Today the Arizona Democratic Party released a new report detailing Arizona Republicans’ extensive efforts to manipulate the Arizona independent redistricting process. The report, “The Republican Attack on Fair Maps,” is a sample of Republicans’ decade-long and multi-million dollar effort to dismantle the voter-approved Independent Redistricting Commission (IRC), and to mangle and misrepresent Arizona’s constitutional requirements for fair, competitive maps.
The report details how Arizona Republicans, after being denied favorable gerrymanders, were forced to run their candidates in a fair, competitive landscape. The GOP immediately shifted its focus to the next redistricting and spent a decade doing everything it could to ensure that 2021 would not deal them the same fate. Click here to download the report.
Back in November 2000, thanks to the overwhelming support of voters, Arizona became one of the first states to create an independent redistricting process. The double-digit passage by voters of Prop 106 serves as a clear mandate: Arizonans want their redistricting process to be run by an independent commission — not politicians — which will “oversee the mapping of fair and competitive congressional and legislative districts.”
And last decade, the second iteration of the IRC did just that. In fact, the maps passed in 2012 by “IRC 2.0” earned Arizona a reputation for being one of the least-gerrymandered states, in a decade in which the GOP’s Project Red Map successfully executed many blatant, anti-democratic gerrymanders throughout the country.
“Unlike the GOP, Arizona Democrats are not afraid of the voters, we are not afraid to compete. The Arizona Democratic Party reaffirms its unequivocal support for fair, competitive maps, as required in the Arizona Constitution and demanded under the voter-approved Prop 106,” said Arizona Democratic Party Chairwoman Raquel Terán.
“In spite of the GOP’s campaign to undermine Independent Redistricting, we urge the commission to carry on in the important work following the constitutional process to draw fair and competitive districts.”