A.G. Gancarski
During Public Comment at the end of the Duval Delegation Meeting, Pastor Kenneth Adkins spoke on Janet Adkins‘s “inside ball game” comments about the redistricting of Corrine Brown’s CD 5, which were first reported in Politico.
No, the two Adkinses are not related.
This ensured that, despite the best efforts of the chairwoman’s agenda, the biggest political controversy of her career would be discussed.
As an ex-offender who had his right to vote restored, the Republican pastor described himself as an advocate of second chances for felons.
“Your comments in the private meeting in Tampa… were ugly, downright nasty, and mean,” the pastor said to the Chair.
“You owe a lot of people an apology much more sincere than your press release stated,” Pastor Adkins said.
Representative Adkins said nothing.
It was as if she didn’t hear him. Or didn’t care.
As the meeting wrapped, other members of the delegation spoke.
State Senator Audrey Gibson said that she wanted the meeting to wrap with the public knowing that the Delegation is concerned about Jacksonville and its representation.
“I hope this Delegation can agree,” Gibson said, that Jacksonville deserves a representative “that understands what Jacksonville brings to the table,” regarding issues such as the port and the local economy.
Representative Lake Ray, meanwhile, seemed to concur.
“It’s about our region and where we’re headed.”
The east/west configuration of Congressional District 5 has “threatened” the district, which is “unconscionable.”
Mentioning the shifted contours of Congressional District 4 to the south, Ray lamented that the “Supreme Court has disenfranchised the citizens of Northeast Florida.”
Adjournment, then Representative Adkins took some questions.
“My comments were made in an effort to explain the proposed lines,” she said, and “reflected the debate.”
When asked why she wasn’t able to be as candid with the media as she was in private, or whether it was honest to pretend that disenfranchised prisoners should count as part of the “voting age population,” Janet Adkins dodged the question before cutting the press gaggle short.
She had “another meeting” to get to, even though the Delegation meeting was slated to run until 4:00 and it was barely 2:00 p.m.
Recall that Politico recorded her saying such gems as “you draw [Brown’s seat] in such a fashion so perhaps, a majority, or maybe not a majority, but a number of them will live in the prisons, thereby not being able to vote.”
(Live in the prisons? An interesting framing of language there.)
Her comments to media weren’t nearly as interesting, regrettably, as this quotable line from the Politico story.
“You take a look at how many minorities are in the prisons within that newly drawn proposed Congressional District 5, how many of them live in the prisons,” Adkins said. “That is why Corrine Brown is so against an east-west. … Her concern is they live in prisons and can’t vote.”
Gee whiz, that would be a concern.
Adkins, who saves her top-shelf quotes for “inside ball game” conversations where the only person recording proceedings is her shutterbug husband Doug, himself a state committeeman from Nassau County, wasn’t able to be quite this interesting in front of the media.
Why would she be?
Senator Gibson, when asked about all this after the meeting, pointed out that she had brought up the fact that the BVAP was a “false BVAP” already, referring to the process as a deliberate, calculated “diminuition” of the black voting age population.
