US House Redistricting: Arizona

[Torie]

So a new commission gets put in place and a new map drawn Or is it possible the courts draw it?

Maybe they should just use my map. A more Republican 9th in the Phoenix area and a more Democratic Tucson district. And Grijalva is told to keep his mustachioed face shut.

I think at the moment, it is just total chaos. Just what the grand Pubbie plan is to kill this map, is probably under wraps. But it does seem that they mean to use their power to kill it, one way or the other, unless and until the courts somehow stop them. There was no mention of another referenda to end the commission, and I don't know how feasible that is, but that in the end is the nuke  option if all else fails.

The Dems + Mathis don't seem interested in backing down either and modifying their map. (They are clearly not getting their advice from Lewis, who might in this instance be rather helpful to them.) They have been pushing the nuke button with just as much fervor as the Pubbies. It is as if both sides are actually really enjoying this cafeteria food fight. Maybe everyone is on PCP.

[Torie]

Bottom line, Republicans just aren't going to get as many safe seats as they like, not with any makeup of the commission. As it stands, there are only 2 D+ PVI districts on the map, which is hardly a Democratic gerrymander. No party owns the congressional seats, so it's a bit ridiculous for the governor to claim the map is "thievery". Sometimes you just have to get over it, that's what Democrats in many states have to do.

I of course have been ranting that I think the baseline partisan numbers are cooked, so we end up with two safe Dem Hispanic CD's (regarding which everyone and the VRA agree), one weak safe Dem CD (+ 4.2% Dem or something), one weak lean Dem CD (+ 2.15 % Dem), and one tossup CD with a slight Dem tilt (Dem +1%), and three Pubbie packed CD's. You might check out the stuff on the thread above on that one, where a few of us weigh in on that one and make up your own mind. I also think the Dems didn't follow the law in good faith, and did indeed do a gerrymander. Whether it was bad enough to actually constitute an abuse of discretion (a high standard),  is another matter. It would and will take careful spadework to kill the map that way.  But the Dems seem to want to be as helpful as possible in that regard, given their conduct. They need better advice themselves!

[Torie]

Bottom line, Republicans just aren't going to get as many safe seats as they like, not with any makeup of the commission. As it stands, there are only 2 D+ PVI districts on the map, which is hardly a Democratic gerrymander. No party owns the congressional seats, so it's a bit ridiculous for the governor to claim the map is "thievery". Sometimes you just have to get over it, that's what Democrats in many states have to do.

They don't have to get over it when they have the power to boot the commission.

Meaning the members or the whole thing? I don't think a proposition to overturn fair redistricting will be overturned. It just won't. Maybe if they played it more safe and only had a proposition to overturn the current map. I don't even know how that would work though.

There seems to be some chatter that the legislature can remove the members by legislation. Yes, I know, it seems odd. As I say, the whole thing is a cf. Really, the courts should just draw the map at this point, but that isn't in the cards either I don't think, unless somehow the Commission can be made totally dysfunctional.

[Torie]

Thanks Dan for that most lucid and helpful analysis.

I doubt a court would just use the Commission map over which the whole contretemps ensured with all sorts of procedural irregularities, assuming that they have time to draw a new map, which presumably they should, since it should not take long, particularly with a record before them that they can use. In any event, this might lead to another referendum with some new structure for map drawing, sold under the auspices that so far, no map has been drawn at all but an interim court drawn one, and we need to do better. Just a wild guess.

[Torie]

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And therein lies the rub. You are on the right track though. The trick is to create incentives for compromise. One approach is that if both sides cannot agree, they each submit a map to a third party, on whom they have agreed upon in advance (and if they cannot agree the Supreme Court picks such party), which third party would be charged with picking one map or the other which bests follows a set of listed criteria, carefully defined and prioritized, maybe with almost a point system, and if competitiveness is in there, as a lower ranking criteria, not be be touched unless it can be done without much of a point loss otherwise.  Competitiveness too would be carefully defined, and maybe also agreed upon in advance where they is otherwise room to argue, and if cannot be agreed upon, set at trial in advance based on expert testimony and all.

That way each sides takes some risk if they cannot agree (and they can agree upon anything perhaps), and the more aggressive they get with the final map they submit, the more risk they run the other side's map will be picked. And some things that might upset the apple cart later, are set at the beginning, at a time perhaps where the impact of it all is not so well known, so there may be less of a temptation for gamesmanship, because nobody is sure how big the candy bar is that early on.

What do you think?

[Torie]

Why don't you draw up an outline of the criteria Muon2, and then Lewis and I can take pot shots at it, and list all the ways that it can be gamed?   I still like the idea that if there is deadlock, each side submits their map, and some independent third party picks the one that best comports with the law, based on expert testimony and the like where necessary. I was trying to get as close to the idea as possible, that one side cuts, and the other picks, which can't be implemented here, so I was struggling to come up with the next best thing, that I could think of.

[Torie]

Why don't you draw up an outline of the criteria Muon2, and then Lewis and I can take pot shots at it, and list all the ways that it can be gamed?   I still like the idea that if there is deadlock, each side submits their map, and some independent third party picks the one that best comports with the law, based on expert testimony and the like where necessary.

The problem is that both sides will, first, pick an expert they hope is more sympathetic to them than the other side, and then find inside info on the other side's map, and then just submit a map that's not clearly worse than the other side's.

This is (in practice. Nominally it's a committee with one independent to break ties) how they draw lines in New Joisey.

