Issue link: https://newsleader.uberflip.com/i/83745
OPINION TEBRUGGE, ALPERT FOR STATE REPRESENTATIVE EDITORIAL Florida legislature in 2001, Republicans proceeded to use the decennial redistrict- ing process to gerrymander themselves into relatively non-competitive districts, while packing Democrats into districts that would ensure the likelihood of continued Republi- can majorities in the Legislature in future elections. With a majority of the seats in the The effort was so successful that, 10 years later, the Legislature found itself with ve- to-proof super-majorities of Republicans in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. And this was in a state where reg- istered Democratic voters outnumbered Re- publican voters by approximately 900,000. Perhaps that also explains a successful citizens initiative in 2010 that resulted in constitutional amendments forbidding ger- rymandering of legislative or congressional districts in the redistricting to follow the 2010 Census. Republican legislators resisted the amend- ments by seeking relief in the courts, but they were rebuffed. Clearly, another strate- gy was needed to hold onto Republican con- trol of the Legislature going forward, and the strategy that evolved was an old one: the disenfranchisement of those who might vote against them. Not since the Jim Crow era in the South has the nation seen a more concerted effort to suppress voting by those more likely to vote as Democrats than Republicans, and Florida has been at the vanguard of this effort. Decrying an epidemic of "voter fraud" — which has been disproven in every impar- tial examination of the issue — Republican legislators in Florida undertook a series of efforts to discourage or even deny the right to vote of Floridians likely to vote against them, including implementing draconian voter ID laws, criminalizing third-party voter registration groups (such as the ven- erable League of Women Voters), dramat- ically reducing early voting days, virtual eliminating the practice of changing one's registration at the polls, and implement- ing a harsh new policy denying the rein- statement of civil rights to felons who have served their sentences. The net effect of these changes was to limit voting by minorities, the elderly, the poor, college students and prospective new voters — groups all statistically unlikely to sup- port Republican candidates. It is against this backdrop of naked pro- motion of Republican self-interest in the Florida Legislature that we consider those candidates who deserve voters' support on Nov. 6. Incumbent Reps. Ray Pilon and Jim Boyd have been loyal foot soldiers in the legisla- tive effort for voter suppression. Both have steadfastly maintained throughout the campaign the need to "preserve the integ-