AIRC Update: the Commission takes a major step backwards

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

First, Thursday's AIRC public hearing has been canceled for a working day for the Commissioners. There will be two public hearings this week in Tempe. After what happened in Tucson on Tuesday, every Democrat, Independent and other party individual who wants fair and competitive districts needs to attend these meetings and to testify and/or submit your public comments online.

September 28, 2011

CANCELLED

September 29, 2011

Fiesta Resort – Galleria Ballroom
2100 S. Priest Dr.
Tempe, AZ 85282

9:30 A.M.

September 30, 2011

Fiesta Resort – Galleria Ballroom
2100 S. Priest Dr.
Tempe, AZ 85282

9:00 A.M.

Agenda Info

I have defended AIRC Chair Colleen Mathis against the unhinged and abusive personal attacks against her from the teabagger tyrants who show up at these meetings to call her all kinds of names. She has remarkably stood fast against this coordinated Tea-Publican assault on her character.

Through the end of last week, things were progressing slowly but steadily moving towards a congressional map that would make sense and would be fair and competitive. The Hispanic Coalition map (originally 7a) and the Navajo Nation Grid Option 2 were the focus of discussion last week. At the hearings I attended, commissioners asked that the stakeholders come together and blend their maps into a working map, a version 8a. That map was not available for presentation at public hearing until Tuesday morning in Tucson (handouts for that map will not be available until the hearing in Tempe on Thursday. It is available online now at the AIRC web site Maps).

But something happened over the weekend. "What it is ain't exactly clear." After almost a month of public hearings and the Commission steadily making progress towards a working congressional map, Chair Colleen Mathis out of the blue on Monday presented her "What if" 3 Border, 2 Rural, 1 Donut version map (below).

There may have been limited public testimony on this map at Monday's meeting. The map handout itself was not available until Tuesday morning in Tucson. As is always the case with AIRC hearings, there was limited press coverage of Monday's meeting, so the vast majority of the public was not alerted to the Chair's new map.

On Tuesday morning in Tucson, there was a presentation of the combined Hispanic Coalition map (originally 7a) and the Navajo Nation Grid Option 2, now renamed the "River District-Najavo Nation Map 8a." This was followed by a discussion among commissioners about the Chair's donut map above.

There was then discussion among the commissioners that they really need to be working off one map at this point in the process. Logic would dictate that this would be the "River District-Najavo Nation Map 8a" that the commission and stakeholder parties have spent almost a month putting together. Instead, a motion to use this map was voted down 3-2 with the chair voting against it.

The AIRC is deadlocked between the map preferred by the two Democrats on the Commission and the map preferred by the two Republicans on the Commission. The Chair holds all the cards in this process. A motion was then made to proceed with the Chair's "donut" map as the working map, and commissioner's reluctantly agreed to move forward with the Chair's "donut" map as the working map, expressing their reservations on the record, despite the fact that:

• No public testimony had been heard on the "donut" map
• No input from stakeholders (Hispanic Representatives and Tribal Nations representatives) had been heard on the "donut" map
• The "donut" map is incomplete, not filling in the districts in Maricopa County

I spoke to legal counsel for the AIRC during the break about what I believed was a procedural error by the Commission. A map that a vast majority of the public had never heard of was first introduced late in this process on Monday; a handout for that map was not available to the public until the next day; and the Commission approved moving forward with this map in a vote that occurred prior to taking any public testimony. Counsel responded that it would not invalidate the vote, but agreed with me that the public perception of what just occurred would be bad. I suggested that the Commission reconsider its vote, but that suggestion was ignored by counsel.

The public comments taken after the vote made my point in spades. Speaker after speaker, both from Republican interest groups and elected officials like Sen. Frank Antenori, and from Democratic interest groups and elected officials like Pima County Supervisor Richard Elías strenuously objected to the Chair's "donut" map as being unworkable and unlikely to survive Department of Justice (DOJ) preclearance, a goal that the Chair has repeatedly emphasised from day one.

Had Chair Colleen Mathis taken public testimony on her "donut" map prior to proceeding to a vote to proceed with her map, as is procedurally correct, she may have been persuaded by public testimony to abandon her ill-conceived and incomplete "donut" map and to move forward with a map that had been developed over almost a month from public testimony and input from stakeholders. Instead the Commission is moving forward with a fundamentally flawed map that was introduced and adopted in less than 24 hours with no public testimony and no input from stakeholders. This was a major step backwards.

Chair Colleen Mathis should have the good sense to admit that she made a mistake and move to reconsider her "donut" map as a working map at the next hearing in Tempe. I suspect the vote would be unanimous after strenuous negative testimony from all sides in Tucson. It is a fatal mistake to proceed with this fundamentally flawed map out of stubbornness, or a sense of righteousness, or an attempt to demonstrate to the Commission that the Chair holds all the cards in this process.

Some individuals testified that they believed the Chair was caving under pressure from the constant intimidation from teabagger tyrants and GOP operatives like FAIR Trust and Tea-Publican members of the legislature. The Chair denied that she would give in to intimidation. I do not know why the Chair is so insistent on her "donut" map in the face of strenuous public opposition, and I will not assign any motives to her actions. I believe she simply wanted to move this process forward from a single map, and the map she put together is fundamentally flawed. Admit that she simply made a mistake and move on.

I have reviewed all the "What if" maps and their iterations, and among all of the maps I have reviewed, I believe that the "River District-Najavo Nation Map 8a" is very close to where this Commission needs to be with some tweaks to jurisdictional boundaries that will create fair and competitive districts as this Commission is tasked to produce. The Commission should not be wasting its time on working from an ill-conceived and fundamentally flawed map without any public support because the Chair says so.