After last year's presidential election, when Barack Obama smoked Mitt Romney 71-29 percent on the Latino vote, Republicans throughout the land said they have to increase their outreach to the fast growing demographic, or else their political futures could be at stake.
Taken from that perspective, the unanimous vote by the Hillsborough Board of County Commissioners on Wednesday to approve Les Miller's proposal to put a referendum before the voters in 2014 that would add one more single-member district and eliminate a county-wide district seat, isn't surprising.
In addition to the fact that Hillsborough is the largest county in the state — with more than 1.2 million people — and has so few single-member districts, the effort is also designed to create more favorable conditions toward a Latino commissioner being elected.
County-wide, there are four single-member districts and three that serve at-large. Miller's plan would simply change that breakdown to 5-2, but the voters will have the ultimate say in 2014. (For more details on the plan, please read CL's story that laid down Miller's plan back in April.)
The Latino population in Hillsborough County has dramatically increased throughout the past decade, and now more than one of every four people are of Hispanic derivation. These statistics have fueled an effort over the past couple of years to find a way to have a Hispanic representative get elected to the Board of County Commissioners.
This article appears in May 16-22, 2013.