By Howard Fischer | Capitol Media Services | Arizona Daily Sun
Attorneys for the Independent Redistricting Commission are asking a federal court to dismiss what they contend is a power grab by state lawmakers.
Legal papers filed late Friday in federal court acknowledge there was a loss of power by the Legislature in 2000 when voters approved creating the commission and giving it the power to draw the lines for congressional and legislative districts. But Mary O’Grady said that does not make the system illegal.
“That was the intent,” she wrote. And O’Grady said the leaders of the Legislature, who are trying overturn at least part of the 2000 initiative, are “concerned more with the loss of power than the will of the people who elect its members.”
Hanging in the balance is who divides Arizona into its nine congressional districts.
