Thinking Arizona
Facts to Inform the Public Discourse
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Noteworthy developments on topics covered by this websiteBioscience Grows, Funding Lags
Arizona has expanded the number of companies and employees in the field of bioscience but seed money for the industry continues to lag desired levels, according to a just-issued status report.
The annual study, commissioned by the Flinn Foundation and performed by the Battelle Technology Partnership Practice, covers the period from 2002 to 2010. The latest findings were described in meetings held this week in Phoenix, Flagstaff and Tucson.
Dr. Walter H. Plosila, a senior adviser at Battelle, reported that:
Outside of hospitals, the number of bioscience establishments in the state rose from 605 to 756, an increase of 25 percent, in the span of eight years.
The number of employees bumped up from 10,900 to 15,100, an increase of 38 percent.
The biggest portion of the job increase came in research, testing and medical laboratories. That category accounted for 2,800 of the 4,200 new jobs. Most of the rest of the increase was in medical devices and equipment.
Those numbers paled, however, in comparison with the increase in hospital employment. Spurred by Arizona’s rapid growth and an aging population, employment in the hospital sector jumped by 23,800 jobs. The number of hospital workers increased 41 percent from 57,400 in 2002 to 81,200 in 2010.
Meanwhile, however, funding for the new ventures has been hard to come by.
Arizona’s share of venture capital investments in bioscience was 1.55 percent of the national total in 2002. The state’s share has since fallen to 0.40 percent of the national amount.
The 2010 investments amounted to $69 million. That’s the second highest total in the years since 2002 but is still far behind the 2002 standard of $111 million.
Report Sees Very Slow Recovery
By Salvador Rodriguez
Arizona’s metro areas are at least four years away from returning to pre-recession employment levels, according to a report issued Wednesday.
The Phoenix, Tucson and Flagstaff economies are not expected to recover until 2016 while Yuma, Lake Havasu and Prescott are not predicted to return to pre-recession levels until after 2017, according to the report by the U.S. Conference of Mayors.
“The good thing is we’re not heading down anymore, but we’re heading up very, very slowly,” said Mesa Mayor Scott Smith, a vice president of the conference who was in Washington to help release the report Wednesday.
All of Arizona’s metro areas are forecast to see job growth in 2012 – an improvement over 2011 when two of the six actually lost jobs – but only in Phoenix will the increase be greater than 2 percent.
The forecast shows Phoenix is expected to gain 37,000 jobs in 2012. Tucson is predicted to pick up 4,000 jobs, Lake Havasu and Prescott 900 jobs, Flagstaff 800 and Yuma 600.
IRC Splits in Giving Final OK
The Independent Redistricting Commission today gave final approval to new congressional and legislative maps, over the objections of its two Republican members.
Each of the maps was approved by a 3-2 vote. The majority was made up of the commission’s two Democrats — Jose Herrera and Linda McNulty — and its chairperson, independent Colleen Coyle Mathis. The nay votes came from Republicans Scott Freeman and Rick Stertz.
The vote on the congressional map paralleled the preliminary approval given in December. On the legislative map, Herrera and Stertz switched sides. Republican Stertz voted yes in December, and Democrat Herrera voted no.
The Republicans objected today on a variety of grounds:
– Freeman then Stertz complained about the numbering system of the districts, saying that neighboring districts were not numbered sequentially nor did the numbers match up with those of previous districts.
– Stertz said the entire process was flawed because with Republican and Democratic members divided 2-2, key commission decisions affecting the entire state came down to the vote of the commission chairperson.
– Freeman claimed the result was “Democatic maps.” He said his input had been disregarded, making his service of 850 hours to commission business “largely a waste of time.” He charged that the process had been “gamed” from the start.
Freeman went on to suggest that the commission petition the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., and not the Justice Department, to handle the federal review of whether the maps sufficiently protect minority voting rights.
He questioned the motives of a Justice Department run by President Obama. ”Are they going to give Arizona a pass because Arizona has the Democratic dream map?” he asked.
