Douglas York, left, and David Mehl, Republican members of the Independent Redistricting Commission, confer Monday on changes they want in legislative and congressional maps for the coming decade. /Capitol Media Services photo by Howard Fischer
By Howard Fischer | Capitol Media Services
December 20, 2021
Partisan members of the Independent Redistricting Commission are making last-minute efforts to craft maps that would help their political parties through the 2030 election.
Each is doing so under the banner of balancing population among congressional and legislative districts. And they are pushing against a Wednesday deadline to have final plans.
But the alterations have definite implications.
For example, Republicans David Mehl and Douglas York demanded that a corner be chipped out of what was Legislative District 23, which runs from Yuma along the border to Tucson and north into Goodyear, and put into adjacent LD 25.
About 600 people live there.
One of them is state Sen. Sine Kerr, R-Buckeye, whose house is in the area known as Liberty.
More to the point, that change moves Kerr from having to run for reelection in what would be a district with about a 15-point Democratic edge to one where Republicans have a 25-point edge.
On the congressional side, Republicans also want to move Democratic areas in Maricopa County from Congressional Disrict 1 that could be considered competitive into Congressional District 3, which already has a 3-1 Democratic edge. And they balance that by moving Republicans from Congressional District 8 where the GOP leads, into Congressional District 1.
Democrats are doing the same thing and find ways to give their own candidates more of a chance of getting elected, whether to Congress or the Arizona Legislature.
The big flash point for them is how to divide Tucson between Congressional District 7 on the west side and Congressional District 6 on the east side.
A split needs to take place. because of the population. But the question becomes where to draw that line.
