Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission Hearing – Open Thread

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

OPEN THREAD. For those of you attending the AIRC meeting this morning in Phoenix you can post a play-by-play in the comments to this post to keep people apprised of what is going on. In addition, the AIRC provides a streaming video live feed at its web site. see Meeting Information.

UPDATE: The Arizona Capitol Times is using Cover It Live, which provides a running commentary in print, searchable by time entry. Go here.

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Richard Cohen of the Washington Post was spot-on when he opined the other day that "Someone ought to study the Republican Party. I am not referring to yet another political scientist but to a mental health professional, preferably a specialist in the power of fixations, obsessions and the like." A grand old cult – The Washington Post.

This is the paranoid delusional world of conspiracy theories in which the Tea Party lives — check out this post the Phoenix chapter sent out to its members for today's meeting:

Greater Phoenix Tea Party Patriots

Patriot Groups throughout the Maricopa and North Pinal County area.

Kelly Townsend has invited you to the event 'Arizona Redistricting Commission Meeting' on Greater Phoenix Tea Party Patriots!

We need all patriots who can come to the Capitol on Friday morning to be there. This is huge folks, Obama has his hands in our redistricting efforts… Let's not let him get away with it.

Time: July 8, 2011 from 9:30am to 11pm
Location: State Capitol Executive Tower – Pharmacy Board Meeting Room 312
Organized By: AZIRC

Event Description:
Come let it be known that the Commission made a mistake by contracting with Obama firm Strategic Telemetry and that we demand nullification of the contract and selection of a neutral party.

Az Independent Redistricting Commission
Friday, July 8, 2011 at 9:30am
State Capitol Executive Tower
Pharmacy Board Meeting room 312
1700 W. Washington
Phoenix, Az 85007
www.AZRedistricting.org

See more details and RSVP on Greater Phoenix Tea Party Patriots

Tedski at R-Cubed had a great post on the Tea Party's paranoid conspiracy theories the other day, Rum, Romanism and Rebellion › Unclear on the Concept:

And it just gets sillier.

Last week, the Independent Redistricting Committee meeting here in Tucson got mobbed by conservative activists who demanded the resignation of chair Colleen Mathis. Her crime: she isn’t doing the bidding of Republican legislators.

Their gripe is ostensibly that the commission picked a Democratic firm to help on the numbers. Okay, Democratic activists would likely be livid if they picked a Republican firm. And, it would have just been just as silly for them to complain. Given that this sort of work is useful only to campaigns, it would be difficult to imagine any that don’t work for one side or the other. The other important thing to remember is that the demographic data that firms like this trade in is neutral. If it was skewed and twisted to meet one side’s ideology or another, it would be useless for a campaign.

This doesn’t stop conservative organizers from getting their people riled up to mob the meetings. Has anyone bothered to tell them that the reason that the IRC exists is to draw politically competitive districts? Given the sort of complaints and suggestions that these folks had, I kinda doubt it.

Steve Muratore at The Arizona Eagletarian blog http://stevemuratore.blogspot.com/ is a must read for anyone interested in the redistricting process. Steve posted Redistricting — How did they decide on mapping consultant?:

The Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission today posted the documents contained in the procurement file for the mapping consultant.

The RFP, responses from all seven bidders and Strategic Telemetry's acceptance documents are all available at the page linked above.

Any rational (sane) person who reviews the proposals submitted by the mapping consultant firms to the AIRC will clearly see that the AIRC chose the best qualified and most experienced mapping consultant to submit a proposal — and isn't that what we would expect the AIRC to do?

As Ted explained, all mapping consultants do work for politicians and political parties — that is the nature of their business. As "Obvious Man" would say, Duh! There is no such animal as a "neutral party" mapping consultant firm as Kelly Townsend freaks out over in her post (what she really means is a GOP mapping consultant firm — blind partisanship).

The paranoid delusions and wild conspiracy theories of the Tea Party reflected in Townsend's post above — "Obama has his hands in our redistricting effort. . . "the Commission made a mistake by contracting with Obama firm Strategic Telemetry and that we demand nullification of the contract and selection of a neutral party," is a textbook case of "Obama derangement syndrome," divorced from reality — and sanity. As Richard Cohen said, it's time to see a mental health professional.