Most of the citizens who turned out to comment at today’s Independent Redistricting Commission meeting expressed their concerns over keeping communities of interest together in new congressional and legislative districts or creating more competition between the Democratic and Republican parties.
But state Rep. Terri Proud used her time addressing the commission to launch a blistering attack on the IRC itself.
“The voters wanted to depoliticize this process,” Proud said. “However, you have made it one of the most partisan, underhanded and expensive processes in state history.”
Proud, who has called on her fellow lawmakers to ask voters to pass a new ballot proposition to give state legislators the power to draw their own boundaries, criticized IRC member Jose Herrera (who was not present) for saying earlier this week that he would not cooperate into an investigation into alleged IRC open-meeting law violations by Attorney General Tom Horne. She suggested that both Herrera and commission chair Colleen Mathis should resign from the commission.
Proud comments elicited both cheers and boos from the audience and, later in the meeting, a retort from fellow Republican Pete Hershberger, who represented Legislative District 26 in the Arizona House of Representatives for eight years.
“I believe in civil discourse and I’m deeply disappointed in the vicious, partisan attacks on the commission and on the chair,” Hershberger said, gathering his own share of applause from members of the crowd. “These politics of intimidation should be rejected by the citizens of Arizona. The IRC should remain independent and free from such blatant partisanship.”
Sen. Al Melvin, a Republican who defeated Hershberger in a GOP primary for the LD26 Senate seat in 2008, sat with a broad smirk on his face while Hershberger talked about civility in politics.
Melvin himself addressed the commission to urge them to keep Legislative District 26 as “intact as possible as it exists today” in the redistricting process.
Melvin said that the current residents of Saddlebrooke, where he resides, “look to the south” in Oro Valley and Marana when residents shop, seek medical attention and volunteer.
“This truly is a classic community of interest,” Melvin said.
Sally Ann Gonzales, a Democrat who represents Legislative District 27, had a similar message for the members of the IRC.
“I’m here to speak, also asking the commission to keep westside District 27 as intact as possible, including the University of Arizona,” Gonzales said.
But state Sen. Paula Aboud urged commissioners to make her midtown Tucson Legislative District 28 more competitive.
Aboud also offered a rebuke to Proud’s suggestion that the IRC was engaging in too much back-room dealing.
“I think politics today have become unseemly and too uncivil, and that is what has made it so difficult to serve in the Arizona Legislature,” Aboud said. “When we talk about transparency and partisanship—when a budget is created in the Arizona Legislature behind closed doors, year after year after year, and it’s called partisan and underhanded and non-transparent, nobody complains hugely about it, so it’s a little difficult to understand those who come here and say that what you’re doing is something other than what is being done by the majority party.”
The five members of the IRC have the task of drawing up new political boundaries for the state’s congressional and legislative seats in the wake of the 2010 Census. Among the challenges: Carving up the existing congressional districts so that the growing state can add a ninth seat.
We’ll have more on the meeting in the next week’s print edition.
This article appears in Aug 4-10, 2011.
Proud Terri is such a wonderful study in contradiction. Contradicting herself, that is. Saying the voters wanted to DE-politicize redistricting, SHE is the epitome of politicizing the 2011 AIRC and the redistricting process.
BRAVO STATE REP TERRI PROUD!!! Terri is exactly right! The commission itself engages in hypocrisy, questionable interests and partisanship. The Democrats (and establishment Republicans – like Hershberger) did not get the results they wanted in 2010, so now they are doing everything they can in an act of desperation to manipulate districts in their favor. So much for ‘competition’! Besides, when has the Democrat Party EVER supported competition in ANY facet of life? As an Independent, I also take issue w/ the Democrat Party trying to align themselves with us. The truth of the matter is Democrats are the new third party. Independents knocked you to the curb in 2010; just wait to see where we throw you in 2012! GAME ON! Oh – and Pete Hershberger – if this is ‘too uncivil’ for you, perhaps you should butt out. Let the women handle it!
All the politicians need to butt out, and let the independent commission do its job. To insure that the districts are competitive and reflect compatible demographics.
When 90% of public offices are determined by a small number of people before a single vote is cast in November, our democracy looks less like the kind envisioned by our Founders and more like the “democracy” that was practiced in the old Soviet Union.
This year’s Independent Redistricting commission is on the right track to making legislative and congressional districts more competitive, and a small minority of radicals are furious over this possibility. The Commission should continue as it has been, and the radicals can be disregarded.
Good for Ms Proud. A politician standing up for beliefs and not afraid to say it. We need more of these and less of the kumbaya crowd, all siting around saying ‘can’t we just get along?’. Ms Proud was elected on a flood of votes that not only voted her into office, but put 60+ members of the House in DC in a position to take action. And as much as the Rs would like to take credit for all this, credit has to be given to the Is and, of course, to the current administration.
Statewide, in 2010 10 Senators and 12 House members were elected without major party opposition. In 17 House districts one or other party fielded a single candidate and just 2 of those ‘stand alone’ candidates won. In my own LD 30 none but a Republican has been elected in 5 cycles. Indeed, never have there been a full slate of 3 Democratic candidates for LD 30’s Senate and two House seats. In 2002 and 2004 a Republican ran unopposed for the Senate. In 2004 Democrats fielded one House candidate. In 2006, 2008 and 2010 Democrats had a Senate candidate and one House candidate. The current crop of legislators includes Senator Antenori, hardly representative of the voters who elected Tim Bee to four terms, and then Jonathan Paton. In the House we have the silent, invisible, totally incommunicative David Gowan and Ted Vogt, whose campaign was financed by the Cheneys and the Rumsfelds. [You could look it up}. Clearly not a competitive district. Perhaps if there were 10 non-competitive Independent districts, 10 locked in for the Democrats and the rest for the Republicans we could have an equal-shouting power dialogue, but until then let’s let the IRC do the work it was established to do.
I for one have been attending the redistricting meetings in Phoenix, Tucson and Casa Grande. I applaud Representative Terri Proud for having the guts to say what needs to be said! And as for former Representative Hershberger… I also joined Senator Melvin quietly laughing at his comments!! He is what we conservatives call a RINO! That is why he is “former LD 26 Representative”! My opinion he should re register as a Democrat! The Independent Chair has hardly been and independent in her votes. Actions always speak louder than words in my opinion! Then midway through the process we find out she failed to disclose on her application for the position the fact her husband worked on Nancy Young Wrights campaign. If this is not an example of dishonesty, what is!! The 2 democrat members and the so called independent chair then hire the most liberal biased and most expensive of all 6 companies who applied for the mapping job!! If this isn’t partisianship what is!
The meeting dates are rarely posted correctly, for example the meeting yesterday at 1 pm was orginally posted as 6 pm or the locations are changed 48 hours before the meeting. Is this intentional??? You decide!!
So as far as what Terri Proud said… What part of it isn’t true?
I am a woman of faith, but I don’t understand God’s ways. Courteous, effective Pete Hershberger out, smirking, obstructive Al Melvin in; Tom O’Halleran out, Steve Pierce in? , Melvin/Pierce/other even meaner, more vicious, hateful pols- healthy, and some of the kindest, most self-giving, compassion-spreading, unconditional loving public figures I know – early deaths from illnesses that struck them at complete random. I do not understand God. I have so much anger against Melvin, Proud and their ilk. I pray to be more compassionate.
Interesting how the TW focus is on Terri Proud’s criticism of the IRC instead of the actual wrongdoing of the IRC. Kudos to Rep. Proud for speaking truth to power.