Gerrymandering Creates Corrine Browns, Debbie Wasserman Schultzes and Robert Pittengers

Corrine Brown-- a two-and-half decade win-win for the Florida Republicans

Just a tad over two years ago, we looked at 24 year congressional veteran Corrine Brown' and her grotesquely gerrymandered district. I described FL-05 as one that "twists and turns down from the African American neighborhoods of Jacksonville-- that aren't even contiguous-- along a narrow strip a mile or two wide along Rt 17 (which then disappears into Ted Yoho's district and through some sparsely populated rural areas until finally finding Palatka in the east and African-American neighborhoods of Gainesville in the west before chugging down into Sanford and Pine Hills in the Orlando metropolitan area." Much like Wasserman Schultz did, Brown used her position in the state legislature to work with the Republicans to create a seat that served her own purposes-- never having to worry about being defeated-- as well as theirs-- getting thousands and thousands of black Democrats out of neighboring districts that would be safer for Republicans.

Obama won the district both times with 73%. With a PVI of D+21 this district defines "safe." Republicans have trouble winning R+1 districts and they don't try-- not ever, not anywhere, when a district is D+6 or above. Brown is screaming and threatening to go to the Supreme Court because Judge Terry Lewis ordered the legislature to remove Sanford from her district, which might take her down from a D+21 to a D+19, depending on other factors. Republicans didn't bother running candidates against her in 2004, 2006 and 2008 and last year, when there was a Republican running with no support (and a campaign war chest of $19,941 against Brown's $613,190), Brown won with 71%. "We will go all the way to the United States Supreme Court," she thundered, "dealing with making sure that African Americans are not disenfranchised."

Give me a break. Instead of making deals with Republicans in states to create marginally red districts by agreeing to have ethnically-cleansed districts, Democrats like Brown could spread around some of her Democratic voters, still keep a deep blue district that she would never lose, and help the Democrats defeat John Mica, Dan Webster and Ron DeSantis. Marcia Fudge should know better, even if Corrine Brown can't see beyond her own careerism.

Since then, a court ruling forced her district into more rational boundaries-- east/west from Jacksonville to Tallahassee, instead of north/south, still safely Democratic and very friendly territory for an African-American Representative... except not Brown. Facing 24 criminal charges related to swindling people with a charity/personal slush fund-- not on a Trumpian level, but bad enough-- she was soundly defeated by conservaDem Al Lawson in her primary, 39,261 (48%) to 32,157 (39%), despite having outspent Lawson $465,720 to $134,206. Yesterday Fusion ran what could be the premise for a powerful film on a corrupt political system: The Rise And Fall Of Corrine Brown and had the insight into subtitling it, "The brash Florida congresswoman’s career begs the question: Do 'majority-minority' districts empower voters of color… or ghettoize them to benefit conservatives?"

Brown’s dramatic rise and fall highlights the dilemmas of “majority-minority” congressional districts-- political boundaries drawn to group voters of color together. On one hand, such districts have increased opportunities for minority representation in the House. On the other hand, they’ve been used by white majorities, primarily Republicans, to increase power in surrounding districts, effectively sidelining minorities so that the GOP can maintain control of Congress.

The recent push to broaden her district’s demographics, Brown said, amounted to racial discrimination. “It is clear that you all think that slavery still exists, and we can just take those slaves and put them in one area and forget about the people who didn’t have representation for 129 years,” she told reporters during the redistricting fight in 2015-- even though putting African Americans in one area was precisely what Brown had helped do in the 90s, and precisely what the new redistricting sought to correct.

But Brown’s power-- and by extension, that of her African-American constituents-- had always been limited by House Republicans; the majority-minority districting that had boosted her for a quarter-century also gave the GOP a lasting majority. Although Florida’s voters were split about 50/50 between Republicans and Democrats in 1992, the GOP took 13 of the 23 House seats in the 1992 cycle, leaving just 10 for Democrats.

Today, the disparity is even starker: There are 17 Florida Republican reps in the House, and still just 10 Democrats. This was very much by design.

The 1990 census showed that Florida’s population had boomed since a decade prior. The state got to add four congressional districts to its representation in Washington. Democrats controlled both chambers of Florida’s state legislature, which was in charge of the redistricting process, but couldn’t agree how to divvy up voters into new districts.

Miguel DeGrandy, a Miami attorney, was a GOP state representative back in 1992. He remembers how his Cuban American caucus of seven Republicans reached out to the black caucus with a very clear message-- and an overture to join forces: “Your community is being shafted. Our community is being shafted."

DeGrandy says that in drawing maps that laid out boundaries of Congressional districts, Democrats-- who had been in power in Tallahassee since Reconstruction-- used black communities by breaking them up into multiple districts and using them to boost electoral chances for white Democratic candidates, a practice known as “cracking.”

“The Democrats had had a patronizing approach,” he says. They assumed blacks would vote Democratic, essentially telling them, “Trust us-- we’ll take care of you.“

Working with the NAACP, DeGrandy became a plaintiff in a lawsuit against Florida, citing the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965, which required that minorities have the opportunity to elect candidates of their choice. They argued that the state had an obligation to link together minority communities in districts to harness their collective power.

Federal judges ultimately agreed and created three heavily black “majority-minority” districts-- two in South Florida, plus District 3: a sprawling, horseshoe-shaped zone that stretched hundreds of miles to include historically black neighborhoods in 14 counties, from Jacksonville to Orlando to Gainesville. That one went to Corrine Brown.

The GOP came out looking generous. Jet magazine wrote that the “amazing breakthrough resulted not from any design of liberal Democratic leaders who control more than 90% of the U.S. Black vote, but from the late GOP chairman Lee Atwater, a White South Carolinian, who quarterbacked the new congressional redistricting effort in the South to atone for his past actions.”

