U.S. Supreme Court
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Chances are good you’re still celebrating today’s landmark same-sex marriage ruling and Thursday’s Obamacare victory, but the U.S. Supreme Court still has a few major cases to resolve, including a really important one about redistricting powers that will directly affect Arizona residents.
We won’t pretend that the redistricting of voting boundaries is an inherently sexy topic—even the name of the case, Arizona State Legislature v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission, is snooze-worthy. But how districts are drawn and who gets to control the process is something of the utmost importance. And because the outcome of this case will set national precedence, the ramifications of a ruling either way will be felt for a very, very long time.
So here is what you need to know about the case in plain English: how it came to be, what’s at stake, and what the outcome could mean for the future.
Every 10 years, following the national census, Arizona redraws its two voting district maps—one for the nine U.S. Congressional delegates, and one for the 90 state legislators. Until 2000, the job of delineating districts fell on the state Legislature to figure out.
But since elected officials in this state are almost always Republicans, some people started getting upset that one party held all of the redistricting power and could manipulate boundaries to benefit their own party and retain control. (This process is called gerrymandering.)
In 2000, Arizona voters approved Proposition 106, which took away the map-drawing power from the Legislature and gave it to an independent bi-partisan group called the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission. The AIRC is comprised of two Democrats, two Republicans, and one Independent, and is tasked with deciding voter districts based the following criteria:
- That the boundaries of both congressional and legislative districts be “contiguous, geographically compact, and respect communities of interest—all to the extent practicable;”
- That district lines follow “visible geographic features, city, town, and county boundaries, and undivided census tracts;”
- And perhaps most importantly, that "competitive districts be favored where doing so would not significantly detract from the goals above.
Via: Phoenix News Times
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