Arizona takes first step to return redistricting process to Republican control

[Virginiá]

http://tucson.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/house-panel-oks-change-in-redistricting-process/article_2a0fb5af-d47b-577c-bd52-e58598ed80ac.html

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As expected, Arizona Republicans are moving forward with their plan to fulfill their self-imposed obligation to corrupt the electoral process in their favor as much as possible. Making voters approve commissioners is just a subtle way of crafting an all-Republican commission, as the electorate currently gives them an undeniable and reliable majority. Further, allowing lobbyists and politicians to participate means they might as well just give it back to the Republican-led legislature.

As a casual observer and given events since 2011 with Arizona redistricting, I'd expect this to pass the legislature and go to voters later this year. I don't think voters are going to understand what they are voting on and what it will do without a major campaign against the initiative, so without that, this will probably be a done deal.

[Virginiá]

That's a fair point, but if they are looking to make the commission better, then they are doing it completely, 100% ass-backwards. It's pretty obvious they are just trying to return redistricting back to their control, which basically means going from maps that favored Democrats one decade to Republican-favored maps. I'd think that at least with the existing commission, the chances of getting a fair, competitive map are much better. I can't see anything good coming from this new proposal.

[Virginiá]

No, it is a joke, unless the parameters have judicially enforceable teeth, but the point is that the Pubs can take it all, and get their way, without a gerrymander, and really get nothing more, with a gerrymander (other than to make the one seat that would otherwise be lean Pub in Phoenix, safe Pub). In fact, AZ is probably the state with the most CD seats in the nation, where that is the case.

How about for legislative districts? Wouldn't their proposal still help a lot more with those than Congressional districts?

[Virginiá]

In all fairness, wasn't CO's Senate takeover due to those two recalls on 2 Democratic state senators? The GOP now only has a 1 seat majority, and I wouldn't be surprised if they lost that this year.

[Virginiá]

As if democrats don't do this in other states?

Seriously? I didn't make this thread to get into some "whatabout" debate. It's corruption when any party/people do it, end of story. If it makes you happy, I'll be sure to make a thread whenever a Democratic-led state decides to tear apart a voter-approved commission.

[Virginiá]

Arizona should completely dump their current redistricting scheme and start over.

They could do that, yes. But my comments were mostly geared towards what they are doing now. This is nothing but a ploy to install a commission 100% in-sync with the Republican-led legislature's wishes. The end result will just be maps rigged as much in their favor as the law will allow, rendering the commission nothing but a sham. It's so typical that they can't just do things fairly. First real attempt to fix this is nothing but more corruption.

[Virginiá]

The title should be, "Arizona takes first step to return redistricting power to the people," but if you don't mind showing your bias, I don't care.

Who says all five commissioners will be Republican in a 55% R state?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_party_strength_in_Arizona

I'd say that sea of red at the bottom gives them one hell of a chance to have a majority in 2021. It's interesting to see some of you guys try and rationalize Republican actions when it comes to redistricting. It's not going to turn out like you seem to think.

And this is funny because Arizona Republicans argued all the way to the Supreme Court that the legislature deserves full control of redistricting. Now they want it in the hands of the people? Give me a break. They found a way that looks fair but whose result is very, very predictable.

And yes, I have a bias against gerrymandering. Democrats and Republicans do it, and I'm not about to bend over backwards trying to come up with excuses for why this is OK, just like I wouldn't for New Jersey's now-defunct (?) horrid plan to rig their maps, or Illinois, or whatever. So don't accuse me of bias when your own post reeks of it.

[Virginiá]

Further movement made:

http://www.chron.com/news/article/House-tentatively-OKs-bill-to-elect-redistricting-6824740.php

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I particularly liked the last part. "It's already sort of biased, so let's go all in and make it completely corrupt!".

Such honorable politicians.

[Virginiá]

This is a little bit disingenuous:

"A panel of federal judges recently found the commission did not violate the Constitution's equal-protection clause."

Federal redistricting cases are heard by a 3-judge panel in district court. In this case the district court voted 2-1. Redistricting cases are appealed directly to the SCOTUS. The SCOTUS accepted the appeal, and the case was heard in December.

The SCOTUS will rule some time later this year whether district populations may be varied for partisan purposes.

Right, but that doesn't change what they are doing here. They are trying to subtly return to the way things were, with Republicans drawing the maps as they wanted (within legal limits), but they are doing it in a way that isn't blatantly repealing the previous initiative.

The Pub plot needs to be passed by the voters in a ballot initiative, since it changes the AZ Constitution. So the law being discussed merely gets the issue on the ballot.

I think he's right, in a way, that a new issue will have to be put back in front of the voters to fix the damage this will do. As stated before, this is probably going to look reasonable to voters but the effects are anything but. It's a dirty trick.