Democrats “were caught flat-footed,” DeGrandy says. “They thought it was going to be business as usual. They underestimated our legal resources, our legal strategies. They also underestimated public opinion.”

Political scientists say you can draw a straight line from the growth of “majority-minority” districts to the nearly unbroken Republican stranglehold on Congress. “When a majority-minority district is created, the additional minority voters must be taken from somewhere, and that somewhere is the surrounding districts,” Grant M. Hayden, a voting-rights professor at Southern Methodist University’s law school, wrote in 2004.

This “packing” of minority voters leads to a phenomenon in the outside districts that redistricting experts have called “bleaching”[a]: those polities become whiter and more consistently conservative, or at least competitive for Republicans.

These developments stick progressives with a dilemma, Hayden writes, “by forcing them to choose between additional minority officeholders and additional Democrats, between descriptive representation and substantive representation.”

...[R]edistricting reform could never pass through a safe Republican majority in the state Legislature. So the Fair Districts team put the issue directly in front of Florida voters. In 2010, as the Tea Party wave swept America and Floridians voted in historic numbers for Republicans, they also overwhelmingly-- and a little ironically-- approved two state constitutional amendments barring legislators from drawing up new districts to favor a political party or an incumbent.

Republican critics like DeGrandy argue the hugely popular Fair Districts amendments were a “Democrat-sponsored” agenda, but “they were very intelligent in how they how went through the process.”

Corrine Brown, though, saw the move as a threat to the political livelihood she had built over two and a half decades. From 2011 to 2016, while still in Congress, she fought the Fair Districts plan tooth and nail-- in concert with Republicans and conservative corporate donors, and against the ACLU and civil rights groups. Changing her district would represent a “giant step backward to our state's Jim Crow days,” she argued.

African American rights leaders disagreed. "I like Corrine," Leon Russell, an NAACP leader, told the St. Petersburg Times in 2011, "but I wish she hadn't done this. I don't think you should frustrate the process purely on basis of your self-interest, no matter who you are."

Brown’s legal challenges ultimately came to nothing. In July 2015, the Florida Supreme Court ruled that her gerrymandered district violated the Fair Districts amendments and demanded that it be redrawn. It was converted to a more compact east-west shape that runs from Jacksonville to Tallahassee.

...On her blog, Brown conceded her loss with characteristic feistiness. “We fought a battle with one arm tied behind our backs. You know they’ve been after me for years,” she wrote. “We are a strong people. We’re descendants of people who survived the Middle Passage. We have survived centuries of abuse. We are strong. We are still standing.”

This kind of racial gerrymandering isn't, of course, just about Florida or Corrine Brown or her issues. There 809,958 people living in Charlotte, North Carolina. Almost 300,000 of them are African American. Because their city has been gerrymandered up to serve the interests of career politicians rather than the people who live there, listen to what one of the crackpot racist congressmen, Robert Pittenger (R), representing Charlotte had to say after the murder of a black resident by the police and the ensuing demonstrations:



Charlotte is 45.1% white and 54.9% non-white. But Pittenger has nothing to worry about. North Carolina's racist Republican legislature drew his district to be 73.8% white. Mecklenburg County has just about enough people now (over a million) for 2 congressmen of it's own. Instead it's divvied up among 3 districts, one overwhelmingly minority, the 12th, and two that are safely Republican, the 8th and Pittenger's 9th.

The 12th is very much like Brown's old 5th district in Florida. It twists and turns from Charlotte's urban core through Salisbury and Lexington (with sizable African-American populations) before forking off to the northwest to take in Winston-Salem's black neighborhoods and to the northeast to take in High Point and Greensboro's black neighborhoods. Look at this mess:

Without districts like NC-12, there wouldn't be extremist congressmen like Robert Pittenger, or at least there wouldn't be for more than one term. And by the way, in 2012 Obama won NC-12 with 250,719 votes (79%) to Romney's 66,291 (21%). Pittenger's 9th district gave Romney a comfortable 215,861 votes (56%) to 163,883 (43%) while Richard Hudson's 8th district gave Romney a 178,977 (58%) to 126,065 (41%) win. The 3 districts combined gave Obama 540,027 votes and Romney 461,129 votes.

Wasserman Schultz Thinks She Gets To Decide Which Racial Group You Need To Be In To Run For Congress

Mind your own business

Wassermann Schultz and some of her cronies, Lois Frankel for one, are trying to get Val Demings elected to Congress in the Orlando area, specifically in the very redistricted 10th CD, currently occupied by Daniel "Taliban Dan" Webster. The new district is way too blue for Webster-- under the new lines, Obama would have beaten Romney 60.7% to 38.4% instead of losing to Romney 53.3% to 42.5%-- and he's district shopping now, although will most likely wind up in FL-11, since Rich Nugent is retiring and the district is safely red. The changes, obviously are demographic. When Webster was elected it was a 60% white district. The new lines make the district 27.08% black and 22.85% Hispanic. So the line being pushed by Wasserman Schultz and Frankel-- this is a black district-- is a little weird.

Wassermann Schultz has always been big on dividing people up that way. When she was in the state senate she drew her own future district to include every Jewish person she could find in Broward County. Right now it looks like the contenders for Webster's seat are three black women, state Senator and civil rights icon Geraldine Thompson, DCCC/EMILY's List hack Val Demings, and Rep. Corrine, who already represents many of that 27.08% black part of the district in her old district, FL-05, and one white progressive, Bob Poe. It looks like Tampa Bay Times politics editor, Adam Smith, got the message from his pal Wasserman Schultz:

Here's a trend Florida Democratic leaders prefer not to talk about: Wealthy, white Democrats beating out minority Democratic candidates in districts drawn with an eye toward electing minorities.

