would lose money from the additional homestead exemption in the proposed amendment, cities, counties and special tax districts would lose property tax revenue from both the new exemption and the 5 percent assessment cap on non-homestead properties.
Marco Rubio got where he is today by jumping on the property tax reform bandwagon back in 2007. That year, as incoming Speaker of the Florida House, Rubio gained national attention as he championed a complex tax swap package that would have increased the regressive state sales tax dramatically while completely eliminating taxes on homesteaded properties.
"I loved him. I absolutely loved him," recalled Margie Patchett, leader of a local antitax group. "I thought, 'This is not your standard politician. This is a man of vision.' "
The scene played across Florida — from Panama City to Spring Hill and Sarasota. Marco Rubio shaped anger over soaring property taxes into the defining mark of his two years as speaker.
Today, the issue has been overlooked as Rubio stands atop the race for U.S. Senate. But that period was the foundation of his success...
Some of the first calls Rubio made after declaring his candidacy for Senate were to contacts he made in 2007. Partly with their help, he won a series of straw polls that represented the beginning of the end of Crist's run as a Republican.
And while most House speakers don't get much attention beyond Tallahassee, Rubio enjoyed widespread exposure because of property taxes. National TV networks visited him in Miami and conservative leaders in Washington talked him up.
"He's the most pro-taxpayer legislative leader in the country," Grover Norquist said at the time...
Rubio's record on property taxes invites questions about his effectiveness. His ideas were big but mostly failed, even though his party controlled the Legislature. In the end, Crist prevailed with a simpler (and less substantial) property tax relief plan...
The day after the Tallahassee rally, the House passed Rubio's tax swap on a mostly party-line vote. That was as far as it would go.
Senate Republicans mocked the plan as a massive tax increase, even though it would have cut a corresponding level of property tax. Some of the richest Florida homeowners would have gotten huge breaks while critics said the poor would be disproportionately hurt by a higher sales tax.
His party controlled both chambers and the Governor's mansion, but Rubio's proposal was rejected in the end in favor of Governor Charlie Crist's plan which was placed on the ballot as Amendment 1 in 2008.
Amendment 1 was passed by the voters in 2008 and in 2009 the now Rubio-less Legislature, again prodded by Crist, jumped back onto the still circling tax reform bandwagon and placed this year's Amendment 3 on the ballot.
But let's back up a bit and take a look at Florida's tax system.
Florida has no state income tax. We rely exclusively on revenue from sales and use taxes and property taxes to fund state and local government.
Since the early 1930's, Florida has had a homestead exemption which essentially declares a certain amount of the value of one's primary home exempt from taxation as long as the homeowner is a permanent resident of the state.
In 1992, voters modified the homestead exemption with the Save Our Homes amendment which capped annual rises in property appraisal values (done for taxation) for homesteaded properties at 3 percent. This was sold as a way to help elderly residents facing increasing tax bills to stay in their homes.
The next major change was Crist's 2008 Amendment 1 which doubled the homestead exemption to $50,000 and also managed to make this homeowner only tax break even more regressive by ensuring that low valued homes would not be entirely exempt - the second half of the $50,000 exemption only applies to the value of a home between $50,000 and $75,000 - meaning that your home must be worth at least $75,000 to qualify for full exemtion. (YES - there are plenty of homes - right in my county! - worth less than $75,000 right now.)
Amendment 1 passed with high expectations amongst voters that their property taxes would be slashed for free. After all, this is how the Republican politicians had sold the measure to the people.
In actuality, homeowners enjoyed modest savings while Amendment 1 combined with falling property values to decimate municipal budgets which rely almost exclusively on property taxes for funding.
So in 2009, as cities and counties throughout the state were facing layoffs and hard budget choices, firing teachers, closing schools and libraries, cutting back on police and fire protection, the GOP Legislature and Republican Governor Crist did exactly what everyone expected them to do by placing yet another property tax relief measure on the ballot.
Amendment 3 would give a homestead exemption to first time buyers, eliminating the current waiting period. The measure would also halve the 10 percent yearly cap on appraisal values for all non-homesteaded properties, including businesses and rental properties.
Needless to say, the resulting loss of revenue (estimated at $1 billion over three years) will further cripple already weakened local budgets. If Amendment 3 passes, look forward to more municipal layoffs and cutbacks in services.
