Thinking Arizona
Facts to Inform the Public Discourse
Arizona Thinkers
The only hope is that the new finalized maps will be competitive. The voters do NOT want legislators responsible for drawing their own districts.
Ideally, congressional and legislative district maps would reflect the results of the most recent census. The concept of one-person, one-vote dictates that districts should be roughly equal in population.
On August 17th, former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor addressed the Independent Redistricting Commission. Justice O’Connor praised the volunteer members of the Independent Redistricting Commission for their civic service.
Now, Governor Brewer and the GOP majority in the state cry “gross misconduct” to oust the IRC chair. The rush by Secretary of State Ken Bennett to call the November 1st special session in the Governor’s absence is the epitome of a miscarriage of justice.
The 21 AZ legislators responsible for the ousting should stand accused of “gross misconduct” for ignoring the voters’ will.
The question is: Will the AZ Supreme Court rule in Mathis’ favor to rule her removal as illegal?
If not, who will apply to serve on the IRC?
The Commission on Appellate Court Appointments is seeking applicants who are registered as Independent voters to serve on the Independent Redistricting Commission. Residents of all Arizona counties are eligible to apply, so long as they are registered voters, but not registered as either a Republican or Democrat. Those who have held or run for public office (other than a school board); worked as a registered, paid lobbyist; or served as an officer of a political party, or on a candidate’s campaign committee also are disqualified from consideration.
Applications must be submitted by 5 p.m. Nov. 15. Forms are available at azcourts.gov/jnc/IRCNominations.aspx or by calling 602-452-3311.
To the comment by the Arizona Eagletarian:
My post did not mention “crimes.” Violations of the open meeting law are civil offenses, although reporter Howie Fischer did once suggest that Mathis may have engaged in criminal bid rigging, which is criminal.
However, a civil violation of the open meeting law involving behind the scenes vote polling is, in my opinion, an example of the gross misconduct that triggers the removal of an IRC member, as per the Arizona constitution. Democrat Senator David Shapira agrees with that statement. (Go to: http://bcove.me/3k39bj9u).
Once upon a time at the beginning of this century, the voters created the Independent Redistricting Commission…and, as fate would have it, the commission did its work. Of course not everyone was pleased with the outcomes, but generally the commission maintained the public confidence and trust in the process. The results of its work however were challenged through the legal process… and eventually after a few years of legal dancing, the congressional and legislative districts were born and, we all lived happily ever after.
That is until 2011 when by law and custom a new census was taken and the redistricting process began once again.
Oddly enough, the original premise of redistricting by appointed commissioners who were appointed by appointees who were appointed by two past governors no longer in office has never been constitutionally tested.
We are after all, guaranteed by the the national and state constitutions a “republican” (small ‘r’) or representative form of government. Is it representative when three out of five appointees appointed by appointees appointed by governors no longer in office draw the political lines of a state?
As it is today, there is absolutely no accountability to the people for the outcome of the current process! Amazing isn’t it? If the maps were not challenged legally, there would be no recourse of redress by the people regarding the districts of the next 10 years.
The “old way” (through the Legislature who are elected by the voters), left those who created the lines the year before at risk of being ousted less than a year later if the voters didn’t like the outcome. Consider that is the representatives of the people followed the legal parameters of a political district (communities of interest, compactness, contiguous and of equal populations) we would have the job completed. AND! If the voters didn’t like the maps, those who drew the lines would quickly reap the wrath of the voters less than 12 months later.
Competitiveness and ‘minority-majorities’ were never envisioned or considered a part of redistricting. The entire purpose of “reapportionment” was to insure the premise of “One man/woman, one vote” or equal representation. Never were equal outcomes or districts engineered to insure “competitiveness”.
Competitiveness has historically been considered in the arena of ideas, not mapping by strategic demographic political experts.
Mr. Kavanagh, whose azleg bio says he holds a Ph.D. in criminal justice. One would think that such an educated individual would be able to put reasonable perspective and be capable of properly assessing the seriousness of “crimes.” However, Kavanagh seems to think that characterizing the alleged open meeting law violations as serious crimes. Would Kavanagh be willing to (or capable of) submitting to the same oath demands regarding his dealings as chair of the House Appropriations Committee?
A few more “pointers” might be appropriate. Such as:
1. Do not call other members and broker votes behind closed doors in violation of the open meeting law, especially on critical votes involving the selection of the mapping firm. And do not offer to vote for another members position as a quid pro quo for a current vote on your issue.
2. When the Attorney General, while acting in his official capacity, asks you to explain allegations of law-breaking, answer honestly instead of “lawyering up” because it looks bad.
3. When the governor notifies you that she is concerned about the allegations and asks for the explanation that she is constitutionally entitled to, send her a real answer as opposed to a well-parsed letter obviously prepared by a lawyer that says very little.