Democrat McNulty called the accusations “wholly incorrect, wholly inappropriate.” She said the record will show the maps were fairly and properly drawn. Fellow Democrat Herrera asked if the maps were Democratic, how it was that the result favored Republicans.
Redistricting Panel OKs Maps
New congressional and legislative maps were tentatively approved last night by the Independent Redistricting Commission, pending review by legal counsel and voting-rights consultants.
Each of the maps was approved by a vote of 3-2.
Voting in favor of the congressional map were chairwoman Colleen Coyle Mathis and Democrats José Herrera and Linda McNulty, with Republicans Scott Freeman and Richard Stertz dissenting.
Then at the end of a nine-hour meeting late last night, Stertz and Herrera switched sides when the commission voted to approve the legislative map. Stertz voted yes along with Mathis and McNulty. Herrera joined Freeman in voting no.
The congressional map maintains the same political alignment of four GOP-leaning districts, two that favor Democrats and three competitive districts that marked the earlier draft map. The commission, however, made a number of major adjustments in the map that:
- Puts all of Cochise County together with the eastside of Tucson in the 2nd District. That change eliminated the thin sliver of Cochise in the draft map that nominally made up a third border district.
- Offsets that move by putting the Tucson bedroom communities of Marana, Oro Valley and Saddlebrooke into the sprawling, largely rural 1st District that covers eastern and northern Arizona. Those communities had argued strenously to be included in the 2nd District with Tucson.
- Divides the western-most part of Maricopa County from the fast-growing suburban areas on the axis of Goodyear to Sun City West. The western part is joined with the rural western counties in the 4th District that also loops around north and east of Phoenix to incorporate the fast-growing area that includes Apache Junction and the San Tan Valley. The suburban areas form a more compact 8th District.
- Reunites Fountain Hills with Scottsdale in the 6th District. The commission had drawn criticism for splitting the two areas in the draft map.
The legislative map gives the state perhaps three of 30 districts that are competitive. The last-minute changes were devoted to rejoining communities that had been split in the draft map.
The panel plans to give final approval after receiving the legal and technical analyses, which are directed at satisfying the provisions of the U.S. Voting Rights Act. Once approved, the maps must then be submitted to the Justice Department for review.
Alternative views of the congressional map: Statewide, Maricopa County, Pima County.
Alternative views of the legislative map: Statewide, Maricopa County, Pima County.
Judge Grants Leeway to IRC
The Independent Redistricting Commission is not subject to the state’s open meeting law but rather to a more general provision in the constitutional language that established the panel, a judge ruled Friday.
The provision states simply that the commission must conduct its business in public.
Capitol Media Services reported, in an article published in The Arizona Daily Star, that because the langugage provides no enforcement mechanism, prosecutors have no authority to investigate whether the commission is properly adhering to the provision. The ruling by Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Dean Fink said, however, that any citizen could seek a court order to compel compliance.
The judge said the decision by voters, who in 2000 approved the constitutional amendment creating the commission, to provide separate and distinct openness requirements was designed to insulate the commission “from interference by the political branches.” Fink said subjecting the commission to the open meeting law could be used to ”harass and hamstring the IRC.”
The ruling stems from allegations that commission chairperson Colleen Coyle Mathis phoned at least two other members earlier this year to line up support for the consulting company that eventually was chosen to aid the commission in doing its work of drawing new maps of legislative and congressional districts.
Poverty Increases Across State
Poverty rates increased across much of the state over the past three years, with six counties including Maricopa and Pima posting “statistically significant” increases.
State poverty levels increased from 14.1 percent in 2007 to 17.6 percent in 2010, according to the report by the Cronkite News Service’s Uriel J. Garcia on new statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau. The county numbers ranged from a low of 12.7 percent in Greenlee County to a high of 34.5 percent in Apache County.
In addition to Maricopa (16.6%) and Pima (17.8%), the counties with statistically significant increases were Coconino (23.8%), Mohave (18.7%), Santa Cruz (28.0%) and Yavapai (18.3%).