The latest example is in the Orlando area, where former Florida Democratic Party chairman Bob Poe, a top Democratic fundraiser and white guy, last week jumped into a congressional primary contest that already included two African-American candidates, former Orlando police Chief Val Demings and state Sen. Geraldine Thompson, and Brazilian-American lawyer Fatima Fahmy.  The district now represented by Republican Dan Webster has been redrawn to make it so much more Democratic-leaning that Webster is looking at running elsewhere. The race is likely to be decided in the Democratic primary, where most of the electorate is minority, but Poe has a strong chance at winning.

Actually, with the exception of Demings, all the candidates are good and central Florida Democrats should be thankful they get to pick between a batch of good candidates instead of some sad-sack Blue Dogs. This should be a race about ideas and values and competence, not a race about race. I understand why power-mongers like Wasserman Schultz and Frankel are always making these kinds of ugly moves-- that's what they are-- but it amazes me that the biggest newspaper in the area would run it as though it were fact. 27.08% doesn't make a district a black district, a Latino, a white district or an Asian district. It's just a diverse, multicultural district with a strong Democratic bench and I'm not sure how Smith can say "most of the electorate is minority," with a straight face either... unless he's also counting the LGBT community-- in which case he should be delighted to see Bob Poe running as he'd be the first gay member of Congress from Florida-- or at least the first openly gay member of Congress from Florida. [Update: Pelosi endorsed Demings today, which isn't going to please Corrine, but it kind of reminded me of the time Pelosi backed corrupt conservative Al Wynn in Maryland over Donna Edwards. Donna's now one of the best Members of Congress and Wynn is one of the most corrupt lobbyists on K Street. That Pelosi!]

The X-factor in the FL-10 race-- but why are EMILY's List and Wasserman Schultz trying to dump her?

Conservative Al Lawson Wants The New Tallahassee-Jacksonville Seat

Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum and family

Florida's new east/west 5th congressional district takes in most of Tallahassee and Jacksonville and was thought to be a decent district for Corrine Brown, who currently represents one of the most egregiously gerrymandered districts in the U.S.-- still-named FL-05, which snakes along Route 17 from the African-American neighborhoods of Jacksonville to Palatka, then turns due west to the African-America neighborhoods of Gainesville before heading south again into the African-American neighborhoods in and around Orlando. The new district is 45% African-American (down from 53%) but is still heavily Democratic-- and still very much Jacksonville-dominated, although more population-wise than voter participation-wise. For the best intel on Florida's new districts, the only place to turn is the real expert, Matthew Isbell at MCIMaps.

Oddly, Corrine Brown says she plans to run in FL-10, the Orlando-area district Daniel Webster is fleeing from. That leaves two Tallahassee-based front runners, Tallahassee's popular young mayor, Andrew Gillum, a moderate and former state Senator Al Lawson, a right-wing Democrat, with lots in common with the GOP, who announced yesterday. (State Rep. Mia Jones and ex-state Rep Tony Hill are telling their supporters that if Corrine makes it official that she's running in Orlando, they'll run in FL-05.)

Currently, Tallahassee is part of FL-02 and is represented by the state's most right-wing Democrat, Gwen Graham, who may be even worse than Lawson, although that's debatable. Lawson represented the area from 1982 to 2010 as a state Rep and then a state Senator and was, briefly, the Senate minority leader. In 2010 another very right-wing Dem, Blue Dog Rep. Allen Boyd was defeated for reelection by a Republican gravedigger or embalmer from the Tea Party, Steve Southerland. Two years later Southerland was challenged by Lawson, who he beat 175,856 (52.7%) to 157,634 (47.2%), similar to the Romney victory in the district over Obama on the same day.

In 2014 Lawson again made noises about running but got scared off by the well-financed Graham, daughter of Governor and Senator Bob Graham. Southerland's big mistake came when he voted for a Republican plan to cut food stamps, angering Democrats and rural/farm Republicans. Graham beat him in the R+6 district, 126,096 (50.5%) to 123,262 (49.3%) and since then has often voted exactly how Southerland would have voted. She isn't just the most conservative Democrat in the Florida delegation, she's the most conservative Democrat in the entire Congress. Her goal is to be the next Republican-lite Democrat to be beaten by a real Republican for governor, although she is currently trying to scare fellow conservative, Patrick Murphy, out of the U.S. Senate race so she can run for Rubio's abandoned seat.

Redistricting leaves her without a congressional district, the eastern portion of the district (part of the new 5th) being way too Democratic for her and the western part of the district being way too Republican even for someone who votes with the GOP as dependably as Graham does.

In his press announcement yesterday, the reactionary Lawson is quoted saying "North Florida needs a strong, progressive voice in Washington to protect those issues important to our families." Odd how people try to adapt popular words to describe themselves regardless how how clearly they do not. People who pay no attention, including, of course, the vast majority of "journalists," just assume Lawson is somehow "progressive" without checking his long, long record in the state legislature, where for example, NARAL rated him a zero. The anti-consumer Florida Chamber of Commerce, on the other hand gave him a 100% rating. His environmental ratings from the Florida League of Conservation Voters was never zero, but never too good either, always between 30% and, once, 78%. His last NRA rating (2012) was 50% and his last rating from the AFL-CIO (2209) was 67% (an improvement from the year before when they gave him a ZERO), neither of which indicates anyone remotely "progressive." And those "progressives" at the Christian Coalition gave him a 71% the last time they rated him (2009), even worse-- in terms of being pro-crackpot-- than conservaDem Darren Soto's 64%.