Florida constitutional amendments require a 60 percent super majority to pass, so there is a high threshold right off the bat, but Amendment 3 has some powerful backers, including the Florida Realtors, who are happy for any potential lifeline for the foundering real estate market.
Republican conservative anti-tax Governor Charlie Crist fought hard to get this measure through the Legislature in the closing days of the 2009 session. Since that time, however, we haven't heard a whole lot about Amendment 3.
Will independent left-leaning Senatorial candidate Charlie Crist continue to fight for this tax cut that many unions and other progressive organizations oppose? Do the Florida Realtors and Florida Chamber actually care enough at this point to wage a campaign in favor of this measure?
Interestingly, Florida Tax Watch, a group that often fights in favor of tax cuts, has recently withdrawn its tepid support for Amendment 3, and, in fact, for property assessment caps altogether, which could give folks like Crist plenty of cover to flip on the issue.
Now, a new constitutional amendment, Amendment 3, will appear on the ballot in November and if approved, reduce that 10 percent limitation to 5 percent, potentially crippling Florida’s economic future, the TaxWatch report says. It compares that scenario to being similar to the way that Proposition 13 has contributed to the near bankrupting of California.
In the end, TaxWatch said the more stringent assessment limitations outlined in Amendment 3 would:
• Lower tax revenues for local government
• Lower municipal bond credit ratings
• Impede local governments that are hamstrung in adapting to economic conditions
• Create greater reliance on other types of taxes and an unnecessarily complicated system for taxpayers
• Reduce real estate transaction activity
• Reduce jobs and compensation for transaction facilitators
• Become an impediment to a vibrant economy
With luck, Amendment 3 will fail to garner 60 percent of the vote and will thus be disappeared, but with a title that will be the most prominent feature on its ballot line yelling "PROPERTY TAX LIMIT...," many voters may have a very hard time suppressing the anti-tax impulses which have been ingrained through years of conditioning and will vote for Amendment 3 without ever making a conscious decision to do so.
I think it's likely that Rubio will come out strong for Amendment 3 - he has no choice. Crist will flip flop, siding with Florida Tax Watch, and no one, not even the hard core Dems on Daily Kos, will care what Kendrick Meek thinks, because we really don't need a real Dem on the ballot come November as long as we have Charlie Crist to fawn over.
Stay tuned.
Editing the Constitution: Amendment 1
Note: This week Over the next week or two I'll spend several days and diaries discussing the constitutional amendment process in Florida as well as the specific amendments that are on the November ballot this year. The first part of the series is here.
On Monday we learned how the Florida constitution can be amended and that the amendment process usually takes the form of a citizen initiative or a Legislative initiative.
Today, we'll look at one of the Legislative initiatives on the ballot this year. Amendment One has been introduced by the Legislature to do away with Florida's public campaign finance system.
As we learned yesterday, Florida's constitution is constantly morphing as new amendments are passed by voters and edited into the original text. We also saw some examples of the Legislature introducing amendments specifically to undo earlier, often progressive changes mandated by voters.
This year's Amendment One is just such an animal. In 1998, voters enshrined into the constitution a bare bones public financing system for some statewide offices. Unfortunately, despite the will of the voters, the system never gained much legislative support and now the Legislature is tired of spending perfectly good public money to help candidates compete when it's stunningly obvious to everyone that raising private cash from corporations and wealthy influence peddlers or just outright buying the election for oneself is teh shit.
Unfortunately, the program that Jeb Bush referred to as "welfare for politicians" is probably doomed. The system is so broken and full of loopholes that it does little to help underfunded candidates compete, and the tide of special interest and corporate money has been rising in Florida just like elsewhere despite the public system.
There is absolutely no uprising in opposition to this bill, and with even public campaign financing stalwarts like Common Cause singing the death knell of the current system, this may be the last year for public financing in Florida.
“The campaign finance law really has become so messed up, the question is whether we should even try to save it,” said Ben Wilcox, a board member with Common Cause Florida, which has long supported the state public finance system.
“The system has been so manipulated, it doesn’t look much like it was intended to look,” he added.
...
since its earliest days, the public finance system has been gamed by lawmakers, its supporters say.The most dramatic move came five years ago, when the Republican-controlled Legislature nearly tripled spending limits for those running for governor -- raising the spending roof to where this year, candidates can spend as much as $24.9 million and still qualify for taxpayer money.
Spending limits for Cabinet candidates also were raised fivefold that year, from $2 million.