Officials in some of the hardest hit counties said it was hard to pinpoint specific reasons for the increases, but blamed a variety of factors including the recession, the absence of new industry in outlying counties, and residents who were not prepared to hold good jobs because of inadequate education levels or poor English skills.
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Brewer: No Rush to Repeal IRC
Gov. Jan Brewer will not call lawmakers to the Capitol today in an attempt to modify or repeal the Independent Redistricting Commission.
Brewer, who was rebuffed by the state Supreme Court in an attempt to oust the chairwoman of the commission, is still critical of the process of drawing lines for the state’s 30 legislative and nine congressional districts.
But Capitol Media Services reported that Brewer said she has seen “no evidence” voters are ready to scrap the commission they created in 2000.
Press aide Matthew Benson said because the commission was created by public vote, it would take another vote to eliminate it. But putting that question on the Feb. 28 ballot would require a special legislative session no later than today.
Benson noted that might not sit well with voters. “Polling that we have seen doesn’t show willingness right now to throw out the commission,” he said.
IRC to Resume Work Next Week
The embattled Independent Redistricting Commission will resume meeting after the Thanksgiving holiday, it announced today.
The commission has been in limbo since Gov. Jan Brewer attempted to oust its chairperson, Colleen Coyle Mathis, on Nov. 1. The Arizona Supreme Court overruled that decision last week. Brewer has since indicated she is considering trying again.
But commission spokesman Stuart Robinson said at the time of the Supreme Court ruling that Mathis was free to once again chair the five-member panel.
The commission announced it would begin meeting “the week of Nov. 28″ to consider the drafts of congressional and legislative maps that it was considering when Mathis was dismissed. The commission was finishing up a month of public hearings on the maps at the time.
“I look forward to working again with my fellow commissioners,” Mathis said in a press release. She expressed hope that the commission can finish the task of revising and approving the maps prior to Christmas.
Supreme Court Reinstates Mathis
The chairwoman of the Independent Redistricting Commission, who had been dismissed earlier this month by Gov. Jan Brewer, was reinstated Thursday evening by the Arizona Supreme Court.
The ruling, which came less than three hours after the court heard arguments on the case, declared that the governor’s Nov. 1 letter removing Colleen Coyle Mathis did not demonstrate “substantial neglect of duty, gross misconduct in office or inability to discharge the duties of office.” A fuller opinion will follow.
As reported by The Arizona Republic, the justices appeared to agree with the contention that they should have a role in interpreting the constitutional language which outlines the grounds for removal.
Brewer’s attorney, Lisa Hauser, had argued that the governor can set her own definition of what constitutes “gross misconduct” and “substantial neglect of duty,” subject only to her getting consent of two-thirds of the Senate.
Capitol Media Services reported that Acting Chief Justice Andrew Hurwitz then asked Hauser if that means Brewer could remove a commission member solely because the governor did not like that person’s hairstyle.
Retired Justice Michael Ryan, sitting in for the hearing, added that he’s not convinced the involvement of the Senate, where Republicans control 21 of the 30 seats, is a meaningful check on the process. “How can this commission ever be considered independent?” he asked.
The Governor’s Office blasted the decision, which it called ”deeply regrettable.” In a written statement, Brewer said she would be considering her “options as to how best to proceed.”
18 Candidates Apply for IRC Post
Eighteen qualified candidates have applied to replace Colleen Mathis as chairperson of the Independent Redistricting Commission, Capitol Media Services reported.
A judicial appointments commission will now decide whether to narrow the field before conducting interviews on Nov. 28. By law, the screening panel has to cut its list to five. The final choice is left to the four other members of the Independent Redistricting Commission, two chosen by elected Republican officials and two by Democrats.
All that presumes there will still be a vacancy by the end of the month. The Arizona Supreme Court will hear arguments Thursday over whether Gov. Jan Brewer exceeded her authority two weeks ago when she fired Mathis.
