Timmons Group, a Richmond, Virginia engineering and technology company, to serve as its mapping consultant
By Jeremy Duda | Arizona Mirror
The mapping consultant for the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission brings a wealth of experience in drawing district boundaries but also a history of drawing districts that Democrats say disadvantaged Latino voters.
By a 3-2 vote, with the commission’s two Democrats dissenting, the IRC selected Timmons Group, a Richmond, Virginia engineering and technology company, to serve as its mapping consultant. Timmons submitted a joint proposal with National Demographics Corporation, which served as the mapping consultant for Arizona’s 2001 commission and has done redistricting work across the country.
All three firms that sought to be the commission’s mapping consultant had partisan baggage, with Republicans vociferously opposing HaystaqDNA and Democrats raising concerns with Timmons and Taylor English Decisions. But it was Timmons, and specifically its partner NDC, that was the focus of the Democrats’ opposition over what they described as a Republican firm with a history of drawing discriminatory maps, citing instances in which redistricting plans drawn by NDC and its president, Douglas Johnson, were rejected by judges or otherwise found to be lacking in Latino representation.
