Florida redistricting: Jeopardy to Allen West’s – and Tom Rooney’s – seats
posted at 3:02 pm on January 30, 2012 by J.E. Dyer
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That’s the narrow, antiseptic way to put the matter. Legal Insurrection and Shark Tank put it differently, suggesting “GOP establishment” complicity in singling West out.
Will Weatherford, Florida state representative and spokesman for the Romney campaign in Florida, confirmed this weekend that the Republican-controlled Florida legislature is about to approve a redistricting proposal that will make it much harder for Allen West to be reelected. Legal Insurrection points out the obvious:
Weatherford tried to hide behind a need to comply with [state and] federal law, but that’s obviously a dodge since there could have been many ways to comply yet not sacrifice West.
To point out some more “obvious,” this is a Republican-controlled legislature. Did the Republicans allow other GOP-held Congressional seats to be severely jeopardized by the new district lines? Apparently, only one. An analysis done for the Washington Post last week indicates that Allen West’s and Tom Rooney’s seats are the ones in the most danger. Getting positive help from the redistricting are Republicans Dan Webster, Sandy Adams, Mario Diaz-Balart, and John Mica.
Redistricting isn’t as easy as it looks, of course. But it is not believable that it is either a fully non-partisan process – when anyone is doing it – or that the Florida GOP leadership was neutral as to which seats were jeopardized by their plan.
One possibility is that Republican leaders thought West and Rooney were the most likely to achieve reelection in newly hostile districts. They haven’t said that, so that’s pure speculation based on trying to put this in a positive light.
Meanwhile, who are Florida’s arguably most outspoken, conservative Republican Congressmen? West and Rooney.
J.E. Dyer’s articles have appeared at The Green Room, Commentary’s “contentions,” Patheos, The Weekly Standard online, and her own blog, The Optimistic Conservative.
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Well, that’s what you get for voting with Boehner when the chips were down. I guess.
SouthernGent on January 30, 2012 at 3:23 PM
The Republican elites do not like someone who won’t “go along to get along”. West must go. They are just asking for a third party. The enemy is the Republican elite. We have to get rid of them before we can even fight the dims.
Kaffa on January 30, 2012 at 3:27 PM
It is Romney who wants to get rid of West:
Romney Spokesman Behind Plan to Redistrict Allen West out of Office
How much evidence do we need that Romney is a RINO? It is unbelievable to me that he is even in consderation as a Republican candidate.
Kaffa on January 30, 2012 at 3:34 PM
Way to go Stupid Party. Energetic, charismatic voice for conservatism (and who happens to have a certain skin pigmentation) and you want to run him out of Congress. This is why I’m not a Republican. I’ll vote for the not-Obama, but can’t get enthused for the GOP.
rbj on January 30, 2012 at 3:36 PM
For what it is worth, the view from South Florida is:
- The Democrats were more organized on the redistricting process
- The state level Republicans, in order to win back some ground on the state level redistricting, agreed to give ground on the Federal elections
- Allen West was a key bargaining chip in that process
For this to be true, it suggests:
(a) The RPOF state legislature members were willing to sacrifice at the Federal level to save their own skins or for their own advantage – well, that doesn’t take any imagination to believe
(b) The Democrats were better organized than Repubs on redistricting – well, again, that takes no imagination (see: California)
(c) The local state Democrats were willing to cede some ground in order to attack West
That is the only part that needs close examination. It would be possible if (a) the Dems didn’t feel they were really ceding any ground in the process (e.g., came to the table with a plan that asked more than they expected, and planned to cede some anyway), and (b) they were in closer coordination with their Fed counterparts.
Given the presence of Debbie Wasserman-Schultz as DNC chair, embedded in S. Florida and state politics as well, and proximity to Allen West’s district and strong antagonism between the two, then (b) is pretty believable (and also rumored to be true).
So you really only need to believe (a).
Now, this is all speculation, and all of the “off the record sources” don’t offer enough credibility … but the fact remains, West is getting screwed by a Republican legislature not fighting for him, there were warnings ahead of time by Repub state legislatures that this was going to happen (and they have been vindicated), and the RPOF leadership is historically not pro-Tea Party at all and is generally viewed as incompetent by Florida Tea Partiers … (myself included).
So, yeah, I think he was stabbed in back.
PrincetonAl on January 30, 2012 at 3:40 PM
Well on good way to see West keeps his wonderful present around is for someone that wins the nomination to make him VP! I love the daylights out of West and FL has two great in dc from their state, West and Rubio!
L
letget on January 30, 2012 at 3:51 PM
Gee, that would be a great theory except for one inconvenient fact: Romney endorsed and donated to Allen West, so to hallucinate that he is somehow behind this (as Jacobson has done) is nonsensical at best. Moreover, it already was a Democrat district when West ran and won last time.
Why doesn’t someone at Hot Air contact Weatherford’s office directly for a response rather than engage in idle speculation (at best) or feed conspiracy theories from partisans Palinskyites like Jacobson?
Buy Danish on January 30, 2012 at 4:48 PM
Thanks for a very thorough analysis, PrincetonAl. I had frankly forgotten about DWS’s dust-up with West. It’s an interesting data point.
I suspect the bottom line is that the Florida Republicans made a decision not to “fight” for West’s or Rooney’s seat, very likely as a tradeoff for getting stronger GOP districts elsewhere (per the WaPo article).
Of the two new Florida districts, one has been designed to lean GOP and the other Democratic. An even-handed approach, as is apparently the GOP’s trading a few stronger districts for a few slightly weaker districts, and a couple of really bad districts that just happen to be those of West and Rooney. If either one of them were a low-ACU RINO, that would be one thing. But, of course, they’re not.
J.E. Dyer on January 30, 2012 at 9:28 PM
Because you then would not be able to have interminably long threads demonstrating and validating your importance in the blogosphere.
DevilsPrinciple on January 31, 2012 at 2:45 PM
Sally Bradshaw on C-Span this morning strongly disputing such allegations; the re-districting process is being done according to state and federal law and certainly NOT with a personal agenda.
mountainaires on January 31, 2012 at 4:09 PM
http://www.bradenton.com/2012/01/18/3800201/florida-senate-approves-redistricting.html
mountainaires on January 31, 2012 at 4:14 PM