{"id":185931,"date":"2014-07-11T19:58:00","date_gmt":"2014-07-12T00:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2014\/07\/11\/well-its-a-start-5\/"},"modified":"2014-07-11T19:58:00","modified_gmt":"2014-07-12T00:58:00","slug":"well-its-a-start-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2014\/07\/11\/well-its-a-start-5\/","title":{"rendered":"Well, It&#8217;s a Start"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A Florida judge has <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2014\/07\/11\/us\/judge-rules-gop-illegally-redrew-florida-districts.html\">two Congressional districts to be illegally Gerrymandered<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color: blue;\">In a sharply worded decision, a Florida judge ruled late Thursday that Republicans illegally redrew the state\u2019s congressional districts, saying they \u201cmade a mockery\u201d of an amendment meant to inject fairness into a process that has long been politically tainted.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">Judge Terry P. Lewis of Florida\u2019s Second Judicial Circuit ordered that two districts be redrawn \u2014 one, the 10th District, now held by Representative Daniel Webster, a Republican, and the other, the Fifth District, held by Representative Corrine Brown, a Democrat. In redrawing them, neighboring districts are also likely to be affected. <\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">Judge Lewis delivered a blistering, 41-page attack on Florida\u2019s redistricting process, reserving his most scathing criticism for the Republican establishment, including political operatives. He said it was clear that Republican operatives had managed to \u201cinfiltrate and influence\u201d the Florida Legislature.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">\u201cRepublican political consultants or operatives did, in fact, conspire to manipulate and influence the redistricting process,\u201d the judge wrote. At another point, he quoted George Washington, who warned of \u201ccunning, ambitious and unprincipled men.\u201d<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">In 2010, Floridians voted to pass two constitutional amendments that required lawmakers to draw congressional and state legislative districts more cohesively and without favoring a political party.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">The maps were redrawn in 2012, before the midterm elections. They were approved by the Republican-dominated Legislature and signed by Gov. Rick Scott, a Republican.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">During a two-week trial in May and June, a parade of political operatives, lawmakers and legislative staff members took the stand to testify about what they did and did not do during the redistricting process. It turned out that legislative leaders destroyed many documents relevant to the process, a move that Judge Lewis sharply criticized on Thursday.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">\u201cYou have to wonder,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Well the judge can wonder, but I don&#8217;t.<\/p>\n<p>Of course the &#8216;Phants engaged in partisan Gerrymandering.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Florida judge has two Congressional districts to be illegally Gerrymandered: In a sharply worded decision, a Florida judge ruled late Thursday that Republicans illegally redrew the state\u2019s congressional districts, saying they \u201cmade a mockery\u201d of an amendment meant to inject fairness into a process that has long been politically tainted.Judge Terry P. Lewis of &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[970,1000,972,978],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-185931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-corruption","category-elections","category-justice","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185931"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=185931"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185931\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=185931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=185931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}