How Safe Does A Safe Seat Have To Be To Keep A Congressman From Being A K'az'r?

Can you think of the last time we backed the DCCC on anything? I can't. And Steve Israel? Never. But in the case of Floridian gerrymandering, the DCCC is correct and the Congressional Black Caucus is wrong. CBC Chair Marcia Fudge may be right about Steve Israel not valuing minorities-- hello? Blue Dog?-- and I'm delighted Fudge is going to try to block his rise in the House leadership.

Do you know what a kʼazʻr is? Well, ok? That's the Yiddish spelling. Let me trying an English transliteration: chazzer… but the "ch" has a guttural sound like you're about the spit out a deep throatful of phlegm-- rather than Rickie and Lucy doing the cha-cha-cha. Anyway a kʼazʻr is a greedy pig. And the CBC, I'm afraid is taking a kʼazʻr-ish position on this gerrymandering thing.

Corrine Brown's ridiculous district twists and turns down from the African American neighborhoods of Jacksonville-- that aren't even contiguous-- along a narrow strip a mile or two wide along Rt 17 (which then disappears into Ted Yoho's district and through some sparsely populated rural areas until finally finding Palatka in the east and African-American neighborhoods of Gainesville in the west before chugging down into Sanford and Pine Hills in the Orlando metropolitan area.

Obama won the district both times with 73%. With a PVI of D+21 this district defines "safe." Republicans have trouble winning R+1 districts and they don't try-- not ever, not anywhere, when a district is D+6 or above. Brown is screaming and threatening to go to the Supreme Court because Judge Terry Lewis ordered the legislature to remove Sanford from her district, which might take her down from a D+21 to a D+19, depending on other factors. Republicans didn't bother running candidates against her in 2004, 2006 and 2008 and last year, when there was a Republican running with no support (and a campaign war chest of $19,941 against Brown's $613,190), Brown won with 71%. "We will go all the way to the United States Supreme Court," she thundered, "dealing with making sure that African Americans are not disenfranchised."

Give me a break. Instead of making deals with Republicans in states to create marginally red districts by agreeing to have ethnically-cleansed districts, Democrats like Brown could spread around some of her Democratic voters, still keep a deep blue district that she would never lose, and help the Democrats defeat John Mica, Dan Webster and Ron DeSantis. Marcia Fudge should know better, even if Corrine Brown can't see beyond her own careerism.

There are 43 congressional districts that have PVIs of D+20 and above. Many of them are specifically gerrymandered to keep minority voters inside an electoral ghetto that makes surrounding districts safe for Republicans. Brown's is one of them. Each of these is a minority majority district that could shed some Democratic voters, still be perfectly safe and help elect a Democrat or two in another district:

• AL-07 (33.6% white)- Terri Sewell (could threaten Matha Roby and Spencer Bachus)
• SC-06 (38.4% white)- Jim Clyburn (could threaten Tom Rice and Mark Sanford)
• GA-04 (31% white)- Hank Johnson (could threaten Tom Price)
• LA-02 (30.6% white)- Cedric Richmond (could threaten Bill Cassidy)
• MD-07 (36.1% white)- Elijah Cummings (could threaten Andy Harris)
• TX-09 (39.4% white)- Al Green (could threaten John Culbertson)
• TN-09 (28.2% white)- Steve Cohen (could threaten Steve Fincher)
• NC-12 (39.6% white)- vacant (could threaten Robert Pittenger, Howard Coble or Virginia Foxx)
• VA-03 (35.8% white)- Bobby Scott (could threaten Rob Wittman, Scott Rigell and Randy Forbes)
• TX-30 (41% white)- Eddie Bernice Johnson (could threaten Pete Sessions or Joe Barton)
• IL-01 (40.6% white)- Bobby Rush (could threaten Adam Kinzinger)
• MO-01 (44.9% white)- William Lacy Clay (could threaten Ann Wagner)
• MI-14 (33.6% white)- Gary Peters (could threaten Kerry Bentivolio)
• IL-02 (36.7% white)- Robin Kelly (could threaten Adam Kinzinger)
• FL-20 (39.9% white)- Alcee Hastings (could threaten Mario Diaz-Balart)
• OH-11 (40.1% white)- Marcia Fudge (could threaten David Joyce or Jim Renacci)
• GA-05 (33.4% white)- John Lewis (could threaten Tom Price)
• MI-13 (37.6% white)- John Conyers (could threaten Kerry Bentivolio)
• NJ-10 (29.8% white)- Donald Payne (could threaten Leonard Lance or Rodney Frelinghuysen)
• FL-24 (37.7% white)- Frederica Wilson (could threaten Mario Diaz-Balart)
• PA-02 (31.7% white)- Chaka Fattah (could threaten Pat Meehan)

Fudge to Steve Israel (on behalf of Corrine Brown): “On behalf of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), I write to express our ongoing concern with the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s (DCCC) support of lawsuits challenging the validity of minority Congressional districts.Per our prior discussion, we are extremely disturbed by the DCCC’s efforts to dismantle CBC districts in states that have historically proven to be difficult to elect minority members. Considering the history of discrimination through efforts such as gerrymandering, the recent actions reflect the discrimination of days past."

So looks like these Republicans in the districts created by the electoral ghettos will be safe and sound until someone sits down with Democrats like Fudge and Brown and has a heart to heart with them. Fudge could easily lose 50,000 Democratic voters, take on 50,000 Republican votes, still win in a landslide-- Romney got 16% in her district) and swamp David Joyce in the 14th district next door, who won his last race 183,657 to 131,637.

