4 May 2017 Currents
Same location for 19 years • “ S . FL ’ s finest & friendliest PGA / LPGA Instruction right in your back yard ”.
> continued from page 3 election . This severely limits the time to object to anything until after one party is trounced in an election .
The pièce de résistance ? In an attempt to punish the liberal , over-reaching , bench-legislating judiciary , the bill has an escalation clause : if it must resolve a dispute over the gerrymandered maps , the bill subjects judges to cross-examination .
The goal of Ahern ' s proposal : “ if they will continue to cross-examine legislators under these provisions , then anybody else who is drawing the map that is likely to become law should be subject to the same examination on the same constitutional intent basis .”
If the court were to draw a map and the parties in the case did not agree , “ the legal remedy would be to take an appeal , not to subject the judge to crossexamination ,” Zehnder said . “ Attempting to have a judge be both a neutral decision-maker and a fact witness subject to cross-examination is unprecedented , unworkable and smacks of retaliation .”
The bill comes after four years of redistricting battles that cost taxpayers over $ 11 million , led to four trials , three special sessions and eight rulings from the Florida Supreme Court . At the core of the dispute was the Legislature ' s implementation of the Fair Districts amendment to the Florida Constitution , which for the first time required that lawmakers draw political boundaries without the intent to favor incumbents or political parties .
The litigation also forced lawmakers to testify under oath about their legislative intent , for the first time in state history . Representative Ahern ( bill spon-
continued on page 5 >