According to PolitikerCA, In a recent conference call hosted by Citizens for Accountability, the group fighting Proposition 11and led by former California Senate Majority leader Don Perata, people involved with the Arizona Independent Redistricting Committee claimed Arizona’s independent redistricting method is a failure and suggested that California’s would be too. The people involved criticized what they believe were competition reducing steps the process took.
Minkoff and Ramon Valadez of Arizona Minority Coalition for Fair Redistricting said that creating competitive districts was one of the selling points of Arizona’s Proposition 106 in 2000, the measure that reformed reapportionment.
But when districts were actually drawn by the five-member committee, they said, competitiveness wasn’t a consideration until the new districts were largely finished.
However Rose Institute Fellow Doug Johnson responded to the criticism of the Arizona method with this comment:
Ramon Valdez was part of the Arizona Citizens for Fair Redistricting. At the end of the Arizona process, his group told the Commission in an open public meeting: “We wish to thank you very much. . . You lived up to your end of the bargain. We’ll live up to our end.” They later challenged the plans in Court, and the group’s flip-flop was never explained.
Ms. Minkoff voted for the Legislative and Congressional plans originally adopted by the Commission. In fact, every member of the Commission, whether Republican, Democrat, or Independent, voted for the plans, which were approved 5-0.
It was only two years later, when legal challenges forced the Commission to adjust its Legislative map, that Ms. Minkoff (whom I personally like a great deal) broke with from her fellow Commissioners. She was the lone dissenting vote in a 4-1 decision, when Democratic, Republican, and Independent Commissioners all supported the plan and only Ms. Minkoff in opposition.
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