The Democratic minority

Editorial

By TBO.COM | Staff
Published: February 09, 2012

Let's look at how Republicans have turned their minority registration into a commanding majority in Tallahassee. Redistricting to weaken Democrats has played a part, but there are other factors.

The trouble for Democrats starts with packing so many blacks into a few so-called safe districts. Eighty percent of blacks in Hillsborough County register as Democrats, so the minority districts become Democratic districts.

What blacks gain in securing racially proportional representation — 15 percent of the Legislature is black in a state that is 16 percent black — other Democrats lose in surrounding districts, which otherwise would be closely divided.

With opportunities for white Democratic candidates reduced, almost half the Democrats in the Legislature are black.

Another reason Democrats are the minority party is that more independents are voting Republican. The most recent statewide races for governor and U.S. Senate were won by conservative Republicans, which cannot be attributed to clever districting.

Rep. Will Weatherford predicts that the districts he helped redraw will be more competitive this year than in 2010. "Republicans could lose seats," he says, and appears to mean it.

Even if he's wrong, that doesn't mean redistricting was unfair. The goal was not to guarantee a more politically balanced Legislature. It was to draw non-minority districts in more geographically sensible ways, and that appears to have been done.