The events of the past few days, concluding with the ouster of the commission chair, have surely confirmed for me as a newcomer to Arizona that you selected well in choosing the creation of the redistricting commission as a lens for understanding Arizona politics. Your advice for anyone seeking to replace the ousted chair captures well the politics of redistricting as well as the politics of Arizona. We’re never going to get politics out of politics, but surely we can do better to bring some clear thinking to the politics of the day. Seems to me that is what Thinking Arizona is aiming to do.
We used to have the Legislature draw the boundaries. THE CITIZENS amended the AZ Constitution for the IRC process. The AZ LEGISLATURE appointed and approved the members. NOW, Gov Jan, Senators Russell and Frank are unhappy. THIS IS THE REASON the voters changed the Constitution. Let’s hope the AZ Supreme Court sees this as unconstitutional and we MOVE FORWARD with the redistricting.
Here’s a thought let’s let the elected people make decisions! That is the basis of a democratic republic, which is the form of government we are supposed to have. Unelected officials almost always make worse decisions that elected officials — provided the elected officials are give the facts. The IRC has always been little more that another failed effort by progressives to “save” Arizona from its voters. Yes, the party “in power” has an advantage in the redistricting process, but that is the point! That is true for every public policy decision. Elections matter! And, redistricting is probably the public policy issue that elected officials understand better than any other, because they are out with the folks constantly. They understand the communities of interest, the similarly minded areas and neighborhoods and grouping them together encourages participation — splintering cities and neighborhoods breaks down civic engagement and participation.That is the way its worked for almost 200 years (’til we tried to rig the process). Scrap the IRC and let’s get back to a democratic republic.
Competitive legislative districts, combined with a shift to a “top two” priimary system would set the stage for, but not guarantee, more centrist elected officials and policies. In State Rep races, the one-third non-affiliated voters could, for example, vote for a moderate Democrat and a moderate Republican. This would empower the non-affiliated voters and provide an incentive for them to participate in primaries as swing voters. Centrists can’t win office unless they first advance to the general election.
I would suggest extreme caution in basing any analysis on exit polls. They are notoriously unreliable and unrepresentative of anything. I appreciate the caveats in the body of the article, but the article then continues to extrapolate to some fairly heroic conclusions. Bottom line still looks the same to most experienced, astute observers — “independents” are not a group of any kind. They are the residual voters not registered as Democrat or Republican. Finally, remember much of the growth in the numbers is a simple result of changing voter registration practices, primary election rules, and inertia in the re-registration process.
Time to cut out completely unnecessary spending. Let’s start with the Arizona Historical Society’s Arizona Centennial Museum boondoggle.
In your recent e-mail on this edition, you say, “In absolute terms, government spending at all levels has increased dramatically since the mid-1980s. It has well outpaced the combination of population growth and inflation, and kept pace with the state’s rapid economic growth.”
This does make perfect sense, since growth never pays for itself, but externalizes its costs onto society. Cleanup, loss of revenue to other businesses, growth in public infrastructure–it’s actually a fairly narrow band of people who profit from growth.
And the only thing the current legislators–from both parties–can see to do to tackle the budget deficit is to encourage more growth. Well, the Republicans want to take the additional step of further decreasing the tax burden on those who are contributing the most to the current deficit–the whole thing is rather oxymoronic.
The denominator used for each state is its population. That’s a readily available figure to “normalize” for differences in size. But obviously it includes every man, woman and child. The number of taxpayers in each state, and the percentage they represent of the state’s population, would be very interesting to know. But that’s a very difficult number to know or calculate. Many people pay at least some sales tax over the course of the year; fewer file a tax return, and so on. I’m not sure we can hypothesize that Arizona has more or less.
If a state of 10 people generated $13,000 of annual tax revenue, the per capita tax revenue would be $1,300. But the implications of this statistic would be much different if the total tax burden was being shared by 3 of those 10 people vs. a scenario where it was shared by 7. I’m interested to know how Arizona stacks up to other states in terms of the denominator of the taxes per capita statistics you share. Is it dilluted by a bunch of citizens that pay little to no taxes? More so than other states? A ranking of 37th in terms of per capita income would lead me to believe “yes”, but I don’t know.
David is right, this is an important consideration. In Arizona’s case though, it doesn’t cause things to change all that much. The story notes that the per capita income for Arizonans in 2009 was $34,304. That ranks 37th in the country. When one uses that information to calculate the ratio of state taxes paid to income earned, Arizona’s ranking relative to other states improves to 40th in the country.
A wealthy state should be able to have higher per capita taxes than a poor state. Connecticut is one of the wealthiest states, and so is Alaska because of high wages and oil payouts for everyone. How does Arizona compare? Hard to say if there’s no data. If per capita taxes (a.k.a. revenue) were plotted as a percentage of per capita income, the true extent to which a state has high taxes or low taxes would be easier to understand.
States also vary in the extent to which they attract tourist dollars or have companies that are important exporters. Arizona likely attracts far more tourists than, say, North Dakota, so it can more readily extract sales and other taxes from non-residents. Similarly, leading export states have a potential tax base with no votes and no claims on state spending. Such states are in a stronger fiscal position than states with few exporters.
