There is something terribly ironic about the legal battle over the City Council districts.
Organizations that do little but focus on skin color are in a federal court complaining that the newly drawn districts focus too much on skin color.
They persuaded a judge who works for a government that spends far too much time focused on skin color that the original districts were unlawful.
After the council drew up new districts, the plaintiffs in the case are alleging that they, too, were focused on skin color.
It is all semantics and sophistry.
Everyone knows that this charade has only one purpose: make it more likely that Democrats win more seats in the local government.
For decades, Democrats who controlled the state used the gerrymander to help them stay in power. Now that they cannot gerrymander legislatively, they seek to do so by judicial means.
Currently, Jacksonville is red. Against all odds, the local Republican Party has increased registration and turnout in the conservative party’s favor and made a clean sweep in the general election.
Meanwhile, the Democrats have been so negligent that the voting bloc of people with black skin they have counted on for decades is diminishing.
Only 80 percent of people with black skin in Jacksonville who are registered to vote have registered as Democrats. That is less than in many other areas, even though it is puzzling that it is so high.
What could the party of slavery and segregation offer them, other than monthly welfare checks to atone for the poor education in government schools that has kept them from getting good jobs?
The political consultant hired by the city to aid in drawing new district maps, Douglas Johnson, explained in a report that race was not a factor in the process, contrary to the allegations of the plaintiffs.
People with black skin are a majority in four of the council districts, as they have been for years. Plaintiffs complain that the majority is too large.
Johnson also was highly critical of so-called “experts” whose analysis of his maps were cited by plaintiffs. He called one “a partisan polarization analysis, not a racially polarized analysis.”
The ongoing mystery is the claim that voters with black skin in other districts are unable to vote for the person of their choice. There has been no explanation for that illogical claim, and no evidence presented to show it is true.
