Florida Gov. Charlie Crist (R) has now distanced himself even further from state Republicans, this time by wading into a contentious battle over dueling redistricting amendments.<\/p>\n
During a meeting with the Miami Herald\u2019s editorial board<\/a> this week, Crist endorsed a pair of ballot initiatives sponsored by the citizens group Fair District Florida — Amendments 5 and 6<\/a> — that seek to reform how lawmakers redraw legislative and congressional districts. At the same time, he trashed the majority-Republican legislature\u2019s decision to put forward a third redistricting measure — Amendment 7<\/a> — that critics charge will effectively neuter Amendments 5 and 6. (See here<\/a> for an explanation of what these amendments would do.)<\/span><\/p>\n Crist claimed the lawmakers\u2019 amendment was effectively a way for state Republicans to preserve their numbers in the legislature and the state\u2019s congressional delegation. He referred to the bill as a \u201csilver bullet\u201d<\/a> that he would have vetoed if the state constitution gave him that power.<\/p>\n \u201cSome people have gotten so rigid about their adherence to the party before doing what’s right for the people, it’s hurting our country,\u201d he told the Herald.<\/p>\n Crist had previously reserved judgment<\/a> on the Fair Districts amendments back in February 2009, claiming he needed to learn more about what they would do. But he also said he felt redistricting reform pushes always came from the minority party.<\/p>\n \u201cIt always seems like the party that’s not in power doesn’t like the way the districts are drawn,\u201d he told the St. Petersburg Times.<\/p>\n His position is not a total reversal, however, as he had supported a constitutional amendment in 1993 that would have created an independent commission that would follow guidelines similar to what is included in the Fair Districts amendments. That amendment passed in the state Senate but then died in the then-majority-Democratic House.<\/p>\n This is just the latest in a series of dramas between Crist and the GOP since his April 29 announcement<\/a> that he would forgo his run for the party\u2019s Senate nomination in favor of an independent run for the seat. His battles with the state party leadership have been particularly nasty and public, culminating in the Republican Party of Florida\u2019s widely reported eBay auction<\/a> of its portrait of Crist for $7,700.<\/p>\n Crist\u2019s comments on the redistricting amendments went public the same day the state chapters of the NAACP and League of Women Voters, as well as the Hispanic advocacy group Democracia Ahora, filed a lawsuit<\/a> in Tallahassee to get Amendment 7 removed from the ballot. The plaintiffs claimed<\/a> the amendment was \u201cflying under false colors\u201d by claiming to clarify Amendments 5 and 6 while allegedly being an attempt to do just what Crist claimed: preserve Republican majorities.<\/p>\n The state party’s press office had not returned requests for comment at the time of this article’s posting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Florida Gov. Charlie Crist (R) has now distanced himself even further from state Republicans, this time by wading into a contentious battle over dueling redistricting amendments. During a meeting with the Miami Herald\u2019s editorial board this week, Crist endorsed a pair of ballot initiatives sponsored by the citizens group Fair District Florida — Amendments 5 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6897,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-575126","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575126","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6897"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=575126"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575126\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=575126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=575126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=575126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}