now from cbs 4 news
this is facing south florida with jim
davidi
welcome to facing south florida i'm jim
defede and today we begin with
congressional redistricting in 2010
florida voters overwhelmingly approved a
constitutional amendment known as fair
districts that sought to take politics
out of the process or at least try to
and make sure maps are drawn fairly and
that minorities are not disadvantaged
because let's remember after the civil
war it was 115 years before an
african-american was elected to congress
from this state
the florida house and senate both drew
new congressional maps this year that
complied with the florida constitution
and did not deliberately target black
districts
but governor ron desantis came up with
his own map and when the legislature
refused to pass his map he recently
vetoed their plans and is demanding
legislators come back to tallahassee in
a few weeks and approve his map
this week i spoke to ellen frieden the
head of fair districts now
she led the campaign in 2010 to pass the
constitutional amendment the governor is
now trying to sidestep
the governor
essentially bulldozed himself into a
governmental process that he has no
official role in and he did that
apparently
in order to please the national party
bosses who
are
demanding that florida come up somehow
with more republican
representatives in congress
and so
on the eve of martin luther king day
he
presented a map to the legislature this
is unprecedented never before
in history that anybody can remember has
there been a governor who inserted
himself
into the process in the way that this
governor has done he filed a map
that actually does create
many more
republican seats in congress
but in the process of doing that and in
his national political ambition
what he's doing is he is essentially
erasing black
access districts and that is is totally
unacceptable and totally contrary to the
fair districts amendments that are in
the florida constitution what would the
net effect of the governor's map be in
terms of
who would be representing florida going
forward
well the net the net effect from what i
understand would be that there would be
instead of you know florida's a 50 50
state
in terms of democrats and republicans
and what the governor's map does is it
rigged districts so that ins we have 28
members of congress starting in 2022
and the governor's map would create a
situation where it's not a 1414
map
it it would be a 20 republican and eight
democratic
representatives in congress and this is
being done in order to
favor the republican party and to
curry favor
with republicans all over the all over
the country which is what he's up to
doing because he's apparently looking to
run for president he's doing that on the
black on the back
uh the backs of minority voters in
florida
particularly african-american voters
congressional districts in the north end
currently represented by al lawson and
potentially the seat currently occupied
although she's giving it up by
val demings is is that is those are the
two districts that you're most looking
at in terms of concern as to how they're
being redrawn is that yes
yes
so let's take a step back for a second
you you first got involved in this as
the chairperson for the campaign for
fair districts
the governor's map seems to be a direct
assault on what the voters of florida
overwhelmingly passed almost a decade
ago which was fair districts
so explain what fair districts
was and what it what currently the law
says because fair districts did pass and
go into the state constitution
in 2010 63 percent of the voters
said that they wanted to have in the
florida constitution
hard strict rules to stop legislators
from rigging districts for their own
political advantage and to favor their
party
it they also had the
the
the benefit of protecting minority
voters so that
where minorities had representation
that representation couldn't be
intentionally diminished
that's what the fair districts
amendments are about they're to create
fairly drawn districts
where voters
votes matter as opposed to districts
that had been being rigged for
for decades probably centuries
um
for purposes that were purely political
now the governor
argument is and he's got a lot of you
know
attorneys behind him in terms of
conservative attorneys who say that
essentially that process particularly
the phrase you use diminishing in other
words to not diminish the representation
of minority access seats
flies in the face and violates the the
14th amendment of the u.s constitution
he's actually making the case that that
by protecting minority voting rights in
those districts and minority
representation it violates the 14th
amendment what's your response
he is taking that position and my my
response is that that's just not
something that
i think most floridians would agree with
the florida citizens took
the initiative
and told the legislature how they wanted
them to draw districts and that was
fairly and not for purposes of political
gain
and what the governor's position if it
if if the governor's position would be
upheld
essentially what it does is it gives
absolutely
it gives free reign
to
those in tallahassee who are rep are
supposed to be representing us
to just do whatever they want without
any control
by the citizens the legislators need to
remember that they're working for
the people of florida
we should be
their boss
and we
made it very clear in 2010 that we want
the
legislature to follow the rules in terms
of redistricting now
i will say
that the legislature did start out this
legislative session
following the rules and it appeared that
they were very concerned about following
the rules and they consistently talked
about how they were following the rules
and in fact they passed a state senate
map and a state house map that were
really compliant with the rules
but then the governor stepped in
and when the governor stepped in he
started bullying the legislature and
threatening vetoes and threatening i who
knows what else he was threatening but
he was but he made it very clear
publicly that he wasn't going along with
this business of following the rules he
wanted them to deviate from the rules so
now we're coming into a special session
we want the legislature
to
do everything in its power to stand up
and and against the governor and follow
the fair district's amendments
so
looking ahead either the
either the legislature is going to
acquiesce and accept the governor's map
or they're going to stand firm and say
no
we passed the map that we believe meets
constitutional muster and follows the
rules under fair districts and and and
keep that going forward
depending on the outcome
doesn't all of this ultimately probably
just end up in the courts to decide
well i think it's likely to end up in
the courts because as you as
as has been indicated
if the
legislature
and governor desantis come to an
agreement on a map that doesn't follow
the florida constitution
i am relatively certain that that's
going to end up in the courts on the
other hand governor desantis has said
that if the legislature doesn't bow to
his will that that will end up in the
court so i think there's going to be
there's going to be court
involvement one way or another
when we come back we will hear from a
man whose sister died in surfside and as
angry the legislature did nothing to
make condos safer
stay with us