State Amendments 5 & 6: What are they?

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.

AMENDMENT 6

STANDARDS FOR LEGISLATURE TO FOLLOW IN CONGRESSIONAL REDISTRICTING

BALLOT SUMMARY: Congressional 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.

From the Tallahassee Democrat:

The gerrymander — that ugly but all-too-common creature — has thrived in Florida for years.

Serpentine congressional and legislative districts traverse the state everywhere you look. Elections are shockingly uncompetitive, with only three incumbents in the Legislature losing over the past six years (out of 420 elections). And even though there are more registered Democrats than Republicans in Florida, Republicans control 15 out of 25 congressional seats, 76 out of 120 state House seats, and 26 out of 40 state Senate seats.

Hoping to curb this out-of-control gerrymandering, Florida’s voters recently placed two initiatives on the ballot for this fall’s elections (one for Congress, one for the Legislature). These initiatives, sponsored by the nonpartisan group FairDistrictsFlorida.org, would ban line-drawers from trying to “favor or disfavor a political party or an incumbent.” Instead, districts would have to be compact and contiguous, to respect existing political and geographical boundaries and to safeguard minority voting rights.

The FairDistricts initiatives have been applauded by almost every unbiased observer of the Florida political scene. Major newspapers throughout the state (including the Tallahassee Democrat) have
endorsed them.