PLAN TO ATTEND UPCOMI NG HEARINGS ON REDISTRICTING

THINGS TO DO to participate in Florida's Redistricting:

The first meetings on the Florida Redistricting proposals start in Tallahassee! Monday, June 20th 1:00 - 4:00 and 6:00 - 8:00, 412 Knott Building.

Others will be held in Ft Walton Beach, Pensacola, Panama City and Jacksonville, as well as throughout Central and South Florida.

Attend the upcoming public meetings. The more citizens who attend, the better. You are the best indicator about where you live and where your 'community' is. If you feel that it is important for your community to be intact within a district, then this is your opportunity to make this known.

Suggestions from the Brennan Center for Justice:  

• Present community maps to those who draw the lines.  If there are public hearings, present maps of your community’s boundaries at the hearings.  If not, send proposed maps to your legislators, along with petitions showing numerical support for the districts you prefer.  the more you can emphasize the maps that should be drawn, the more likely they are to be reflected in the final product.

• Develop alternative maps.  You may also want to step beyond maps of local communities, to redistrict the state (or city, or county) as a whole.  Those who are drawing the lines have to develop multiple maps in a relatively short period of time.  If you are able to give them a model, they will be able to use that model as a reference point.  And in the event that the maps they draw end up in court, courts will often look to alternative maps for guidance.

• Educate the media.  Media outlets — particularly print and web media — are usually wary of self-interested government actors, and will be very interested in the redistricting process as it unfolds, and in the political impact of the final maps.  Few, however, understand the redistricting process in detail.  You have an opportunity to educate the media in 2009 and 2010, to let them know about how the redistricting process works, and how you think it should work, to drive media coverage of the process to focus on the goals you think.

From the National League of Women Voters:

Statement on Essential Principles on Redistricting

as formulated at Pocantico Redistricting Conference July 2009:

1. An accurate and complete count in Census 2010 is an essential building block for all redistricting efforts.
2. The process used for redistricting must be transparent to the public.
3. The redistricting process, at all levels of government, must provide data, tools and opportunities for the public to have direct input into the specific plans under consideration by the redistricting body.
4. In order to achieve representative democracy, redistricting plans must be drawn in a manner that allows elected bodies to reflect the diversity of the populace, especially racial and ethnic diversity.