AIRC Update: Bipartisan agreement on Green Valley / Sahuarita – Will the AIRC listen?

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

I received a number of angry e-mails from residents of Green Valley and Sahuarita earlier this week over the "merge map" crafted by AIRC Commissioners Linda McNulty (D) and Scott Freeman (R) in a rare moment of Kumbaya cooperation over the weekend. These residents were livid that their communities were put into different legislative districts and several testified to that effect at public hearings, to no avail. The "merge map" was approved as the state legislative district "draft map" by the AIRC on Monday.

Green Valley residents are not giving up without a fight. The Green Valley News reports Dems, GOP agree splitting GV, Sahuarita not a good idea:

Local Republicans and Democrats have found something they can agree on: Splitting Green Valley and Sahuarita into separate state legislative districts would make the area politically weaker.

* * *

Local Democrats and Republicans told the state redistricting panel at a hearing Monday that splitting them would harm the communities.

Republican Randy Graf, who has run for political office on the state and federal levels and lives in Green Valley, said the draft map would diminish local power. Democrat Jim Woodbrey of Green Valley agreed, saying the map would split up a voice for the Santa Cruz Valley that needs to be united on issues such as the declining aquifer and illegal immigration.

The Commission voted 4-1 in favor of a draft map that puts Sahuarita in heavily Democratic Legislative District 2 with part of Sahuarita Heights along with Montana Vista and Amado, along with southern and southeast Tucson; Nogales, Rio Rico, Sonoita, Elgin, Patagonia, Naco and a narrow strip of land along the border almost to New Mexico. The district would include Tucson International Airport and Davis-Monthan Air Force Base.

Meanwhile, Green Valley would be in heavily Republican District 1, with the Sahuarita Highlands project east of town, plus Corona de Tucson, Vail, Sierra Vista, Benson, Willcox and northern and eastern Cochise County, plus Safford and the rural far east side of Tucson.

However, because the commission will revisit the map, local political activists are urging residents to give comments either in-person or online over the next 30 days, when the commission next can consider changes to the draft map.

* * *

Local residents testified in person Monday at a commission hearing in Tucson and touched on a variety of points but agreed in asking the commission to keep the two communities in the same legislative district. They include Graf, a former District. 30 state representative; Woodbrey, senior vice president of the state Democratic party; plus Democrats Laurie Jurs from Montana Vista and Maddy Urken of Quail Creek.

* * *

Graf said the commission ignored the idea of maintaining “communities of interest,” one of its six criteria for creating districts, in this area, while using that as the basis for its decision elsewhere.

“They seemed very concerned with communities of interest…yet they come down to Pima County and split Rita Ranch in half; the Oro Valley area goes into three different districts and they come here and split Green Valley and Sahuarita,” Graf said.

* * *

Woodbrey said the community of interest issue is important because the Upper Santa Cruz Valley needs a unified voice to deal with a declining aquifer and illegal immigration, a primarily federal issue that has drawn state legislative action in recent years.

Woodbrey said commissioners seemed to think that Green Valley votes more heavily than Sahuarita against minorities, and so Sahuarita was placed in the minority-majority District 2, but Woodbrey contends that election results show that Green Valley votes more strongly for Hispanics and for Democrats than does Sahuarita. The data on votes for Hispanic candidates might sway the commission more than data on voting for Democrats, as the commission’s requirement to meet the Voting Rights Act is of higher importance than its effort to make politically competitive districts.

I Have attended several of these AIRC public hearings and viewed many more online. I can say that public testimony favored several key points that the legislative "draft map" disregarded here in Southern Arizona:

• Cochise County wanted to be kept whole
• Santa Cruz County wanted to be kept whole and allied with Pima County
• The teabaggers from Oro Valley and Saddlebrook (Pinal County) made it abundantly clear that they wanted to be allied with Pima County
• There was testimony from Pima County residents that they did not want to be allied with our bully neighbor to the North, the state of Maricopa, which would dilute Pima County's influence

Only Santa Cruz County, because of its small size, received consideration from the AIRC.

I have a lot of problems with the state legislative district "draft map" in Southern Arizona. AIRC Update: A plan to divide and conquer Baja Arizona. There was discussion among Commissioners on Monday acknowledging that they had spent far more time focused on the Phoenix metro area than Southern Arizona. That is self-evident from the "draft map" they produced.

The Voting Rights Act District 2 to my eyes is a clear example of "packing" Hispanic voters into a gerrymandered VRA District. There are too many Hispanic voters "packed" into this district with a 61.42% HVAP. That number could be reduced by shedding population along the border in Cochise County, keeping Cochise County whole, and adjusting the line in Pima County to keep the Green Valley and Sahuarita communities together, without substantially affecting the VRA status of District 2.

Note that District 1 is underpopulated by over 5,000. District 8 which includes the carve-out for Oro Valley in Pima County is overpopulated by 3,263, and that carve-out along the Pima County line could be added into District 1. Shedding voters in District 2 from Cochise County to District 1 would also balance out its population, but that means having to add voters to District 2 from elsewhere. District 10 in the Tucson Metro area is overpopulated by more than 2,000, while District 4, a VRA District, is overpopulated by over 1,000. There may be room to add population from these districts to District 2 to equalize the population of these districts within the standard deviation without substantially affecting the VRA status of either District 2 or 4.

District 3 in Tucson, a VRA District, is also underpopulated by over 3,000. District 11 which includes a carve-out for the Town of Marana in Pima County is overpopulated by 2,287. District 3 is a VRA District, but it may be possible to balance out the population of these districts within the standard deviation without substantially affecting the VRA status of District 3.

I would attempt to draft the map version I would prefer, but I am not capable. I find the Maptitude program on the AIRC web site difficult, if not incomprehensible for the average person to use. I would simply suggest that adjusting lines that meet the public testimony above and that respect "whole counties" as much as possible, especially Pima County, is a good place to start.