Judge Throws Out Unconstitutional Florida Republican Gerrymandering Of Congressional Districts

There was a virtual earthquake in Florida politics Thursday when Leon County Circuit Court Judge Terry Lewis threw out Florida's congressional map. The grubby Florida legislature has a long and sordid history of gerrymandering the state to create congressional districts for themselves and their allies and this has featured collusion from both parties, so not just slime-ball former Republican legislators like Ander Crenshaw, Daniel Webster, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Adam Putnam and Lincoln Diaz-Balart who created congressional districts for themselves but equally sleazy and corrupt Democrats like Debbie Wasserman Schultz. In fact, Wasserman Schultz, was so eager to create an all-Jewish district she felt she would be safe in forever that she was key in approving a shocking gerrymander that gave the Republicans far more seats than their numbers would have ever predicted. The 112th Congress had 19 Republicans and just 6 Democrats. Today, a slightly less gerrymandered map gives the 113th Congress 17 Republicans and 10 Democrats. The current party registration for Florida is:

• Democrats- 4,781,978 (40.1%)
• Republicans- 4,245,991 (35.6%)
• Independents and others- 2,906,477 (24.4%)

The simplest and most straight-forward model based on those numbers would predict 14 Democrats and 13 Republicans-- not 17 Republicans and 10 Democrats.

Florida voters, sickened by their gross careerist political opportunists on both sides of the aisle passed the Fair District amendments in 2010, Amendment 5 for the legislature and Amendment 6 for Congress. This was the ballot summary for Amendment 6: "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." And the first argument in favor was that it would "prevent incumbents from redrawing district lines to insure their seat is safe." It passed with an overwhelming 62.9% of votes cast-- a landslide. But career politicians challenged it in court-- and lost.

You can read Judge Lewis' entire ruling here. The case decided Thursday was brought by the League of Women Voters, the principle sponsor of the Fair District amendments and it is likely to be appealed by the career politicians again-- who will use taxpayer money for a long and expensive battle-- and will make it to the Florida Supreme Court, if not the U.S. Supreme Court. He found that putting downtown Orlando into Webster’s district violated compactness and extending Corrine Brown's district from Jacksonville to Orlando also violates compactness and that's a real problem for Republicans. If the current decision stands, then 100,000 African-American voters west of downtown Orlando could drop drop into either Webster’s district or Mica’s district or Grayson's district. 100,000 African-American voters in either Mica's district or Webster's district would be the end of the line for those two and the end of any shot of the Republicans ever winning back those districts. If they put those voters into Grayson's district, Mica, Webster or Posey are going to wind up with a lot of Puerto Rican voters from FL-09 are are traditional Democratic voters. It would force Mica and Webster into retirement and would make Posey's district a swing district that a talented Democrat could win from him.

Lewis rejected challenges to districts in South Florida and Tampa Bay, but said that District 5, held by Democratic U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown of Jacksonville, and District 10, held by Republican U.S. Rep. Dan Webster of Winter Park "will need to be redrawn, as will any other districts affected thereby."

The judge agreed with the coalition's prime argument: that Republican legislators and staffers collaborated with political consultants to create "a shadow redistricting process" that protected incumbents and the GOP.

…The 13-day trial lifted the veil on the once-a-decade process of redrawing political boundaries and was rife with political intrigue that involved numerous side lawsuits, a closed hearing to keep the testimony of GOP consultant Pat Bainter off the public record, and closing briefs filled with redacted references to Bainter's documents… Lewis said political consultants "made a mockery of the Legislature's transparent and open process of redistricting" while "going to great lengths to conceal from the public their plan and their participation in it."

"They were successful in their efforts to influence the redistricting process and the congressional plan under review here," he wrote. "And they might have successfully concealed their scheme and their actions from the public had it not been for the Plaintiffs' determined efforts to uncover it in this case."

He concluded that the circumstantial evidence proved that the political operatives "managed to find other avenues… to infiltrate and influence the Legislature."

Lewis drew no conclusions that House Speaker Will Weatherford, former House Speaker Dean Cannon and Senate President Don Gaetz were aware of the scheme, but he raised doubts that they were not in some way complicit. The judge detailed the involvement of Cannon's aide, Kirk Pepper, and repeated evidence that came out at trial about Pepper forwarding draft maps to GOP operative Marc Reichelderfer.

Lewis also noted that legislative leaders and the political operatives destroyed almost all of their emails and other documents related to redistricting and concluded that the circumstantial evidence surrounding all of those developments, and the evidence that the consultants attempted to influence the same districts he has found problematic, proved the GOP operatives were trying to influence the process.

It still isn't clear if the districts will have to be redrawn in time for the elections in November-- although no one I've talked to in Florida thinks that's a realistic outcome. Remember, Corrine Brown's 5th district has a D+21 PVI and snakes through the northern and central part of the state gobbling up Democratic voters to make FL-06 (Ron DeSantis- R+9), FL-07 (John Mica- R+4) , FL-10 (Daniel Webster- R+6) and FL-11 (Richard Nugent- R+11) all safer for Republicans by making their districts much whiter and more reactionary. Webster, who only managed to survive by the skin of his teeth in 2012-- 164,873 (52%) to 153,646 (48%) against a very weak Democratic opponent, Val Demings-- only managed a 50/50 tie in massive Orange County which will be the core of the new district and which will make FL-10 an easier target for Democrats without Lake County, Webster's bastion. If the Democrats run popular former state legislator Scott Randolph, Webster might as well retire. Randolph was reelected to his Orange County-based seat with 73% and 60%.

Taliban Dan is losing his unfairly drawn safe red seat 

Have House Republicanos Really Retreated Into A Cave Of Indifference And Ignorance?

