AZ Mirror: Mapmaking begins in earnest as redistricting commission approves grid maps

Thanks to Jeremy Duda for this update - here a few extracts for your interest, but you are strongly encouraged to read the entire report: The commission’s next step will be to get public input on the grid maps that will help guide its decisions in how to revise them.

The AIRC will hold five meetings in the Phoenix, Tucson and Flagstaff areas, with satellite locations around the state. 

NOTE: The locations and dates of those meetings are:Tuesday, Sept. 21, in Mesa, . ."

Mapmaking begins in earnest as redistricting commission approves grid maps

Jeremy Duda

Arizona Mirror

 

"They’ll change dramatically and give no real indication what the final lines will look like, but the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission has taken the first step toward redrawing the state’s congressional and legislative districts with the approval of a “grid map” that will serve as its starting template.

Grid maps allow the commission to wipe the old maps clean and start from scratch to ensure that the new districts aren’t in any way based on the old ones. The commission’s consultants created two maps of nine and 30 districts based solely on equal population, which is one of the six criteria the Arizona Constitution mandates for redistricting, and using whole census blocks and tracts. 

The AIRC approved the congressional and legislative maps on Tuesday. From there, the commissioners will hold a series of public hearings, then adjust the boundaries of the grid map districts to follow the other five criteria, which require adherence to the 1965 Voting Rights Act; compact and contiguous districts; respect for geographic and political boundaries; respect for communities of interest; and competitiveness.

Though no real information on partisan advantages or other features of the districts can be gleaned from the grid maps, they mark an important milestone in the life of the current redistricting commission. . .with the adoption of the grid maps, the commission can finally begin its real work.

“The grid map is intentionally designed to be massively revised. That’s how the constitution sets it up,” Doug Johnson, one of the commission’s mapping consultants, explained during Tuesday’s meetings. 

Commission Chairwoman Erika Neuberg also warned against reading too much into the grid maps. “Let’s refrain from commenting on the substance of the lines since that is what we will be doing in subsequent weeks,” she said

. . .The input that the commission receives from the public, as well as the decisions the individual commissioners make on how to apply the six constitutional criteria, will be used to draw draft maps that the AIRC hopes to approve by Oct. 27. Johnson advised the commissioners that it’s important to create a clear record of how each adjustment to the maps is tied to those criteria.

Members of the public will be able to draw their own proposed maps, or individual districts, to present to the commission using a mapping program on the AIRC’s website. . ."