Arizona Redistricting Panel Is Under Attack, Even Before Its Work Is Done

[alp227]

Source: The New York Times

TEMPE, Ariz. — Even before the drawing of new political boundaries, Arizona’s redistricting commission has faced a barrage of criticism and a chorus of boos, not to mention a state investigation. Next up, a lawsuit.

Arizona voters sought to take the raw politics out of redistricting with the passage of a ballot measure in 2000 that created an independent citizens’ group to handle the process. No longer would politicians retire to back rooms, the thinking went, to draw their own maps after every census.

But the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission, with two Republican members, two Democratic members and an independent chairwoman, has found itself subject to such fierce attacks that its work is being questioned even before that work has been done. The stakes are high — explosive population growth over the last decade, especially among Latinos, entitles the state to one more Congressional seat, its ninth.

Conservative critics, including members of various Tea Party groups, have taken to the microphone at meetings to denounce the commission as biased. What infuriates them most is that the commission voted 3 to 2 (with the Republicans voting no) to hire a mapping consultant based in Washington that has ties to President Obama’s first presidential campaign.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/04/us/04redistrict.html?pagewanted=all

[Desertrose]

1. Oh good grief.

Argh!!!!!!!!!!

[Tiggeroshii]

2. Just like in California. Funny thing is that the Republicans who largely were behind the effort

...are now against it. Figures.

"Well the process is unfair! Oh wait, we lose seats? FOUL!"

[OffWithTheirHeads]

3. For what it's worth, the teabags started attacking before the comission even began.

It's what they do and people really need to get a clue.

[Tempest]

4. They do have a point though

to hire a mapping consultant based in Washington that has ties to President Obama’s first presidential campaign

None of us would be happy if the shoe was on the other foot.

[Politicalboi]

5. I agree

But the Repukes also must have known Bush stole the elections, but that didn't bother them in the least. Even if they might admit he did, they wouldn't feel any shame. And would vote for him again if he were running against Obama.

[24601]

7. Our inability to see things as our opponents leads down the path

to unending personal attacks. No, the ones I do do not believe in the least that Bush stole the election and relegate those rambling to the tin-foil hat wearing paranoids. If you ask them what they recall from Florida, they remember that the Gore campaign had to backtrack after an ill-advised to disenfranchise military absentee voters and that this one act undercut completely any rhetoric about "count every" vote. You ask them about the USSC case, and they recall that their 5-4 vote was about whether there was time for another remedy and that the court had voted 7-2 that the Florida recount underway was unconstitutional. They don't see how we can be obtuse regarding these factors. Then they chuckle about the Democratic 2000 and 2004 VP candidates noting that one is despised by progressive Democrats while the other is appealing his felony convictions.

If you talk about any illegal war, they point about which prominent Democrats votes for the Afghan and Iraq AUMF resolutions and asks how Obama doesn't seem to need to follow the same law.

When you bring up the debt question, they reply that Obama is accumulating debt at a rate far greater then Bush.

But they understand one thing with absolute clarity that seems to escape many these days. The 2012 election will won by a (D) or an (R); however, it will be decided by the 30-40% of the electorate that resides in the middle of the spectrum. The party that chooses a candidate farthest from the mean, or who pushes their candidates to far will lose.

[drmeow]

6. Dear God I hate this f**king state

Unfortunately I'm stuck here.