Charles Shiflett Column April 4, 2004

No Revolution, But The Landscape Is Changing

I just finished rereading the U.S. Constitution with all amendments and I just can't find it - but it must
be in there somewhere. Maybe there's something in the Declaration of Independence? Nope, don't
see it. Hmmm, well surely the Georgia Constitution has a few lines about this. Nada! Could the
Supreme Court have issued a ruling whereby the U.S. Constitution implied this right? My research is
still turning up nothing.

I had envisioned finding a section addressing the subject similar to this: "Whereby incumbents are the
glue that hold together this nation and its individual states; and whereby incumbents have superior
knowledge of government operations; and whereby incumbents care more about the citizenry than
those candidates who would challenge them; and whereby incumbents should be afforded every
possible advantage to enable them to keep their elected positions…" Well, you get the picture. It's not
to be found in our governmental documents, but from the way some incumbents act, you'd think it is.

Imagine a building filled with 236 pre-schoolers acting the way children act, when suddenly a majority
of them decide to pitch a collective temper tantrum. That building was no childcare facility - that was
our beloved Gold Dome in Atlanta over the past few weeks, and the kiddies were your state legislators
scrambling to save legislative districts friendly to their reelection efforts.

After more than two years of lawsuits, posturing, and judicial pronouncements, a three-judge panel had
turned Georgia's political landscape upside down by redrawing all 180 state house and 56 state senate
districts. I can honestly say I feel no sympathy for those Democrat legislators drawn out of their
districts or placed into unfriendly territory.

First, the Democrats brought this on themselves with their district drawing power grab back in 2001-
when they controlled both chambers of state government and the governor's mansion. Secondly, the
judges gave the legislators one last chance to correct their mistakes this session, but the Democrats
refused. The Republican led senate quickly passed a new senate map that corrected the problems
raised by the judges, but the house Democrats bottled up the senate map and never passed a house
map. They gambled they would fare better under judicially drawn maps than those influenced by a
Republican Senate and Governor. Wrong!

The judges didn't consider where incumbents lived when the new maps were drawn, and several dozen
legislators found themselves paired in districts with other incumbents. Other legislators found their
districts had shifted dramatically. The collective howl from Georgia Democrat headquarters would put a
pack of coyotes to shame. Twenty percent of the legislative districts would be empty under this map -
no incumbent. But before the revolution could get underway, the judges felt their pain and made some
modifications that unpaired most incumbents.

The revolution may be postponed, but a major battle is still shaping up and a number of legislators
won't make it back next year. Many incumbents like Democrat Representative Buddy Childers of
Rome were placed back in their districts - but in Childers' case, the district had changed greatly. The
majority of voters in Childers' district lived in Floyd County before, but under the new map - roughly
sixty percent now live in Bartow.

With Bartow County having been sliced and diced among numerous legislative seats under the old
map - it will be extremely beneficial to Bartow residents to put another one of their own in the
legislature. For too long Floyd County legislators have taken care of Floyd first while paying lip service
to the sections of Bartow they represented.

Floyd County community leaders understand the importance of having legislators based in their own
county and have worked together over the years to keep them. They even went so far as to file a brief
with the judges overseeing the new maps - claiming the votes of the deaf at the Georgia School for the
Deaf in Cave Spring would be diluted because 8,000 residents of southern Floyd County were placed
in a district dominated by Polk County.

Diluting the votes of deaf people? Geez - the real reason is they wanted those 8,000 Floyd voters back
in Childers' district and 8,000 Republican leaning Bartow residents moved out. The judges politely
passed and now we have an opportunity to bring this seat home to Bartow. With a quickly changing
statewide political landscape, returning a Democrat incumbent from Floyd County back to the house
just won't pay dividends any more.