In my last post I talked about who should be doing the redistricting in the states and I said that it should not be the legislature. Well in Florida, the battle seems to be whether the state legislature should spend tax dollars to fight a ballot initiative to hand the redistricting commission to a 15 person panel instead of the legislature.
Now, politically, if the legislature wants to fight the initiative, that is fine, but they absolutely should not be using tax dollars to do so. The ballot question committee cannot use tax dollars.
By the way, redistricting in Florida is a major concern. In the 2004 elections, 9 incumbents in Congress, out of 25 seats, faced no opponent at all. In the remaining 16 seats, the average percentage of the vote won was a mind-blowing 67.1%. The lowest margin of victory was Katherine Harris, the much embattled Congresswoman who won with a comfortable 55.3 percent. No incument lost in the general election.
Source CSPAN Election Results.
Competition is good for the country and good for democracy. Competition tests ideas, improving on the goods ones and rejecting the bad ideas. Time has come to change the way in which districting is done.
For more, see here.
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