By Paul Anderson, Herald Staff Writer
May 30, 1982
In the end, Tom Gustafson was all alone.
For months, Gustafson, the boyish-looking state representative from Fort Lauderdale, had been counted among the leaders of the state House. His opinion was a key element as Broward's new legislative and congressional districts were proposed.
But his House colleagues on the conference committee negotiating the lines of the state's 19 congressional districts had cut a deal with the Senate without Gustafson's approval.
As he angrily described it later: "They gave up Broward for the rest of the state. And we'll have to live with it for the next 10 years."
Gustafson contends that the compromise district ignores the needs of Broward residents and panders to the political interests of incumbent U.S. Reps. E. Clay Shaw, the Fort Lauderdale Republican, and Dan Mica, the West Palm Beach Democrat.
Among other problems, Gustafson complained, the district lines split nine cities, including Coconut Creek, Dania, Hacienda Village, Hollywood, Lauderhill, North Lauderdale, Plantation, Sunrise and Tamarac.
Gustafson tried to make amendments. The committee, meeting in Tallahassee just over a week ago, voted them down time and again.
Gustafson said he didn't know until later that people chuckled at him and made sarcastic comments about his attempts. He insisted it didn't matter. "I was doing what I believe was right," he said.
Right or not, Gustafson simply didn't realize what he was up against.
A series of interviews indicates that Broward's new congressional districts are the product of a three-way deal between incumbents Mica and Shaw, plus Democrat Alan Becker, a hopeful in the new South Broward seat.
Becker and Shaw worked together although they opposed each other in the 1980 general election for Shaw's existing District 12 seat.
During negotiations, Shaw had the support of his longtime friend, state Sen. Jim Scott (R., Fort Lauderdale), chairman of the Broward legislative delegation and minority leader of the Senate.
Becker got Sen. Jack Gordon (D., Miami Beach) working on his side, mainly so that any proposed changes in Broward would not affect the districts of incumbent Dade Congressmen Dante Fascell, William Lehman and Claude Pepper, all Democrats.
With the consent of all involved, a Coral Gables attorney named Mark Deutsch, a good friend of Becker's, drew Broward's final district lines.
It's somewhat ironic that Gustafson disputed Deutsch's work in the end. Earlier this year, Gustafson hired Deutsch to help
draw proposals for new state House and Senate districts.
Gustafson paid Deutsch $1,500 out of his own pocket, he said, "because he's the best numbers man around ... But I only used his House and Senate maps. The congressional ones were obviously gerrymandered."
Deutsch won't trade charges with Gustafson for the record. He'll only discuss the details of the districts as he drew them and the House and Senate eventually approved them:
* District 14, with Mica as the incumbent, is shared with southern Palm Beach County. In Broward, it includes the cities of Coral Springs, Margate and Parkland; North Lauderdale and Tamarac west of Florida's Turnpike; Coconut Creek west of Lyons Road and north of Sample Road; and Lauderhill and Sunrise north of the Middle River Canal.
That section of Broward is marginally Democratic but considered safe for Mica, who tends to vote conservatively. There was a deliberate effort to move at least two major bastions of liberalism, Century Village in Deerfield Beach and Wynmoor Village in Coconut Creek, into Shaw's district, where they'll be swallowed and won't give Mica trouble with a more liberal primary opponent.
* District 15, with Shaw as the incumbent, is the only district fully within Broward. It contains the cities of Deerfield Beach, Lauderdale-by-the-Sea, Lauderdale Lakes, Lighthouse Point, Oakland Park, Pompano Beach, Sea Ranch Lakes, Fort Lauderdale and Wilton Manors; the easterly portions of Coconut Creek, Hacienda Village, Lauderhill, North Lauderdale and Tamarac; Sunrise east of University Drive; Dania and Hollywood north of the Dania Cut-Off Canal, and about a third of Plantation. Conservative district
The district is slightly more Democratic than Republican by party registration, but it is considered generally conservative and an easy one for Shaw to keep.