Quinnipiac has a new poll out. It covered a lot of ground-- like Hillary Clinton's ability to beat NJ organized crime figure Chris Christie in 2016 if the tow of them run for president. I was more interested, though, in this: "American voters blame both parties for gridlock in Washington, but they say Republicans are more responsible for Congress' inability to get things done... There is gridlock because Republicans are determined to block any Obama initiative, 51 percent of voters say, while 35 percent say President Barack Obama lacks the skills to convince leaders of Congress to work together."

Friday morning, just around when the poll was released, John McCain urged his 1,813,062 twitter followers to read David Brooks' column in the NY Times. Nothing remarkable about that, you say? After all, Brooks is the Times' conservative editorial writer and his column, while rarely as off the tracks as the bigoted sloganeering you hear on Fox or from Hate Talk Radio hosts, is supposed to provide intellectual justification for the Greed and Selfishness wing of the Republican Party.

Brooks sees the blatant obstruction of comprehensive immigration reform by the divided and leaderless House Republicans as "a tragedy for the country and political suicide for Republicans, especially because the conservative arguments against the comprehensive approach are not compelling."

After all, the Senate bill fulfills the four biggest conservative objectives. Conservatives say they want economic growth. The Senate immigration bill is the biggest pro-growth item on the agenda today. Based on estimates from the Congressional Budget Office, the Senate bill would increase the gross domestic product by 3.3 percent by 2023 and by 5.4 percent by 2033. A separate study by the American Action Forum found that it would increase per capita income by $1,700 after 10 years.

Conservatives say they want to bring down debt. According to government estimates, the Senate bill would reduce federal deficits by up to $850 billion over the next 20 years. The Senate bill reduces the 75-year Social Security fund shortfall by half-a-trillion dollars.

Conservatives say they want to reduce illegal immigration. The Senate bill spends huge amounts of money to secure the border. According to the C.B.O., the bill would reduce illegal immigration by somewhere between 33 percent to 50 percent. True, it would not totally eliminate illegal immigration, but it would do a lot better than current law, which reduces illegal immigration by 0 percent.

Conservatives say they want to avoid a European-style demographic collapse. But without more immigrants, and the higher fertility rates they bring, that is exactly what the U.S. faces. Plus, this bill radically increases the number of high-skilled immigrants. It takes millions of long-term resident families out of the shadows so they can lead more mainstream lives.

These are all gigantic benefits. They are like Himalayan peaks compared with the foothill-size complaints conservatives are lodging.

...The final conservative point of opposition is a political one. Republicans should not try to win back lower-middle-class voters with immigration reform; they should do it with a working-class agenda.

This argument would be slightly plausible if Republicans had even a hint of such an agenda, but they don’t. Even then it would fail. Before Asians, Hispanics and all the other groups can be won with economic plans, they need to feel respected and understood by the G.O.P. They need to feel that Republicans respect their ethnic and cultural identity. If Republicans reject immigration reform, that will be a giant sign of disrespect, and nothing else Republicans say will even be heard.

Whether this bill passes or not, this country is heading toward a multiethnic future. Republicans can either shape that future in a conservative direction or, as I’ve tried to argue, they can become the receding roar of a white America that is never coming back.

That’s what’s at stake.

Kathleen Parker looked at ot from a different perspective for her Washington Post column and came up with similar conclusions:

Republicans seem to be adopting the self-immolation tactics of principled martyrs.

Of course, principled or not, you’re still dead in the end.

At this stage in the second term of the president they couldn’t defeat, Republicans seem more like stubborn children refusing to come out of their rooms for supper, even though the alternative is going to bed hungry.

This simile is unavoidable in light of the House’s passage of a farm bill without any provision for food stamps-- the first in 40 years. The move prompted fantastic outrage from Democrats, notably Rep. Corrine Brown (Fla.), who shrieked: “Mitt Romney was right: You all do not care about the 47 percent. Shame on you!”

...What Republicans are selling appeals to an ever-diminishing market that doesn’t even include their erstwhile allies in business and industry. And their self-immolation may prove to have been nothing more than a bonfire of vanities.

Can John Barrow Survive His Constituents' Anger Over His Bad Health Care Vote?

Although John Barrow is a new resident to Savannah with no roots in the community, he knows that the Morning News' Larry Peterson is the political reporter with his finger on the pulse. So the scared little man who has thrown his lot in with the rich white Republican establishment-- which has never really been enamoured of him to begin with-- must be shaking like a leaf today. Peterson says aloud what everyone in GA-12 but Barrow knows: a backlash among African-Americans, a major part of the Democratic base in the district (perhaps 60% of primary voters), is looming large because of his health care vote. For one thing, Barrow's vote against healthcare reform, opens up the need to look at his whole, despicable, anti-working family voting record. And his Democratic opponent, former state Senator Regina Thomas, whose roots in the community and long and deep, has been helping community leaders to understand who John Barrow really is.

Resentment is seething among black political leaders against Democratic U.S. Rep. John Barrow after his vote against a major health care bill.

The measure, the centerpiece of President Barack Obama's agenda, passed the House narrowly Sunday; Obama signed it into law Tuesday.

At least two black state lawmakers who backed the Savannah congressman in 2008 - or were neutral - now favor Regina Thomas, his July 20 primary election foe.

And Savannah Mayor Pro Tem Edna Jackson, long a key Barrow ally, says she won't be in the primary. She wouldn't elaborate, but had sought his vote for the health bill.

Other black leaders accused him of abandoning his black constituents.

"He has no respect for the people of color who are the majority of people who voted for him," said the Rev. Bennie Mitchell Jr., pastor of Connor's Temple Baptist Church. "There is no way I can support him."

