By Evan Wyloge | Arizona Capitol Times
A series of court rulings issued late last week in two lawsuits against the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission further pave the path for Republican litigants who hope to prove the commission illegally created maps to favor Democrats.
One ruling guarantees that one of the cases will go to trial late next month, while the other establishes that commissioners will not be able to invoke the “legislative privilege” allowing legislative bodies to refuse to answer questions in a legal setting.
A Feb. 21 ruling by a Maricopa County Superior Court judge denied a last-chance request by the commission to throw out a lawsuit that claims the state’s nine congressional districts were intentionally drawn to give favor to Democrats by packing Republicans into four districts.
Courts have historically given redistricting bodies liberal authority over the redrawing of districts, and have veered away from ordering districts to be redrawn except in the most egregious cases. But such an order was given to Arizona’s redistricting commission after the 2001 redistricting, and the litigants believe they can prove the commission violated the state’s Constitution, which gives just six broad mapping directives.
