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Letter to the Editor: Just how independent is redistricting?

Letters

The Independent Redistricting Committee is working hard to hear input from all parts of Arizona. There are standards that they are trying to meet to balance and equalize Congressional and Arizona legislative sistricts in population, communities of interest, compactness, contiguousness, natural boundaries, and political competitiveness. The state has the opportunity every 10 years to do redistricting based on the updated census every 10 years. Unfortunately, it is an opportunity for a lot of gerrymandering by opposing political parties. This year is no different and the political differences are more heated.

Arizona does have provisions for a volunteer Independent Redistricting Committee made up of two Republicans, two Democrats and led by one Independent. The draft maps that this year's IRC has proposed do not seem to be very independent. They have proposed congressional district changes that put all the Indigenous tribes into one district that is heavily Republican, not balanced. They have divided up Flagstaff, Sedona and Verde Valley rather than keeping them together as a community of interest, and they are not politically competitive districts.





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