I hope you will send an e-mail blast about this column. It’s definitely worth it. Since reading it on Tuesday morning, I’ve both reflected on it and returned to it for a second reading. Two points which stand out for me: First, David Brooks’ comment on how “truth” is perceived. He is on target that those who are sure they have the truth have no desire to find compromise. And those who are uncertain about what the truth might be often choose to avoid the dialogue because they feel they are not prepared. We have forgotten that politics is about compromise and instead see it as only about power. Second, and much more hopeful, is your suggestion of framing issues in terms that transcend the usual partisan divide. That has really left me thinking about some of the tough issues, e.g., abortion. In Minnesota, I watched several thoughtful, respected political leaders make the effort to find where “common ground” might be on this issue, but it didn’t go anywhere. Framing the issues in new ways takes a lot of thought, but it may well be worth the effort. Thinking Arizona is serving an important purpose, not just in attempting the framing but challenging the rest of us to join in.
I find it interesting that those applicants who any had technical expertise in the analysis of large data sets, including census data, were excluded from the pool of candidates forwarded to the legislative leadership. Clearly, the Commission on Appellate Court Appointments was only interested in selecting the same old political hacks to give the citizens of Arizona another 10 years of limited representation.
I just finished my run for the House in LD 15.
couple things I found VERY interesting: VERY little Dem lit or signage up yet they took the district at all levels for Senate and House even before the ballots were all counted.
I walked Precincts in my area and met an active firefighter who was honest enough to tell me that tho he had personally voted for our Republicans but we (Republicans) would NEVER, EVER, EVER break the solidarity of the Fire Department. SO for the 19th and 20th years in a row-Dems hold all three seats available…
Interesting eh? Am I for redistricting LD 15? OH YES…..
Mr. Carter has identified an important issue, but has turned it inside out. The existing districts were designed by the majority of the previous IRC members, being the two Republicans and Mr. Lynn, who voted with them 98% of the time. Maximizing democratic voters into a few districts is not a Republican tactic, it is a Republican strategy. The facts he cites is not a Democratic advantage, it is a Democratic disadvantage. He must understand that?
Richard, so happy to see that you’re back sitting on the “right side” of the typewriter; I mean computer. (Gosh we’re old.) You have always been a gifted journalist, and “thinking arizona” is a perfect forum for unbiased news on AZ politics. I look forward to reading, and perhaps writing some articles for “thinking Arizona.” This is a win-win for writers and readers!
Richard, welcome back to Tucson, and thank you for your commitment to the goals of Thinking Arizona. Your work of journalistic “plowing” in lieu of “flash” is important, and a significant contribution to current Arizona policy and politics. Congratulations on this complex endeavor! Minnette Burges
Arizona benefits from this new site. Thanks. Gerrymandering has a long history and it’s one unfortunate aspect of partisanship that seeks to gain all it can while in power. The next round of redistricting needs advocates now who will fight for natural and more equal district boundaries.
Nice work, and so glad to see that you are back in the journalism arena again, Richard. Arizona will be a better place with your contributions.
ta,
thank you for providing a much needed fact-based forum for “public discourse”.
as your inagural issue makes clear, it’s all about the districting. heads up to your readers–the new 2011 districting committee is being formed as i write, with selection to be completed in january.
pima county has some outstanding applicants and those of us residing south of the gila river need all the help we can get to avoid the futher marginalization of “baja arizona”.
i’m not ready to give up on this state, yet.
Six of the Dem districts are more Dem than the most Rep district. Translation: the Dems are stuffed into their districts. Every extra overkill Dem voter in a district they will win regardless is voting power kept securely sheltered from possible swing districts. Caveat Dems after 2010!
Welcome to ThinkingArizona. Please leave your thoughtful comments and help continue the discussion of Edition 1 topics.
12/22 7:24 am in response to “State’s Manufacturing Follows U.S. Decline”
Add your thought Desert Dave said:
I have designed, built, and distributed small electronic toy products throughout the world for over 10-years using Arizona labor. I still design products because that is my true passion, but I no longer manufacture or distribute because I simply cannot compete.
The last ten-years has been fun and frustrating. I have designed products only in small, niche markets hoping the product is not a big seller. It’s an interesting business model because my AZ-made product life is defined by China learning of its success. The entire planet becomes saturated with cheep knockoffs when this happens and I’m forced to stop production. I cannot even buy parts for the prices of complete products made by a workforce that assembles counterfeit parts for a dollar a day.
With the speed at which China steals ideas, my products would be dead before they recovered the tooling cost. I now resort to technology and product licensing instead of breathing life into my own products, but that does not create or maintain AZ jobs. I see this as the top-down economic model working very well with US innovation at the top feeding overseas jobs at the bottom. I’m being a bit cynical, and I apologize for that, but I am trying to get people to think about where things are made when they buy them. I understand the allure to inexpensive products, but we all pay a larger hidden price when we buy certain things. This is a complicated problem on a lot of different levels and it is not going to change any time soon. We all, as a society, need to be aware of the consequences of our purchasing habits. The bigger question is will that knowledge make a difference.