AIRC Update: Tranparency for the media, but not for political lobbyists?

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission (AIRC) adopted an amendment to its contract with Strategic Telemetry, its mapping consultant, last week that requires the mapping consultant to log all contacts with the firm, including media contacts from mainstream media and bloggers (like Steve Muratore of the Arizona Eagletarian who is the unofficial blogger of the AIRC because most mainstream media do not attend these public hearings). There was an objection raised by Commissioner Jose Herrera last week that this unnecessarily infringed upon the rights of the First Amendment media to do its reporting and to inform the public.

This objection was carried over to the agenda of today's meeting in Tucson. Republican appointees Commissioners Scott Freeman and Richard Strertz argued that the amendment as adopted encourages complete transparency to allay the fears some have about Strategic Telemetry, i.e., the World Net Daily tinfoil hat conspiracy theorists of the Tea Party. Democratic appointees Commissioners Linda McNulty and Jose Herrera supported clarifying that the amendment to the contract should not include logging contacts with the First Amendment media including blogs like "The Arizona Eagletarian, Blog for Arizona and Sonoran Alliance." Thanks for the shout out by the way.

After some discussion with legal counsel to the commission, it was decided that legal counsel should do more research into the topic of whether other public boards and commissions require contractors to log contacts including contacts with the First Amendment media.

What was surreal about this discussion was the entire lack of any discussion about the kinds of contacts that should be required to be logged: contacts the commissioners, staff and contractors have with political lobbyists that are not on the record in a public hearing. And sufficient information should be provided to identify whom that political lobbyist represents, i.e., a 501(c)(4) nonprofit or a 527 PAC, etc.

It was only Commissioner Linda McNulty who wondered out loud whether the Commission, its staff and contractors should be logging contacts with "unregistered lobbyists" as well. Funny she should ask.

During the public comment section of the agenda, Jim March, second vice chair of the Pima County Libertarian Party, provided the Commission with a copy of a complaint he is filing with the Secretary of State (whose office has jurisdiction over lobbyists) and the Attorney General regarding the lobbying activites of Fair Trust. You can read a copy of the complaint here. Fair Trust lobbying complaint.

The complaint generally paints a portrait of collusion between the Fair Trust Attorneys David Cantelme and Michale Liburdi with Republican Legislative staffer John Mills. Neither Mr. Cantelme nor Mr. Liburdi are registered as lobbyists with the Arizona Secretary of State.

I will not address the merits of the complaint, that is for the Secretary of State and possibly the Attorney General. The relief requested by Mr. March was straightforward: Require Fair Trust to comply with Arizona's lobbying rules or be barred from further proceedings of the Commission; and Mr. March is filing a public records request for the the last three months of John Mills' e-mails and every file on his computer ending with the extensions ".DOC", ".DOCX", ".XLS", and ".XLXS". Electronic documents of a government employee on a government computer is discoverable evidence and is subject to a public records request.

For those of you who are not familiar with Jim March, he is a nationally known election integrity activist and computer expert who has successfully pursued and litigated public records requests on numerous previous occasions. He has a track record of success.

So it is possible that we may finally discover who is behind the highly secretive and nontransparent Fair Trust, representing Republican redistricting efforts in Arizona.

My suggestion to the Commission is to be less concerned about what the public thinks about First Amendment media contacts (those damn bloggers!) with the Commission, staff and contractors, and be more concerned about what the public really cares about — lobbyists representing extremely wealthy and politically powerful individuals and organizations seeking to preserve their favored political status by unduly influencing the Commission and its redistricting of Arizona. If the Commission is truly concerned about transparency, these are the individuals and organizations whom the Commission should require full disclosure from in the interest of transparency.

By the way, as I was leaving the meeting I witnessed John Mills engage Jim March in an intense discussion about his complaint in the parking lot of the hotel. From Steve Muratore's reporting, this is not the first time that Mr. Mills has confronted a witness at an AIRC hearing. I suspect that Steve Muratore will have "the rest of the story," as Paul Harvey used to say, at the Arizona Eagletarian blog.