The spending caps were bumped skyward in 2005 in anticipation of a freespending battle in the governor’s race – beginning with a costly GOP primary between now-Gov. Charlie Crist and rival Tom Gallagher.
Eventually, Crist pocketed more than $3.3 million in public funds, while also spending $20 million in the governor’s race. He also drew at least that much financial support from the Florida Republican Party.
Party backing didn’t count toward the spending cap. And having the party cover campaign expenses and air television ads was among the first means candidates used to sidestep spending limits.
The rise of 527 groups in this year’s Republican primary has further blurred the role of spending limits. Such shadowy organizations, named for the section of the IRS code that governs them, can raise and spend unlimited amounts to influence an election – usually through TV ads aimed at tearing down an opponent.
Ironically, Republican Gubernatorial candidate and House Impeachment Manager Bill McCollum, an ardent opponent of public campaign financing, may be one of the last politicians to ever benefit from the system, as his floundering campaign is about to receive a gift in the form of matching contributions from the state. He needs every penny he can scrape together - his self-financing opponent has unlimited funds.
I'm certainly not going to shed any tears for McCollum, but it's apparent that whether Amendment 1 passes or not that the financing system in Florida is already really broken. McCollum's opponent Rick Scott is attempting to buy the GOP Governor's race, and Jeff Greene is trying to do the same in the Democratic Senate primary, and both of them may prevail due solely to the vast amounts of cash they are spending.
Amendment 1 aims to tear down the last vestiges of a crippled and broken down system. Public financing has been defanged and declawed and essentially left for dead for years. November's vote will be the public execution.
Editing the Constitution
Florida's constitution is truly an evolving document. Every two years, amendments are proposed and and those that pass muster with Florida voters are edited into the text of the original document rather than just being tacked on at the end.
The current version of our state constitution is full of seamless and not so seamless examples of good, bad and meh amendments that have been incorporated into the constitution over the years. Pregnant pigs, pregnant minors, a minimum wage and fishing nets are just a few of the subjects addressed in the constitution thanks to the amendment process.
There are five ways to put amendments to the Florida constitution on the ballot, but three are rarely used: two seperate commissions that meet every twenty years, and the Constitutional Convention process which must be initiated by the voters.
The two other methods, the legislative and citizen initiative processes, are fairly common and typically produce a bunch of measures for voters to consider every couple of years.
The citizen initiative is a petition gathering process and can sometimes result in popular measures that are maddeningly progressive in the eyes of our conservative GOP Legislature.
The Legislative initiative is typically crafted with the help of lobbyists in back rooms and can be designed with ulterior motives in mind.
Sometimes, especially in the past few cycles, the Legislature has been known to respond to successful citizen initiatives with amendments that aim to change or cancel out completely the citizens' efforts.
In 2000, Two years after Jeb Bush was elected Governor, citizens proposed and passed a High Speed Rail amendment, enshrining the forward thinking concept into the constitution and legally locking the Legislature and Governor into action.
But Bush and the GOP dominated Legislature failed to fund the rail project as they placed their own anti-rail amendment in the ballot in 2004 and they managed to convince the voters to cancel out the previous measure.
Similarly, class size is still being debated. Citizens passed an amendment in 2002 mandating specific teacher to student ratios in public schools. The Legislature has been trying to get it watered down for years, and this year another Legislative initiative is on the ballot which aims to change the way heads are counted in the classrooms, thus weakening the original amendment.
So the pattern is becoming clear: first, the citizens propose an amendment which passes with majority support. Then the politicians respond by seeking to water down or completely do away with the citizen mandate. But just undoing amendments wasn't enough for the Legislature.
Between class size and high speed rail and some other mandates from the voters, including language protecting pregnant pigs from the worst abuses of corporate farming, the Governor and Legislature, as well as the powerful business interests that backed them, were starting to feel a little lack of control. So in 2006, as well as pushing amendments to undo the amendments they didn't like, they managed to get a super majority requirement amendment into the constitution.
That's right: stung by repeated voter demands to address important issues, Florida's leaders talked the voters into making it harder for the voters to speak out. From now on, all amendments to the Florida constitution would require a sixty percent majority to pass.
Which pretty much brings us up to date. As things currently stand, voters this year will have three citizen sponsored initiatives and six legislative initiatives to vote on, several of which are designed to dilute or cancel current or past citizen efforts.
All of which is fodder for several more posts this week. Stay tuned.