Fair Districts plotted to "scoop as many Jews" for Wasserman-Schultz, draw partisan districts

@MarcACaputo

A liberal group involved in a lawsuit to make Florida’s congressional districts less partisan engaged in its own partisan efforts by drawing Democratic-heavy Hispanic seats or trying to "scoop" Jewish voters into a district for U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the Democratic National Committee chair, emails show.

The emails between the leaders and consultants of what’s known as the Fair Districts Coalition became a central piece of evidence Wednesday in the Republican-led Legislature’s legal defense of the congressional districts it drew in 2012.

Some coalition members sued the Legislature to have the congressional maps cancelled, saying they violate a new state constitutional amendment forbidding lawmakers from drawing districts that favor or disfavor political parties or incumbents.

To show how unfair the Legislature’s maps were, the plaintiffs submitted their own plan as an alternative.

But Republicans note that the emails involving Fair Districts leader Ellen Freidin and the consultants show that the plaintiffs’ proposals were drawn to strengthen Democrats, in general, and Wasserman Schultz in particular.

“I just got off the phone with Ellen,” consultant Brad Wieneke wrote in a Tuesday, Dec. 27, 2011, email to members of the team in discussing Wasserman Schultz’s district.

“They want to scoop as many Jews out of Tamarac and Sunrise as they can,” Wienke said.

Insider emails show FL Democrats wanted to gerrymander redistricting just like GOP

@MarcACaputo

Florida Democrats plotted with top leaders and consultants to redraw congressional districts to benefit their party, according to new court records that show they were just as interested in gerrymandering as Republicans.

Democratic-leaning groups are challenging the new congressional maps in court, saying Republicans broke a state constitutional amendment by drawing districts that favored or disfavored political parties and incumbents.

Earlier this month, Democrats unearthed emails showing how Republican consultants analyzed and suggested maps that benefitted the GOP during “brainstorming meetings.”

Turns out, Florida Democratic Party Executive Director Scott Arcenaux was doing the same thing for his party, the new emails show. They also indicate the plans Democrats drew were shopped to Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Weston congresswoman, Boca Raton U.S. Rep. Ted Deutch, Miramar U.S. Rep. Alcee Hastings, state Senate Democratic leader Nan Rich and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

Florida House Speaker Weatherford: changing the Electoral College is for sore losers

Republicans in five states, notably Virginia, have discussed changing the way they award Electoral College votes in presidential races by apportioning them on each congressional district, rather than the state's popular vote.

The reason: Republican Mitt Romney would have won the presidency despite losing the popular vote in states where the GOP controls the legislatures: Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Florida.

But Florida, the largest swing state, won't go along with changing the Electoral College if Florida House Speaker Will Weatherford has any say (and he has a major say).

"To me, that's like saying in a football game, 'We should have only three quarters, because we were winning after three quarters and the beat us in the fourth," Weatherford, a Republican, told the Herald/Times. "I don't think we need to change the rules of the game, I think we need to get better."

In Virginia, state Republicans are going with the why-get-better? approach. They're getting a bill ready for a vote that, had it been in effect in November, would have given Obama about 30 percent of the Electoral College votes, even though he won 51 percent of the popular vote in that state. Obama only won four of the nine Virginia congressional seats because they've been drawn to favor Republicans.

But Republican National Chairman Reince Priebus seems to like the idea, telling the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: "I think it's something that a lot of states that have been consistently blue that are fully controlled red ought to be looking at."

Not only is Weatherford opposed to the idea, fellow Republican and Florida Senate President Don Gaetz is decidedly cool to it. When asked about changing the way Electoral College votes are apportioned, Gaetz thought the entire system should be scrapped.

 "I think we should abolish the Electoral College but nobody in Washington has called to ask for my opinion," Gaetz said. "If James Madison had asked me, and I had been there, I would have said a popular vote is a better way to do it." Gaetz said the electoral college shrinks the presidential campaign to a handful of states as it did in 2012.

"The farmer standing in his field in North Dakota should be just as important as the factory worker in Ohio," Gaetz said.

-- with Steve Bousquet

Game on, again: Court to hear challenge to Senate redistricting map

Leon County Circuit Court Judge Terry Lewis denied a motion by the Florida Legislature today to dismiss a lawsuit challenging the lawsuit challenging the state Senate redistricting plan.

Legislators argued that the trial court should not hear the case because it should be handled exclusively by the Florida Supreme Court. Lewis disagreed and concluded that argument "flies in the face of case law."  Download 2013 01 17 Order Denying Motion to Dismiss

The lawyer for the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, Adam Schachter, released the following statement:

“Judge Lewis’s order means that Floridians will have their day in court. This ruling gives our citizens the right to scrutinize the conduct and motives of those who drew the map.” 