Each side peeking at the other side's map doesn't bother me much (that will probably more or less come out in negotiation anyway). Each side's experts are just paid whores of course. That is how we litigate. The third party who finally decides if the parties cannot cut a deal needs to be carefully chosen of course.

The trick is to create an incentive for the parties to cut a deal, because otherwise they run real risks, and hopefully what is at stake as to what is really in play where the third party could go either way, is not too great. So the parties have an incentive to cut a deal the cuts through all of this, protects some incumbents, or whatever they want to do, because the map the third party picks will have none of that in it. It's carrots and sticks all the way, at every step, is the idea.

[Torie]

I wonder if there is any prospect of cutting a deal with a less partisan map in exchange for not bouncing Mathis. That would be by far the simplest course.

[Torie]

The AZ state Senate voted last night to bounce Mathis. Mathis is petitioning the AZ Supreme Court today to object to her removal. Just what her grounds are I have no clue.

The Dems are filing paperwork to recall 4 Pubbie state Senators that I guess they think are vulnerable. Just how that will do them any good vis a vis redistricting also escapes me.

[Torie]

The AZ state Senate voted last night to bounce Mathis. Mathis is going to the AZ Supreme Court to object to her removal.

Yep.

So if the Court says it's fine, the Senate can impeach and remove (rolled into one) on any grounds they want without holding any semblance of an impeachment trial, it's their legislative prerogative to interprete the facts that way, then yeah, we'll not get a final map until after Mathis' successor is chosen.
Republicans shouldn't, of course, hold their breath on the outcome. I certainly don't see any sort of path towards a rebooted process, complete with new grid, new first round of hearings etc pp.

Isn't the obstacle that the Dems won't agree to a replacement? I assume that otherwise the map could just be revised based on the votes of the replacement.  If that is the case, then either the parties will agree to a compromise map, or the court will draw a map. In the meantime, the existing map is dead. I doubt a court would draw something as offensive to the Pubbies as the Mathis map.

[Torie]

The existing map doesn't officially exist yet. Once the parties don't agree to a replacement, the people who drew the shortlist pick one.
And unless they changed its composition in the interim... Republicans don't like the people who draw the shortlist either.

Who picks the commission on appellate appointments?  I guess a new shortlist is drawn up with Mathis gone if it holds. Did the Pubbies hate everyone that was on the previous shortlist, so that Mathis was the least bad of the lot (at least based on what she condescended to disclose rather than hide)?

[Torie]

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Which Commission?  It must be the redistricting commission, since you referred to someone on the shortlist being put on the "Commission." If the redistricting commission, I presume it was not Mathis that the Pubbies got on. But the shortlist is just for the 5th vote no?  I am just so confused.  

[Torie]

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(emphasis added)

And that is the thing. Competitiveness is subordinated to the other parameters, which parameters were trashed by the commission to create "competitive" CD's using cooked data, so that they all list by a bit or a lot to the Dems in any event. So the Commission did a twin traducing of the law: ignoring subordination, and defining what is competitive in an ersatz way.

[Torie]

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Which Commission?  It must be the redistricting commission, since you referred to someone on the shortlist being put on the "Commission." If the redistricting commission, I presume it was not Mathis that the Pubbies got on. But the shortlist is just for the 5th vote no?  I am just so confused.  

Oh no. There is a shortlist of 10 Democrats, 10 Republicans and 5 Independents. Not sure if parties are actually required to pick from their own subpool or it's merely understood, but anyways house and senate minority and majority leaders pick four commissioners, and then those four pick the fifth who's also the chair.

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(emphasis added)

And that is the thing. Competitiveness is subordinated to the other parameters.

That interpretation of the law was explicitly ruled to be false by the AZ SC in 2002 (or 1 or 3 or whatever), fwiw.

Anyways, I presume Mathis is removed for good now, the SC has agreed? IIRC "impeachment" (which implies an actual trial) is a misleading word, and it's actually a power of the Governor and 2/3 of the Senate to remove Commissioners (presumably written with the expectation that 2/3 of the Senate should be unachievable without really serious violations).

The plain meaning of the text is subordination; if the AZ Supremes ruled otherwise, I cannot imagine the rationale. Impeachment is not a trial - it's a charge.

[Torie]

Mathis just signed off on Dem McNulty's changes in toto it appears, and rejected any of Stertz's. She should just give McNulty her proxy, and not even bother showing up really. Whatever McNulty wants, Mathis gives it to her.

[Torie]

That ridiculous pseudocarve of Cochise ended. Positive. And then a huge clockwise shift of small patches as a result... including Schweikert's residence, now outside the large R sink (and in the NE Maricopa R district with Quayle). And the official excuse for that R sink waived by breaching the Maricopa-Pinal line there after all.

And CD1 is still in Pima where it does not belong.
Florence does certainly belong in CD1 though.

Their justification for putting CD1 in Pima was that it allowed them to keep Cochise whole.

To get AZ-01 out of Pima, AZ-03 could have taken more of Pima, and without diluting its Hispanic percentage much, but to do that would have made AZ-02 about a point more Pubbie (as more Dem or marginal precincts with significant Hispanic percentages were moved from AZ-02 to AZ-03, to make up for AZ-02 taking that little highly GOP mostly Anglo area in Pima that is now in AZ-01), and we can't have that! We particularly can't have that since there really wasn't anymore available Dem territory for AZ-01 to suck up exchange for losing its Pima salient, to incentive team McNulty and Mathis to go there.

The rationale McNulty had for putting all of Cochise in AZ-02 was that otherwise, it made AZ-01 too erose - and large.  I do agree that all of Cochise should be put in AZ-02 - always have.