There is a truism in political science that goes something like this: He who controls the method of elections controls the elections.
I'm not talking about classic ballot box stuffing. I'm referring to the full range of political technologies used to keep one party in power to the exclusion of all others. The apparatus of government and its PR. The ability to raise money from corporate interests and wealthy patrons. The opportunity to define who votes in elections and who doesn't, either by purging voting rolls or driving down turnout with negative campaigns.
Take the case of the recent ruling by the Florida Supreme Court striking down a proposed amendment to change the way that legislative and congressional districts are drawn.
The Florida Supreme Court two weeks ago threw the Common Cause-led effort off the ballot. The organization had spent more than $2 million and gathered nearly 1 million signatures in an attempt to wrest control over redistricting away from the Legislature and partisans and create instead an independent commission to do the decennial job.
Regular readers of the Planet may recall our cover story ("The Bipartisan Screw Job," Aug. 24, 2005) on the move to change redistricting — how the proposal is hated by Republicans, viewed as crucial by some Democrats, but generally loathed by incumbents who relish the power to set their own district lines to their own advantage.
Some said the 6-1 decision was politically motivated, especially since the court on that same day allowed an amendment banning gay marriage to go forward. But that ignores the fact that most of the justices are Democrats, and that its current configuration is not considered right-wing.
"The only thing that can be said for this decision is that it is consistent with the Florida court's view that the single subject rule entitles it to veto initiative proposals at will," said Daniel Lowenstein, a UCLA Law School expert on elections, writing on an academic Internet site.
Instead of blaming partisan politics, consider how the existing system was aligned against the effort.
First of all, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives got to spend money — your tax dollars — to fight it. To be precise, $49,978.83 from the Speaker's Office, according to spokesman Towson Frasier. That doesn't count what three state senators — including St. Petersburg Republican Jim Sebesta, a GOP colleague and a Democrat — may have plunked down for legal counsel to file briefs in opposition to Common Cause's ballot language. Or what three Republican congressmen from South Florida spent on the two lawyers who drafted their 60-page argument against the change.
Less noticed by the mainstream press, however, was the inherent conflict that the Florida Supreme Court had in deciding the issue. Under current state law, the Supreme Court gets to draw the lines if the Legislature deadlocks.
"Let's be a little honest about the motivations here," said Michael McDonald, a professor who specializes in election law at George Mason University and who helped draft part of the ballot language for Common Cause. "The Supreme Court of Florida has a role in the redistricting process, and this amendment would take that power away from them. There is an inherent conflict of interest" in that.
The first part of the court's decision deals with constitutional law so obscure, dense and nitpicking that discussing it outside of a law journal wouldn't do it justice. But the second count was more straightforward: It said the title of the amendment wrongly referred to the proposed new decision-making body as an "Independent Nonpartisan Commission." Since legislative leaders would appoint almost all the members, it would still be largely partisan, the court ruled.
"We're really splitting hairs here," McDonald said. "It would have been less partisan than the current process. Is it going to be nonpartisan? No. So I guess it was rightly decided there."
So where does all that leave the redistricting effort?
According to one source, some of the 40 or so big donors who raised $2 million for Common Cause so it could gather signatures and run the campaign are not happy with the effort's failure. Common Cause Florida executive director Ben Wilcox said he hasn't spoken with the national office to see if it is willing to give the same priority and funding to making another run at it in 2008. The court decision, however, should provide clear guidelines for writing ballot language that will pass muster. He hopes to come back with rewritten language for 2008. After all, Common Cause's message is pretty simple and strong: "Lawmakers should not choose the citizens; citizens should choose their lawmakers."
It never fails: I leave town for a Mexican vacation and cheap tequila over spring break and all kinds of political news breaks loose. Let's get caught up:
Hillsborough County Commissioner Ronda Storms was cleared by the Florida Commission on Ethics of an accusation that she unethically interfered with the duties of county employees. Storms called a building official after hours and asked for a "favor" to slow down the opening of a bikini bar in Valrico. But the commission said activist Marilyn Smith's complaint failed to state how exactly that violated ethics laws. The commission is right; Storms' actions might be reprehensible — and even deemed tortious interference in civil court — but they clearly were not related to the state's ethics laws that deal with public officials and private gain. Storms, for her part, trumpeted her victory at a news conference in which she then reportedly ranted against all forms of "immorality," including Gasparilla pirates.
Attorney General Charlie Crist has subpoenaed three national manufacturers of voting machine equipment that refused to sell machines to maverick Leon County Supervisor of Elections Ion Sancho. The manufacturers are not happy with Sancho allowing voting reform advocates to hack into his existing machines, tests that revealed a minor weakness in them that could allow government insiders to manipulate returns. Sancho needs to buy machines for disabled voters to comply with federal laws, but so far has been turned down. Crist wants to know if those companies are conspiring to keep voting machines out of his hands.
Political Whore can be reached by e-mail at wayne.garcia@weeklyplanet.com, by telephone at 813-739-4805 or on our blog at www.blurbex.com.
This article appears in Apr 5-11, 2006.