E-mails show plotting by lawmakers, GOP on Florida redistricting

[d_r]

Source: Tampa Tribune

TALLAHASSEE — Florida legislative leaders appear to have authorized staff members to use private email accounts and had "brainstorming meetings" with Republican Party consultants to attempt to draw favorable political districts, despite a constitutional ban on such coordination.

The allegations arise from a lawsuit challenging the Senate and congressional redistricting that include emails showing how top aides to House Speaker Will Weatherford, Senate President Don Gaetz and several Gaetz consultants were in frequent contact with operatives who drafted and analyzed maps.

Redistricting takes place every decade to redraw legislative and congressional district boundaries to ensure equal representation.

The emails show that a month after voters in 2010 approved an amendment banning coordination between the party and lawmakers, GOP consultant and Gaetz adviser Rich Heffley called a redistricting "brainstorming" meeting at the chairman's conference room at party headquarters in Tallahassee.



Read more: http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/elections/e-mails-show-plotting-by-lawmakers-gop-on-florida-redistricting/1273743

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Pretty clear they broke the law

[Coolest Ranger]

1. If you can't beat them, cheat.

[Angry Dragon]

2. Off to prison with them

[Kelvin Mace]

3. Not going to happen

This is the new norm for the 21st Century, along with torture, taxpayer subsidized billionaires, and 1984 as a politico manifesto, not a cautionary tale.

[progressoid]

8. Yup.

[Angry Dragon]

9. One needs goals and dreams .............

[Kelvin Mace]

10. You are right

but my ability to be optimistic died with Obama's embracing and expansion of Bush war crimes.

[lsewpershad]

12. I agree.

I'm sure if the she were on the other foot the repukes would have done everything to put the dems responsible in jail. Remember Don sigleman... Dems need to grow some.....

[Berlum]

4. Scuzzbucket Republican "Family Values"

As usual. Right out of the cesspool.

[valerief]

5. I'm sure they'll all be duly rewarded for this. Maybe a secretary will go to prison.

That's how politics in the U.S. rolls.

[tclambert]

6. Why can't we make a simple rule to stop gerrymandering?

How about "Congressional districts must be drawn to have the minimum possible border length"?

A computer can analyze the density of voter population and calculate the configuration of districts giving the minimum borders. What would we need? A constitutional amendment? Maybe state by state. If a few states made this rule, it might embarrass others into joining up.

[Redfairen]

11. That's what the Florida state constitutional amendments did.

What this shows is that even when the voters pass firm rules they will get corrupted by crooked politicians. The new Florida state constitutional amendments on gerrymandering have very specific guidelines. But when those guidelines are being carried out by partisans who detest them then they will find ways to compromise the rules. The only real way to solve it is take the process out of the hands of politicians and give it to a non-partisan commission.

[formercia]

7. The GOP is a dying Race

Like all species that are unable to adapt to a changing environment. The GOP is doomed to marginalization and eventual extinction. These little games they play are just playing for time, but the facts are that the Demographics are steadily and irreversibly changing, and not in their favor.
Sure, we have to keep fighting them, otherwise, they would impose a Minority-led regime, tantamount to them enslaving the majority of the population.
It's only a matter of Time. Perhaps I will not see it in my lifetime, but I hope my children will enjoy a just Society. This is why I fight.