PHOENIX — The Independent Redistricting Commission voted 3-2 to adopt maps that are likely to preserve the Republican edge in the Arizona Legislature for the rest of the decade.
Wednesday’s vote came over the objections of Shereen Lerner and Derrick Watchman, the two Democrats on the panel. Erika Neuberg, who is a political independent and chairs the commission, sided with the two Republicans.
Based on voter registrations, the plan creates 13 likely “safe” districts for Republicans and 12 for Democrats. At least four of the other five have registration differences of only a few points, which Neuberg said makes them politically competitive.
Lerner, however, reads the available data, including results of prior elections, to effectively give Republicans a 17-13 edge. That is unfair, she said, given that Republicans currently control just 16 of the 30 Senate seats and 31 of 60 House seats.
Lerner’s frustrations, which she expressed multiple times as the final legislative and congressional maps were being crafted, finally boiled over Wednesday when it became clear that Neuberg would side with Republicans David Mehl and Douglas York.
She said Neuberg has sided with Republicans more often than not on changes sought to the maps.
Neuberg has not disputed that, but said it has to do with a “fundamental difference that we have in terms of interpreting our constitutional mandate.”
That includes Neuberg’s argument that while the panel is required to create as many politically competitive districts as possible, that is only to the extent that it does not interfere with other guidelines including following political and geographic boundaries as well as what she interprets as “communities of interest.”
That explanation didn’t wash with Lerner.
She pointed specifically to how draft maps sought to create a legislative district that encompassed the Tucson suburban communities of Marana, Oro Valley and Casas Adobes. As crafted, that would have been a politically competitive district. She said it kept the district within specific school districts, reflecting the requirement for honoring communities of interest.
But what emerged in the final map as Legislative District 17 excluded Casas Adobes and instead extended a line around the Catalina Mountains to pick up Republican areas of east Tucson and Tanque Verde.
Moreover, Lerner said there is evidence that Republican Sen. Vince Leach, who lives in the southern Pinal County SaddleBrooke subdivision and currently represents the area, was involved in behind-the-scenes lobbying to have the Southern Arizona Leadership Council propose — and the commission to adopt — the design of LD17 to make it a safe Republican district.
There were other tweaks made to the legislative maps designed to help GOP incumbents.
One change sought by Republicans on the commission moved the unincorporated community of Liberty, outside of Buckeye, from Democratic dominated LD23 into safe Republican LD25. Among the approximately 600 residents affected are Republican state Sen. Sine Kerr.
And a line was moved just Wednesday to put Sen. Wendy Rogers, R-Flagstaff, into safely Republican LD7, moving her residence on West Historical Route 66 out of heavily Democratic LD6.
Republican Mehl, who pushed the change, initially declined to answer questions about the reason. But when pushed, he sidestepped the question, saying it was done to help efforts by Watchman to improve the percentage of Native American voters in LD6.
Lerner did not dispute that it did help strengthen Navajo voting strength. But she said that’s not the entire story.
“He came over to me and he said, ‘I’d like to make this change for a friend of mine who asked me to make this change,’” she recalled of her conversation with Mehl. Lerner said she agreed. But she pursued the matter a bit.
“I said, ‘Don’t tell me if it’s for an incumbent,’ “ Lerner continued. “And he said, ‘Then, I won’t tell you.’”
Those political considerations were not unusual before 2000 when state lawmakers — and specifically, the majority party — crafted the decennial changes in the legislative and congressional lines.
That year, however, voters created the Independent Redistricting Commission with the specific goal of trying to remove some of the political influence. It requires lines be drawn based on factors including equal population, honoring geographic and political boundaries, protecting communities of interest and creating as many competitive districts as possible to the extent that does not harm the other criteria.
The constitutional rules for its operation specifically say “the places of residence of incumbents or candidates shall not be identified or considered.”
The moving of lines to accommodate candidates, Lerner said, gets added to what she said was a legally flawed process.
“This map does not meet the constitutional criteria, one of which is the partisan bias,” she said.
But Lerner stopped short of saying the maps are subject to being challenged in court. “I have no idea,” she said. “That is not my purview.”
The Arizona Democratic Party and the Arizona Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, however, wasted no time in putting out their own criticism and raising the specter of litigation.
“These maps do not reflect the increasingly competitive nature of our state,” their statement read. “We will examine every legal remedy available to fight for fair and competitive maps.”
Neuberg, for her part, said there’s a reason so many of the districts have a Republican slant. And that is the federal Voting Rights Act, she said, which the commission is legally bound to follow.
It forbids changes in election laws — and district lines — that dilute the ability of minority communities to elect candidates of their choice. And given the voting patterns of Hispanic and tribal communities, Neuberg said that required the commission to effectively pack those minority districts with Democrats.
“When you honor the VRA and you take out what is a huge proportion of the Democratic population because it happens to align with those minority interests, we’re left with a state that is so disproportionately R-leaning,” she said.
Mehl said he was pleased with the result.
“I think this map is a terrific map for the state of Arizona,” he said.
He specifically defended how LD17 was drawn, saying it creates “balanced representations” with two districts that represent the core of Tucson.
York said the maps do their best to combine communities of interest, even those separated by distance. He specifically cited LD23.
“The community of interest in San Luis, Somerton, share interests with the Hispanic farming communities of Avondale and Glendale,” York said. He said it made sense to combine Yuma in LD25 with the Buckeye area based on “the economic driver of agriculture.”
But Lerner said some communities of interest were ignored, citing the refusal of her colleagues to put the Verde Valley community into a legislative district with Flagstaff as it has been for the past decade. Instead it was combined with the rest of Yavapai County.