Chatham County Democratic chairman Tony Center said Barrow is in "a lot of trouble" because of his vote... State Rep. Bob Bryant, D-Garden City, who backed Barrow two years ago, has endorsed Thomas. So has state Rep. Mickey Stephens, D-Savannah, who didn't take sides when Thomas, who is black, ran-- and lost-- against Barrow in 2008.

Meanwhile, state Rep. Craig Gordon, D-Savannah-- also neutral in 2008-- said he's now less likely to support Barrow.

The legislators-- who represent parts of the 12th District-- and Mitchell were among those who tried during a Saturday conference call persuade Barrow to reconsider his vote.

"His mind was made up and he wasn't willing to listen," said Bryant, who said he'll vote for a Republican-- or not at all-- if Thomas loses. At least four people are seeking the GOP nomination.

"(Barrow) really ticked me off," said Stephens. "I have people in my district call me every day. They don't have health insurance. They're hurting."

Barrow was able to win the 2008 primary for two reasons: people tend to vote for incumbents of their own party unless they have a strong reason not to (and not enough was known about Barrow at the time for voters to make a rational choice; Regina having almost no budget to get out the message); and because Obama made a you-scratch-my-back/I'll-scratch-yours with him. Obama thought he needed Barrow's help to defeat Hillary, so he bought him off-- just the way every special interest buys him off. Obama cut a radio spot for Barrow. That was his whole campaign. This year, with Barrow having voted consistently with the GOP on almost all of the close, substantive votes, it's not likely Obama will save Barrow's ass again-- especially not against a beloved state Senator whose whole political career has been dedicated to the very issues Obama has been championing. Charles Bullock, a University of Georgia political scientist who watches Georgia politics carefully predicts that "if the African American community turns it's back on him," Barrow will be defeated.

I've been talking with progressive members of Congress about supporting progressive challengers and have meet with absolute steely refusal. Even the congressmen they despise-- like Barrow-- they refuse to go up against. They're all part of the same horrible incumbent protection racket. A friend at the DCCC, railing about his vote against the healthcare bill, told me "off the record" that he hopes Blue America can help Regina Thomas defeat him. The Congressional Black Caucus is seething at Barrow now. According to CQPolitics "Even before the votes were cast, the political implications were starting to play out for... Barrow."

Some aides said the message delivered to Barrow was clear: If he opposed it, he could expect to see CBC support for a primary challenger.

Corrine Brown, whose North Florida district is near Barrow’s, said she leveled no threats in the three conversations she had with Barrow to urge his support, on behalf of his black constituents. But she said she would no longer travel to Savannah to campaign for him, as she has in past races. “He was very nice in our conversations,” she said, “but nice isn’t what I’m looking for. Members who represent large numbers of African-Americans should be sensitive to the people they represent. Health care is the new civil rights.”

Good for Corrine. But in the end of the day, it's the grassroots in eastern George who will determine whether an elitist Republican-lite clown with buffoonish visions of senatorial splendor will represent them or if a sincere and hardworking true Blue Democrat is better suited for the job. Saturday, Regina will be the Blue America special guest at Crooks and Liars for a live blogging session at 2pm (est). If you'd like to help her get out her message, and help her alert Georgia voters that there's a fox on the henhouse, please think about contributing to her campaign here.

Dan Gelber Drops Out Of The Florida Senate Race

Wasserman Schultz announcing last year that she and her puppet would not be supporting Miami-Dade Dems against Cuban congressional fascists

It looks like there won't be a progressive in the race for Florida's open Senate seat after all. At tonight's Jefferson Jackson Dinner state Senator Dan Gelber withdrew, presumably to run for Attorney General. That leaves a corrupt Democratic Party hack with virtually no chance to win, Kendrick Meek, as the de facto opponent to either Charlie Crist or Marco Rubio. Two weeks ago in the Orlando Sentinel Scott Maxwell predicted that in the end it would be a race between Meek and Crist. He never thought Gelber had any chance.

The folks in Tallahassee seem to love him-- the media, his fellow Dems, even Republicans who respect the way he plays the game.

Gelber's biggest problem is that regular folks are sick of the game altogether.

Gelber may be smart and quick-witted. But in the minds of most, he's still just another Tallahassee politician. And those guys are a dime a dozen. (And that's when you're paying the sticker price.)

Another startlingly mediocre Democratic House member, Corrine Brown of Jacksonville, is also making noises about running for the Senate seat. It's unlikely she'll make the jump though. Meek has wrapped up all the Inside the Beltway support and has raised a fortune. What a tragedy!


UPDATE: Letter From Dan

Dan Gelber sent a letter to supporters this morning explaining his decision and hinting at his future plans:

As you may know I have decided to step back from my U.S. Senate bid. I wanted to let you know the reasons.

When Governor Crist announced he would be a candidate for US Senate, he created a domino effect that opened up every seat on the cabinet. At a time when our state is facing its greatest challenges, ironically, we have our greatest uncertainty and dislocation. But I believe this is also an opportunity-– the chance to set a new course that avoids the mistakes of the past and tracks a better future for our families.

It makes little sense-- when we do face the prospect of real change in Florida-- for me to participate in a potentially divisive primary for U.S. Senate that will only serve to diminish our chances against a very formidable and well-known Republican nominee.

I also believe that we have a historic opportunity here in Florida to reshape the political landscape and more importantly, bring fundamental change to Tallahassee. I have had a number of conversations with Senators Graham and Nelson, and CFO Alex Sink, about how we can best unify our party and move forward with a slate of candidates that can communicate our vision for a better Florida, and I look forward to continuing these discussions.

