There was an especially silly, shallow sibilant Stuart Korfhage story claiming it was not a "good thing" to have two Congressman from St. Johns County, quoting two dull Republicans (extremist St. Johns County Republican Executive Committee Chair WILLIAM KORFHAGE, Ph.D. and louche Election Supervisor VICKI OAKES).
Jim Sutton's Sunday St. Augustine Record editorial (below), agrees with my ineluctable logic, logic being in short supply in extremist Republican circles.
Kudos, Jim Sutton and SAR!
Editorial: Splitting St. Johns County into two Congressional Districts may be an advantage
Posted: December 5, 2015 - 11:36pm | Updated: December 6, 2015 - 12:01am
Florida has been doing the dance of redistricting for too long — three years too long.
After several failed attempts at redrawing congressional districts by state lawmakers, the courts took over and have OK’d a new map. Redistricting is mandated every decade in order to look at population shifts to even out the playing field in terms of constituents — and power.
The reshuffling of the districts this time is facing court challenges, chiefly by District 5 Rep. Corrine Brown. You may remember that at one time, her district took in parts of our own county. Congressional districts are moving targets, and rightly so.
The new legal challenges, according to our sources, may slow the process down, possibly beyond the 2016 elections. But most believe that this map will eventually “stick.”
What that means for St. Johns County is that we’ll be split into two districts, 4 in the northern part of the county, and 6 to the south.
Is this good for our residents or bad?
Local Republican leadership told The Record earlier this week that it’s bad. First, that should be expected because, whether or not it’s good for our voters and county, it is bad for the local GOP bigwigs because it dilutes their power significantly in St. Johns County — they’re now sharing the voter base.
The larger argument is that St. Johns County will become a kind of legislative David between two Goliaths — Duval to the north and Volusia to the south. The fear is that their respective agendas will supersede our own. Even if that turns out not to be the case in practice, being in the middle could still have a downside. Say that, for example, the restoration of the Summer Haven River was a priority for St. Johns County. It might be high on the list for District 6, but will it even be on the legislative wish list for District 4?
It’s a good point, but there’s another side.
Others argue that two voices in Congress always trump one. Three would be even better. And there’s truth to this as well.
We are losing our incumbent voice in Washington, D.C., however the map challenge plays out. Rep. Ron DeSantis is resigning his seat to run for Marco Rubio’s Senate seat. So we’re back to square one as is, with a freshman voice where it counts. We can ill afford this because politics played a game with our state delegation this year when we lost a powerful voice in Sen. John Thrasher. Travis Hutson is a freshman senator in his place. Reps. Cyndi Stevenson and Paul Renner are the new kids on the block in the House as well.
We’re a little power poor, politically speaking.
Under the new map we’ll get another brand new congressman in the south. Seniority is not a game, and we pick up one of the more powerful, and from our estimation one of the very best, voices in Rep. Ander Crenshaw (who has been in Congress since 2001). Under the new map, he loses Baker County and part of Duval to the proposed 5th District and picks up his new constituents in northern St. Johns. We’ll have a much better hand to play at time when inexperience stacks the deck against us.
The northern district will remain a sleepwalk for the Republican Party in coming elections. The southern district is more evenly divided, with a heavier concentration of Democrats. But it’s expected to lean Republican. By the way, the exact break between the two districts is not fully drawn, but from the east it’s basically Dondanville Road west to Vermont Heights and out the St. Johns River. We’ll know more later.
We think the new map is fair across the board, and that it will likely do the residents of our county more good than bad. It’s important to remember that here, it’s not just about Democrat vs. Republican anymore. A lot of folks are rightly fed up with both parties. Interestingly, for the first time, the number of voters registered in-county as independents this year eclipsed that of Democrats (39,562 to 38,178). Republicans (84,334) hold a 2-1 advantage over either.
Could giving them all a voice in selecting dual representation in Congress really be either dangerous or wrong?
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