Up to the Supreme Court

Voting rights groups seek injunction against Florida redistricting plan | April 28

Despite numerous rulings in the 1990s on voting districts, the nation’s highest court still hasn’t answered a most important question: Is it constitutionally permissible to create congressional districts to guarantee minority representation? The justices have failed to give the country clear guidance. So we have a Fair Districts amendment to the state Constitution, the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and a governor who is asserting that they are in conflict. For the record, I’ve never understood what the ability of minority voters to “elect representatives of their choice” means. The Voting Rights Act guaranteed the right to vote, not the color of candidates. Hopefully, the U.S. Supreme Court will settle this soon.

Joseph Brown, Tampa

Student loans and simple justice

Biden taking ‘hard look’ at student loan forgiveness | April 29

Loan forgiveness should be carefully targeted for cases in which simple justice demands action, such as those victimized by crooked for-profit trade schools that suddenly went out of business that left students without degree or marketable job prospects or transferable credits. Also included in the group should be those who were victimized by inappropriate option choices due to exploitative bad advice by loan-servicing companies or policies put in place by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos during the Trump dministration.

Louis A. Carliner, Lecanto

Band-aids won’t work

One practical way for Florida to prepare for sea-level rise | Editorial, April 27

As any doctor would tell you, it would be against medical advice to attempt to treat skin cancer by putting a Band-Aid over an open sore, since the sore is the symptom of a larger systemic problem. This is why I refer to Florida as the “Band-Aid state.” Take your recent coverage of sea wall technology, yet another Band-Aid solution. I presume the next startling scientific innovation to combat the rising waters resulting from climate change will be a large family-size inflatable raft with sleeping accommodations and a refrigerator. The same is true for the alarming explosion of traffic congestion due to unfettered “development.” The Band-Aid solution: Add another lane. In Tallahassee the words “climate change” and “mass transit” seem to have gone the way of math books. While some of these strategies may offer temporary respite from these disturbing challenges, like a Band-Aid on cancer, they ultimately end up enabling the disease.

Joseph J. Ferrandino, Land O’ Lakes