Gerrymandering And Bribery Defining The Decline Of Representative Democracy

Ric Keller shed some major pounds-- and a GOP registration edge

Over the course of the last month, DWT has had an underlying theme running through it about how democracy doesn't thrive when big corporate entities flood the airwaves with billions of dollars to create "conventional wisdom" that the corporate candidate-- whether a Republican or a nominal Democrat from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party-- is "solid," "moderate," "trustworthy," "independent," or whatever they want to tag the bribe-takers who serve their special interests. And "billions" is not an exaggeration. Since 1990 here is a list of some of the industries that have bought off federal elected official. Next to each industry is the amount and the percentage that went to Republican candidates:

Commercial banks- $202,277,227 (60%)
Insurance- $295,786,177 (63%)
Big Oil & Gas- $220,438,183 (75%)
Pharmaceuticals- $156,914,005 (65%)
Real Estate- $548,872,745 (53%)
Telecoms- $112,197,677 (56%)
Automotive- $129,123,535 (75%)
Accounting- $104,391,210 (59%)
Gambling- $80,443,289 (46%)
Lobbyists- $141,823,142 (48%)
Health Professionals- $414,596,937 (57%)
Securities & Investment- $576,374,966 (50%)
Retail Sales- $124,338,201 (61%)
Crop Production- $101,769,909 (59%)
Air Transport- $114,112,051 (60%)
Beer, Wine & Liquor- $90,584,648 (56%)
Defense Aerospace- $63,932,281 (57%)
Tobacco- $60,567,666 (74%)

That's far from complete but that's already billions. And that money, as we've been pointing out, is going directly into enhancing the careers of politicians in return for votes of the special interests of the industries giving out the loot. And this is just the legal bribes. Not counted in this are unknowable sums that have been paid to overtly corrupt politicians like Ted Stevens (R-AK), Conrad Burns (R-MT), Duke Cunningham (R-CA), John McCain (R-AZ), Jerry Lewis (R-CA), Tom DeLay (R-TX), Bob Ney (R-OH), William Jefferson (D-LA), Gary Miller (R-CA), John Doolittle (R-CA), Tom Feeney (R-FL), Don Young (R-AK), Duncan Hunter (R-CA), Rick Renzi (R-AZ)...

You getting the picture? Without real-- not fake McCain style-- campaign finance reform, so anathema to Republicans and to Blue Dogs, Big Business will just continue to buy off Congress and our taxes will continue to be misappropriated and spent to enrich ambitious crooks-- inside and outside of government.

And there's another side to this systemic corruption as well, one covered-- at least from a Florida perspective-- in today's Orlando Sentinel by Scott Maxwell: Politicians Get To Pick Their Own Constituents. And Florida may be is one of the worst, but is certainly not unique. Short story: state legislators of whichever party controls the legislature get together once a decade (unless you're in Texas) and redraw, very specifically, legislative and congressional districts that virtually guarantee your party's-- or in really corrupt cases, like Tom Feeney's and the Diaz-Balart Brothers'-- your own slam dunk electoral victories. It's why almost no incumbent ever loses an election.

Maxwell tells the story of Republican rubber stamp hack John Mica whose bizarrely shaped district snakes through half a dozen counties looking for wealthy suburbs and avoiding people of color to create a safe Republican seat.

Not that Mica's complaining. His district may be long and unwieldy. But it's also solidly Republican -- which is precisely how it was designed.

In fact, the lines were crafted so precisely that five of these six Central Florida congressional districts favor Republicans-- even though collectively they contain more Democrats.

Welcome to politics in Florida-- where the deck's stacked before you even get to the polls.

Redistricting has long been a slimy game. Back when the Democrats were in charge in Tallahassee, they drew lines to suit their fancy. And Republicans cried foul... until they got in control and decided to do the same.

That leaves us with the mess we have today-- with districts that look like they were drawn by a drunken cartographer, splitting cities in half and following few logical geographic boundaries.

The other side of the black magic map making that created Mica's 7th district, also created the 3rd district, occupied by Corrine Brown, also twisting and turning this way and that, a district that Republicans created to dump as many Democrats in as possible, guaranteeing a seat to Corrine, but keeping lots of Democrats where they could do the least "harm" in the 5 other Central Florida districts. Her bizarrely drawn district has a PVI of D+16! Republicans don't bother to run there. But they know they will take the other 5 neighboring districts which have been sucked clean of Democrats. The result: 5 entrenched, extremely mediocre, Republican backbench rubber stamps with districts that have virtually guaranteed that-- between the corrupt campaign financing system and the advanced political-demographics of district drawing-- they will serve forever-- Ginny Brown-Waite (best known for threatening to dig up the bodies of Americans who died in France during the World Wars because France wouldn't attack Iraq), Cliff Stearns, the aforementioned Mica, the more-mediocre-than-Brown-Waite Ric Keller, and Florida's most corrupt politician, Tom Feeney.

This year it looks like Brown-Waite and Stearns are home free, Mica and Feeney will have spirited challenges, and Ric Keller will probably lose his seat, due at least in part to a vastly superior opponent (Alan Grayson) and a fortuitous and significant Democratic shift in registration. And Corrine? She's safer than anyone, of course. Republicans, points out Maxwell, "crammed so many Democrats into Corrine Brown's serpentine district, which snakes its way through nine counties from Orlando to Jacksonville, that there were enough Republicans left over to make the rest of the districts GOP-friendly." And, like I said, Florida is bad, but by no means alone. Certainly Texas and California are just as bad. Florida, at least, may address this corruption with a state constitutional amendment that takes the power for redrawing districts out of the hands of politicians. There are innovative proposals to address this problem around the country. And, who knows, one day voters may even realize politicians should not get to define what is-- and what isn't-- bribery.