Tallahassee Diaries

Here are some of the highlights:

Tuesday I went to the Reapportionment Committee in the Senate. This committee is tasked with redistricting and will create the new Congressional, state house and state senate districts for the next 10 years. Redistricting is a tremendously important process because it really sets the stage for elections, and therefore who will govern, for the next decade. The Senate Reapportionment Committee is extremely important, with many legislators wanting to be appointed to it. One of the things that immediately struck me when walking into the Committee chamber was the difference between the number of Democrats and the number of Republicans on the committee, 17 Republicans and 10 Democrats. They spent time talking about districts in Northeast and Central Florida, spending a lot of time discussing the minority-majority districts  currently represented by Senators Gibson, Siplin. The legislators were also given a packet of proposed districts, submitted by the public. One map was submitted by a 13 year old student- you are never too young to care about democracy!

Tuesday evening I attended the Equal Rights Amendment press conference hosted by Representative Berman and Senator Rich. Decades after the ERA was first proposed, it is still being fought for. In fact, the ERA is only 3 states away from being ratified and Rep. Berman and Sen. Rich have introduced a bill that would adopt the ERA in Florida.