Today In G.O.P. Politics & Policies

On the outside chance there hasn't yet been enough evidence, legal & otherwise, that mere attempts at voting these fascist bastards out are almost guaranteed to fail & so won't be nearly enough to preserve the pseudo-democracy Americans get so excited about for no discernable reason, we quote from today's Tampa Bay Times:

TALLAHASSEE — In a ruling released late Thursday, Circuit Court Judge Terry Lewis blasted the Republican establishment that created Florida's congressional map, saying they "made a mockery" of transparency, allowed for "improper partisan intent" and he ordered that two of the state's 27 districts drawn in 2012 violate the Fair District standards.

[...]

Lewis blasted the role of the political consultants saying "they made a mockery of the Legislature's transparent and open process of redistricting" while "going to great lengths to conceal from the public their plan and their participation in it.

"They were successful in their efforts to influence the redistricting process and the congressional plan under review here," he wrote. "And they might have successfully concealed their scheme and their actions from the public had it not been for the Plaintiffs determined efforts to uncover it in this case."

He concluded, however, that the circumstantial evidence proved that the political operatives "managed to find other avenues ... to infiltrate and influence the Legislature." He drew no conclusions that legislative leaders were aware of the scheme, but he noted that legislative leaders destroyed almost all of their emails and other documents related to redistricting, as did the political operatives.

"There is no legal duty on the part of the Legislature to preserve these records, but you have to wonder why they didn't,'' he wrote. "Litigation over their plans was 'a moral certainty' as their lawyers put it earlier in the case, and intent would be a key issue in any challenge."

[...]

Lewis also concluded that the trail of emails and secret documents, which GOP operatives fought to keep out of the record, proved that "Republican political consultants or operatives did in fact conspire to manipulate and influence the redistricting process.

"They accomplished this by writing scripts for and organizing groups of people to attend the public hearings to advocate for adoption of certain components or characteristics in the maps, and by submitting maps and partial maps through the public process, all with the intention of obtaining enacted maps for the State House and Senate and for Congress that would favor the Republican Party."

Damnit, where the hell was Judge Lewis when the Republicans were stealing the 2000 presidential election?