 

New redistricting lawsuit takes aim at Senate seats

The League of Women Voters of Florida and several other groups filed a new lawsuit Wednesday, claiming the Legislature protected incumbents in its redrawing of Senate seats, in violation of the fair districts amendments to the state Constitution.

The lawsuit, filed in circuit court in Tallahassee, focuses on changes that affected Tampa Bay, suburban Orlando and Daytona Beach. It claims three Tampa Bay Senate seats (Districts 17, 19 and 22) were gerrymandered to help Republicans. The suit charges that District 22, a Pinellas and Hillsborough seat won last month by Republican Jeff Brandes, could have been drawn more compactly and all in Pinellas County, but that Senate Republicans included part of Tampa "with the intent to maintain its party's dominance of the area's Senate seats and protect incumbents." 

The suit also accuses the Senate of deliberately crafting two Orlando-area Senate seats to prevent two Republican incumbents, Andy Gardiner and David Simmons, from being forced to run against each other. The lawsuit also alleges that the Senate drew some districts "to help and thus intentionally favor Senator (Jack) Latvala in his quest to become Senate president by helping candidates who were pledged to vote for him."

The map has been approved by the Florida Supreme Court, following a limited review. "We believe a full review of the Senate map will reveal that Senate districts were drawn in complete disregard of the new criteria," said Miami lawyer Gerald Greenberg, the lead attorney for the plaintiffs.

Greenberg is with the law firm of Gelber, Schachter & Greenberg of Miami. Named as defendants are Secretary of State Ken Detzner, Senate President Mike Hariodopolos and House Speaker Dean Cannon.  

The lawsuit is not expected to have any immediate effect on the Nov. 6 general election. The groups filing the complaint, including Common Cause and the National Council of La Raza, hope to persuade the courts to force lawmakers to redraw the districts for future elections. 

-- Steve Bousquet

Gambling lobbyist Dunbar praises Tom Lee, who fires back

Tallahassee gambling lobbyist Marc Dunbar wrote a fund-raising letter to his clients on the letterhead of his law firm (Pennington Moore Wilkinson Bell & Dunbar), urging them to support former Sen. Tom Lee in his Republican Senate primary against Rep. Rachel Burgin in East Hillsborough's District 24.

Calling the race "a clear choice between a pro-gambling moderate (Lee) and a stark anti-gambling conservative (Burgin)," Dunbar extolled the many occasions in which Lee came to the rescue of the parimutuel industry, including siding with Democrats Steve Geller and Debbie Wasserman Schultz to implement voter-approved slot machines in South Florida. Lee was Senate president when that occurred in 2005.

Dunbar is an astute lobbyist who has to know that Senate District 24 has many church-going social conservatives who oppose gambling and that being lumped in with liberals such as Geller and Wasserman Schultz is probably not the ideal way to garner Republican votes (read the Dunbar letter below).  

A closer look also reveals a troubled history between Lee and Dunbar. In 2005, three senators went off on a $48,000, two-day, all-expense-paid trip to Canada, courtesy of Magna Entertainment Corp., a gambling company, whose lobbyist was Marc Dunbar. When the Republican Party stepped in to pay for the trip and spare the senators an ethics problem, Lee ordered an investigation (story is here).

Sens. Mike Bennett, Dennis Jones and the late Jim King took that trip, as did then-Rep. Frank Farkas, R-St. Petersburg.

Asked to comment on Dunbar's letter, Lee called Dunbar "a political operative to the Rachel Burgin campaign," and said: "The letter is clearly designed to become an instrument of the Burgin campaign in an effort to mislead the voters about the expansion of gambling in Florida. I do not support the expansion of gambling in Florida."

Burgin said she's the only one in the race who's completely opposed to gambling, and cited her no vote in 2009 against the deal that allowed casino gambling on Seminole Indian reservation casinos that cost her a committee assignment. Lee fired back that Burgin has gotten money from gambling interests, the Hartman & Tyner parimutuel firm and Save Our Internet Access (internet cafes).

"You can't take away a voting record," Burgin said. "How can it (the letter) be a fabrication?"

Geller, a lawyer in Broward County who was a staunch supporter of gambling interests, described Lee as "ambivalent" on gambling issues. But he did recall that Lee played a role in passing a 2003 bill that expanded cardroom operations at Florida tracks -- one of the bills Dunbar cites in his letter.  

Lee says the tipoff that Dunbar's letter is phony is the lobbyist's repeated use of the word "gambling," when the industry has long preferred the less sinister-sounding word "gaming." Dunbar stands behind the letter but he declined comment. Another mystery: Lee has been raising money for nearly a month, but his campaign report shows nomoney from Dunbar or his clients. Yet Dunbar's June 22 letter says: "Tom needs your support now!"

