(Washington, DC) On Oct. 9, 2015, Congresswoman
Brown made the following statement:
“I oppose today’s ruling
by Circuit Court Judge Terry Lewis. The newly drawn, partisan map is a
blatant attempt by the plaintiffs and Florida State Supreme
Court to disenfranchise minority voters in Congressional District 5. As a
response, in
accordance with the 1965 Voting Rights Act, I have filed a federal lawsuit to
repeal the proposed congressional map.
Indeed, the proposed
congressional maps will bring about
minority vote dilution and hamper the ability of Congressional District 5’s
minority residents to elect a candidate of their choice, since the base map
entirely dilutes and disperses minority communities. As I have said
before, minority communities do
not live in compact, cookie-cutter like neighborhoods, and excessive adherence
to district “compactness” fragments them across the state, not allowing them to
elect a representative of their choice, and destroying communities of
interest.
The essential reason
why African Americans live in the areas of Congressional District 5 in which
they do in the first place is a direct result of historical redlining, clearly
exemplified by living patterns both here in the state of Florida and easily
visible in other states as well. In fact, after Emancipation and the
Civil War, the Black population of northeastern Florida moved along the St.
Johns River, which extends from Jacksonville to just north of Orlando.
Because the land was prone to flooding, it was only natural that the poorest
Floridians, including freed slaves, would settle there. Segregated
housing patterns, demanded by restrictive covenants and enforced by Florida
courts, kept the African-American population together well into the mid-20th Century,
which is the central reason why these communities are segregated into those
residential patterns across the state.
I have said from the outset that the newly proposed
boundaries of Congressional District 5 make it a non-performing district not
only for an African American, but for a member of the Democratic
Party. Clearly, those who drew up the map knew that the new
congressional district has 18 prisons in it. And they also know that
in the state of Florida, felons cannot vote; so not only was the black voting
age population (VAP) decreased from 50-45%, many of these people are not
allowed to vote, so the VAP number is, in reality, vastly below 45%.
Indeed, the diminishment of the black voting age population in this newly
drawn district, which consists of 18 prisons that holds 17,000 prisoners, would
give the newly drawn congressional district 5 one of the highest prison
populations in the state. Moreover, the percentage of black
inmates is proportionally higher than in the rest of the state’s population,
wherein African Americans make up only 16% of the total population, yet make up
46% of the prison population. And since the Census counts prisoners
as residents of the towns where they are held, not where they are from, the
official number of African Americans in the newly drawn CD 5 is completely
distorted, again, making the district extraordinarily difficult for a minority
candidate to win.
Moreover, in the
Circuit Court order recommending the adoption of the map, Judge Lewis clearly
points out that he is troubled by the configuration of Congressional District
5, and goes on to say that it is ‘one of the least compact of the districts.’
For most of my adult
life, there were no minority members of Congress elected from Florida, and few
African-Americans elected to the Florida House and Senate. That changed
in 1992 when I was elected to Congress together with Rep. Carrie Meek from
Miami and Rep. Alcee Hastings from Ft. Lauderdale.
Yet to obtain this
seat I had to file a lawsuit. I fought for four African American seats in
the courts, and in the end, we reached a compromise and got three, again –
based on the tenets of The Voting Rights Act. As a result of this
lawsuit, in 1993, after nearly 130 years, the state of Florida had three
African American federal representatives. And for the first time in many
years, minority community members in the state were represented by people who
truly understood them; who grew up in the same neighborhoods and attended the
same churches and schools as they did.
District 5 in Florida and minority access
districts across the nation cannot, and will not be eliminated, particularly
after the hard fought civil rights gains we have made during the last 50 years.
As a people, African Americans have fought too hard to get to where we
are now, and we certainly are not taking any steps backwards.”
