GOP eager for lawmakers to resume Arizona redistricting

The possibility that the U.S. Supreme Court will return congressional redistricting power to the Arizona ­Legislature has Democrats on edge and some Republicans giddy at the ­prospect of a new, GOP-drawn map.

Under the current map, drawn by the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission, Republicans hold five U.S. House seats and Democrats hold four.

Three of the state's nine congressional districts — held by Democratic Reps. Ann Kirkpatrick and Kyrsten Sinema and Republican Martha McSally — are among the most competitive in the country, while the other six are ­lopsided in favor of either Republicans or Democrats.

Although the GOP's exuberance runs the risk of getting ahead of the court, Arizona Republicans are ­privately entertaining scenarios about what a new map might look like.

Ideas include a GOP-friendly southeastern Arizona district that would protect the seat narrowly won by McSally in 2014 as well as making Kirkpatrick's and Sinema's centrist districts lean more toward the GOP, although a swing-style, Tempe-based district also is contemplated, according to interviews with politicians, activists and party leaders.

"If the commission is thrown out, and that includes the commission's plan, I think there would be considerable pressure on the Legislature to draw new lines," said Stuart Rothenberg, a nonpartisan Washington, D.C.-based national political analyst. "We've had lines drawn in mid-decade before. There would be some pressure on them to redraw the lines in a way that would kind of maximize the Republicans' ­advantage."

The high court on Monday heard arguments in the case brought by the Arizona Legislature against the unelected Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission. At issue is whether the special body created by voters through a 2000 ballot initiative, stripping state lawmakers of their power over redistricting, violates the U.S. Constitution's Article I, which demands that "the times, places and manner" of U.S House and Senate elections be set by each state's "Legislature."

Robert Graham, the Arizona Republican Party chairman, said he believes the Legislature will prevail on the constitutional issue. Legislative GOP leaders have discussed what a new map generally might look like, but no details have been set, he said.

"There already are different versions of maps being drawn as we speak," Graham said. "Who knows? Personally, I have not seen one of them yet, but the goal is, if the courts rule (for the Legislature), then the maps will be ready for discussion and we start the ball rolling very quickly."

Several developments could defuse the GOP excitement, most obviously if the Supreme Court backs the commission.

But the details of the court's decision, anticipated in June, also matter. The justices may not give direction on Arizona's current congressional map, meaning additional litigation could be required to overturn it.

Although software exists that would make updated maps easy to create, the legal case still might not be sorted out in time for legislators to revamp the map for the 2016 election cycle.

Also unclear is whether Arizona would have to rely on updated census numbers because the ­decade is half over.

Democrats, the Legislature's minority party, are bracing for the worst.

"I don't think it even really requires too much imagination to figure out what they would do," said D.J. Quinlan, executive director of the Arizona Democratic Party. "It's a matter of making congressional Districts 1, 2 and 9 much more Republican-leaning."

Voters passed Proposition 106 in 2000 to create the commission because they were fed up with the Legislature's partisan gerrymandering to protect entrenched incumbents, Quinlan said. State lawmakers will inject those political considerations back into the process, he said, looking after their friends and allies and, in some cases, trying to draw districts that might benefit themselves in the future.

By contrast, the five-member independent commission, made up of an independent, two Democrats and two Republicans, is not supposed to take into account where incumbents live when drawing its map, and is tasked with protecting "communities of interest," such as cities and towns, promoting competition when possible and avoiding odd-shaped districts.

"Drawing the maps is a fairly difficult prospect to begin with, but then you start adding in the hopes and dreams of members of Congress, and wannabe members of Congress, it just makes it infinitely more complicated," Quinlan said.

Responding to the state Democrats' complaints, Graham countered that they "already are making excuses for future losses. ... They are preparing to lose seats."

Incumbent Democratic Reps. Raúl Grijalva and Ruben Gallego probably wouldn't need to worry much about the Legislature meddling with their minority-majority, solidly Democratic districts, observers say.

Although the Justice Department no longer must pre-clear the state's maps to ensure compliance with the Voting Rights Act, the law remains, and Republican legislators would invite a political outcry, not to mention lawsuits, if they tried to dilute or split minority voting populations.

"Those two districts would end up being Democratic, and maybe one other would be competitive, but the rest in Arizona would be all Republican," predicted Bruce Merrill, a longtime Arizona political scientist and pollster who is now a senior research fellow at Arizona State University's Morrison Institute for Public Policy.

Republican map-drawers could easily dip into the heavily GOP 4th, 5th, 6th and 8th congressional districts for Republican voters to divide among other districts.

Rep. David Schweikert, R-Ariz., and other Republicans argue that the commission deliberately overloaded those four districts with Republicans in order to draw artificially competitive districts where Democrats could win.

The commission critics note that Republicans have a voter-registration advantage over Democrats, although independent voters outnumber both parties, and that Republicans hold every statewide elected office in Arizona.

"Let's be brutally honest: (Reps.) Matt Salmon, Trent Franks, Paul Gosar, David Schweikert — our districts have been packed with Republicans," Schweikert said. "If it had been just the opposite, the concentration of Democrats to create some additional marginal swing districts that could be won, the left would have gone nuts. But it's OK to do to Republicans what it's not OK to do to the left, but that's just reality."

Quinlan questioned the GOP narrative that the commission drew the three competitive districts with the intention of boosting Democrats, noting that McSally edged incumbent Rep. Ron Barber, D-Ariz., last year in the 2nd Congressional District.

"You certainly could see a variety of scenarios where all those races could have gone different ways had Republicans nominated different candidates," he said.