"This is just the latest creative and clever attempt to discredit me because of my stance against public corruption in Tallahassee," Lee said. "Marc Dunbar was on that plane." Lee says he'll refuse any campaign money from gambling interests in his campaign. 

However, Lee is a leadership-backed Senate candidate, and the parimutuel industry is a big contributor to political slush funds controlled by Sens. Don Gaetz, R-Niceville, and Andy Gardiner, R-Orlando, both of whom want Lee to win. Burgin notes that the electrioneering group that is most strongly supporting Lee, the Liberty Foundation of Florida, lists the same street address as Rhett O'Doski, a lobbyist who is representing MGM Resorts International Inc., operator of Las Vegas casinos. 

-- Steve Bousquet

Redistricting maps pass review by Department of Justice

Florida's redistricting maps are ready to be implemented, officials announced Monday.

The U.S. Department of Justice granted Florida's request for administrative preclearance of the maps under the Voting Rights Act, according to a Monday letter from Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez.

"However, we note that Section 5 expressly provides that the failure of the Attorney General to object does not bar subsequent litigation to enjoin the enforcement of the changes," Perez cautioned.

The review of redistricting plans wrapped sooner than earlier cycles, Senate spokeswoman Lyndsey Cruley said. The preclearance letter is attached. Download Preclearance Letter

"One of our foremost goals during this redistricting cycle was to conduct the process in a manner that would give both the voters and candidates time to become familiar with the new districts," Senate President Mike Haridopolos said in a statement. "With the completion of the review process for these redistricting plans today, I am proud to say that we accomplished that goal."

Pariente urges attention be given to flaws in Florida's redistricting process

In a 17-page concurring opinion to the court decision to validate the Senate map, Justice Barbara Pariente concludes that Florida’s redistricting process, while improved because of the new Fair District amendments, still contain flaws that could result in the will of voters not being served.

“The bottom line is that while the goal of the new amendment is laudatory, it is imperative that there be further exploration of the limitations of time, process, and the language of the ―intent standard,’’ Pariente wrote.

Pariente explored that time constraints imposed by existing Constitutional provisions and concluded they are unrealistic. She said the process by which legislators draw maps with an "intent" not to favor or incumbents or political parties is inherently conflicted and the will of the voters might better be served to require that districts be “competitive” rather than to suggest that political intent be barred.

Pariente showed us again how she has become the court’s most vocal redistricting critic with her treatise on the requirement in the Fair District amendments requirement that the maps be draw with no intent to protect incumbents or political parties.

She then included this list of comparisons – between the invalidated Senate plan, the redrawn Senate plan, the coalition‘s alternative plan, and the Democratic Party’s alternative plan which show that despite Democratic voter performance and registration numbers, Republicans were given the numerical advantage in the maps. “This partisan imbalance naturally raises questions,” she wrote.

Dems and Repubs bicker over who's to blame in failed redistricting deal

Slapped down by one Supreme Court ruling and facing years of partisan legal wrangling over the Legislature’s redistricting plans, the Senate’s top Republican quietly met with the head of the Florida Democratic Party last month to discuss a deal that could end the lawsuits.

It didn’t work. Now, while both sides agree the meetings took place, each suggests the other is misrepresenting the reason the deal was rejected.

Sen. Don Gaetz, R-Niceville, the chairman of the Senate Redistricting Committee, told the Herald/Times Monday that he was approached repeatedly by former state Sen. Steve Geller, D-Hallandale Beach, who served as an intermediary for Florida Democratic Party Chairman Rod Smith.

Supremes push back at opponents to Senate's redrawn maps

Within minutes of the opening arguments before the Florida Supreme Court Friday, two justices lashed into lawyers for opponents of the legislatively-drawn map when they concluded that the court rejected more than eight flawed districts when it threw out the Senate map March 9.

 “Speaking for the person that wrote it, it was pretty clear that there were certain districts that were specifically invalidated,’’ said Justice Barbara Pariente, the author of the 5-2 opinion that forced the state Legislature to return in an extraordinary session to revise its Senate map.

She suggested that it would be unfair to the Senate if the court were to reopen districts where challenges previously were rejected “or the burden of the challenges were unmet.”

Justice Peggy Quince also raised doubts about the arguments raised by the Florida Democratic Party and the coalition of voter groups that want the court to reject the entire map. "Why would want we want to go back and look at others? We looked at the whole thing,'' she said. "It just doesn't resonate."

But Paul Smith, lawyer for the Florida chapter of the League of Women Voters, the National Council of La Raza and Common Cause, said that the court must make sure that the new map adheres to the Fair District standards approved by voters and the new map clearly does not do that.