Weekly Roundup: looking for peaceful resolution

BY DARA KAM
THE NEWS SERVICE OF FLORIDA

THE CAPITAL, TALLAHASSEE, August 14, 2015…… What happened this week at the Florida Capitol obviously pales in comparison to Friday's historic hoisting of Old Glory in Cuba.

But U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry's words, delivered 90 miles away from the Sunshine State Friday morning, were apropos to the Legislature's challenge about where to draw the lines for Florida's congressional districts.

Kerry, in Havana to reopen the U.S. embassy in Cuba for the first time in more than half a century, called the occasion an opportunity "for pushing aside old barriers and exploring new possibilities."

That's, quite literally, the Sisyphean task at hand for state lawmakers, who, at the order of the Florida Supreme Court, are inching forward with redistricting plans that thus far seem to be garnering more criticism than support, much like the raising of the U.S. flag in Havana.

In Cuba, Kerry --- with a Spanish accent quickly mocked on Twitter --- offered assurances that "No hay nada que temer (There is nothing to fear)."

The historic event was also a day for poetry.

Quoting Jose Marti­, the Cuban intellectual and poet considered by many a national hero, Kerry said that "everything that divides men is a sin against humanity."

Before Kerry took to the podium, Richard Blanco, a poet who grew up in Miami and who read one of his works at President Barack Obama's 2013 inauguration, offered a piece written especially for Friday's occasion.

Blanco, whose mother was pregnant with him when she fled Cuba in the late 1960s, dedicated the poem, "Matters of the Sea (Cosas del Mar)," to "the people of both our countries who believed that not even the sea can keep us from one another."

"No matter what anthem we sing, we've all walked barefoot and bare-soled among the soar and dive of seagulls' cries. We've offered our sorrows and hopes up to the sea, our lips anointed by the same spray of salt-laden wind. We've fingered memories and regrets like stones in our hands that we just can't toss," Blanco read. "Today, the sea is still telling us the end to all our doubts and fears is to gaze into the lucid blues of our shared horizon. To grieve, together. To heal, together."

REDISTRICTING REDUX

Marti­'s view of division as a sin aside, the House and Senate appear to be taking different approaches to a new congressional map, at least so far.

A House committee on Thursday gave preliminary approval to a staff-drawn map even as senators considered a redo of the same proposal, and as an African-American congresswoman railed that the map would hurt black voters.

The House Select Committee on Redistricting voted 9-4 to back a "base map" crafted by legislative staff to comply with an opinion from the Florida Supreme Court, which ruled last month that the existing congressional map violates the anti-gerrymandering "Fair Districts" requirements approved by voters in 2010.

The revamped districts are facing pushback. U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown, a Jacksonville Democrat, filed a federal lawsuit to block any effort to dismantle her current district. Brown contends that changing the orientation of District 5, which currently runs from Jacksonville in the north to Orlando in the South, to an east-west district could disenfranchise African-American voters while splitting Leon County.

Congressman Daniel Webster, a Republican who also appeared at a committee meeting in the Capitol this week, said the changes to his Orlando-area district would violate the Constitution because they would hobble his re-election chances.

They're not the only ones complaining.

Some lawmakers were upset that the plan appears to undo a Tampa Bay-area district that could prove welcoming to minority candidates and that it would divide Hillsborough County among four districts.

The House committee on Thursday rejected an amendment by Rep. Dave Kerner, D-Lake Worth, that would have kept much of coastal Palm Beach County in a district currently represented by Democratic Congressman Ted Deutch. The panel ignored an amendment proposed by Rep. Mike Hill, R-Pensacola Beach, to reintroduce the current map that was developed in 2012.

Brown's district is one of several that senators will consider changing at a Monday meeting of the Senate Reapportionment Committee. The panel met twice Thursday but decided to give the public and members more time to weigh a series of amendments.

One plan would tweak Brown's district by extending an arm that would pick up part of Gainesville. Another proposed amendment would unite Sarasota County in a single district, represented by Republican Congressman Vern Buchanan; and a third proposal would make several changes across the Interstate 4 corridor aimed at consolidating eastern Hillsborough County into a single district.

Sen. Tom Lee, a Brandon Republican pushing the Hillsborough County changes, told the committee it should consider combining as many Senate ideas into a single amendment that could then be approved. But he conceded that amending the current proposal would be difficult because some politicians and citizens have already begun bracing for the effects of the base map.

"My concern here, as I watch the reaction to all of these amendments, is that because we're operating against the backdrop of a base map, and because it's much harder to amend something than it is to retain the base map, that we may end up with as a practical matter, the inability to amend any of these," Lee, a former Senate president, told reporters.

But Senate Reapportionment Chairman Bill Galvano, R-Bradenton, said he didn't believe the crafting of a suggested plan made it more difficult to approve amendments. Galvano said lawmakers would otherwise be working with the existing districts.

"You always have a base map," he said. "It just so happens that, in this instance, because the Supreme Court has issued an order with instruction and identified certain districts, we are able, instead of just to show up with the enacted plan, to have made progress on a base map in terms of what the court wanted."

COURT FIGHT OVER 'MY TWO MOMMIES'

After winning the fight to get legally married, gay couples in Florida are now back in court, this time over being legally recognized as their children's parents.

Three married lesbian couples and the Equality Florida Institute are suing over Florida officials' refusal to identify both same-sex parents on newborns' birth certificates. The children were born after gay marriage became legal in Florida in January.

Instead of responding to the lawsuit filed over the birth certificates this week, Florida Surgeon General John Armstrong went back to U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle, asking for "clarification" in the gay marriage lawsuit. Hinkle overturned Florida's prohibition against same-sex marriage last year, and his decision was reinforced by a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in what is known as the "Obergefell" case in June.

In documents filed in federal court Thursday, the state argued that "gender specific language of the birth statute appears to preclude married same-sex couples from being listed as parents on birth certificates."

But, in light of the Obergefell case, Hinkle's order striking down Florida's ban against same-sex marriage "may be read to require issuance of birth certificates to married same-sex couples," notwithstanding the statute, Department of Health chief legal counsel John Henderson wrote.

The state has a birth certificate created in 2010 for children adopted by same-sex couples, and the department "will initiate rulemaking" to use the same form for children of same-sex couples if Judge Hinkle orders it, Henderson wrote.

But lawyers for the gay couples, who filed the suit against Armstrong and State Registrar Kenneth Jones and have been trying for months to get the issue resolved, responded that the health officials don't need more time.

The state admits that the Supreme Court decision requires both parents to be identified on birth certificates, Orlando lawyer Mary Meeks wrote.

"In light of that concession, it is unclear why the department claims to be confused about its obligations," she wrote.

The state doesn't need to create a new rule, Meeks argued.

"The department has been under an order from this court to cease enforcement of Florida's marriage ban since the stay was lifted in January, and the Supreme Court's decision has been in effect for seven weeks. The department must comply with those orders now, not at some undefined future point in time," she wrote.

STORY OF THE WEEK: A House committee approved a "base map" for Florida's 27 congressional districts.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK: "I'm somewhat troubled by the extent to which I feel like my First Amendment rights as a sitting member of this Senate have been impacted by the court's decision." --- Sen. Tom Lee, on a set of instructions from the Florida Supreme Court about how to conduct the redistricting process, which has prompted Senate leaders to order the recording of meetings between members and some legislative staffers.