It also was deliberately drawn to include Port Everglades and three of Broward's four airports -- Pompano, Executive and Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International -- because Shaw serves on the House Public Works and Transportation Committee.
Gustafson pointed out that the southern boundary also conveniently picked up Shaw's Dania Farm Nursery, a wholesale operation where Shaw has a family home that he uses while visiting the district.
* District 16, which has no incumbent, is shared with about 140,000 residents of northwest Dade County. In Broward, it includes the cities of Cooper City, Davie, Hallandale , Miramar, Pembroke Park and Pembroke Pines; Hollywood and Dania south of the Dania Cut-Off Canal; and Plantation and Sunrise west of University Drive and south of the Middle River Canal.
The district is overwhelmingly Democratic. Deutsch said it has fewer blacks than any other congressional district in the state -- less than 5 per cent -- and has the second highest concentration of Jewish voters.
Each district, following the mandate created by the 1980 census, contains slightly more than 512,000 people.
Shaw's role
Shaw, who had an aide in Tallahassee to represent him during the final hectic hours of negotiations, described his role as "providing encouragement where it was needed."
He dismissed Gustafson's arguments as "silly fights" and said he was "very pleased with the results of the process."
Shaw added: "Broward was, I think, shortchanged in that we have the population to justify almost two complete congressional districts ... But given the set of circumstances that we had to share the South Broward district with nearly 150,000 people from Dade, I think the Legislature did a terrific job."
If nothing else, Shaw and others -- including state Rep. Larry Smith (D., Hollywood), who is running against Becker -- are glad the House and Senate were able to settle the districts after five months of bickering.
By law, if the Legislature hadn't been able to draw the congressional districts, the task would have fallen to the court system and political considerations would have disappeared.
Broward's lines, which had been one of the chief obstacles in the state, no longer were an issue after a meeting early that Friday afternoon in Scott's office in the Senate Office Building. Gordon and Shaw's aide met with Scott while Deutsch waited outside -- anxious until he saw smiles as they emerged from a conference room.
Smith and his closest allies, including state Sen. Ken Jenne (D., Hollywood), signed off on the Becker-Mica-Shaw plan later when they became convinced that it was the only way to get a map out of the Legislature. Original lines Smith had pushed for Gustafson's original lines for the South Broward district, which basically used State Road 84 as the main northern boundary. The key, to Smith, was that both Becker and announced-Republican challenger Maurice Berkowitz live north of State Road 84 in Plantation.
Deutsch's plan moved the boundary.
Jenne said he was called in by House leaders to speak to the different factions after the conference committee approved its compromise map that afternoon and, once he saw it and talked to the major players, became convinced there was little that could be done.
"I told Larry that he should be satisfied. 'You can still win the district, and you want a map, so let it go,' I said," Jenne recalled.
Jenne disagrees with Gustafson's argument that Democrats gave Shaw an easy district.
The compromise "gives Democrats five out of six Gold Coast congressmen for certain, and I think that's a pretty good arrangement," he said. "And I think that we can win the 15th -Shaw's new district- with a strong enough candidate."
Two Democrats, Clerk of Courts Robert Lockwood and former U.S. Rep. Edward Stack, have said they will challenge Shaw this fall, but neither are particularly pleased with the way the 15th District looks.
Probably the most pleased with the whole arrangement is Becker, who kicked off his campaign in his tailor-made district in a big way last week.
Taking advantage of the makeup of his district, he sent out 20,000 letters with a strong pro-Isreal message soliciting funds from active Jewish voters.
It includes a letter of endorsement from former U.S. Sen. Richard Stone and a pamphlet that shows pictures of Becker on a recent trip to Israel.-
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Twenty-eight years later... there's exactly ONE competitive congressional district in all of South Florida, the one that Allen West won, which is why the House reps are largely on automatic-pilot, and don't really care what you think, esp. DWS, which makes it easy for her to be away from the district so much, working on enhancing her party position elsewhere in the country, doing fundraising and glad-handing favors for other Dem incumbents.
Until the two constitutional amendments passed in November, the House members knew that it was their seat indefinitely unless something queer happened.
Now it has.
