Ballot measure to alter makeup of Arizona legislative districts advanced by Republican lawmakers

A proposed ballot measure would change the makeup of Arizona’s legislative districts in a way Democrats fear would disadvantage them.

The proposal would alter the makeup of Arizona's independent redistricting commission, which draws the lines making up the state’s legislative districts every 10 years. Bill sponsor Sen. J.D. Mesnard’s plan would add more commission members, and make a higher number of them independents.

There are currently five members of the commission: two Republicans, two Democrats and one independent.

In Mesnard’s plan, there would be a total of nine commissioners: three Republicans, three Democrats and three independents.

The Chandler Republican said that means the lone independent won’t hold all the power in future redistricting commissioners.

The other piece of his legislation would make all the districts closer to the same population size.

“I mean to exaggerate it: if this person represents ten people and this person represents 100 people, there’s a difference right - and that’s a magnitude of 10 - but the point is 25,000 is a lot of extra people to have to represent. That means all their voices are worth less,” Mesnard said. “That’s why equal representation is the fundamental starting point.”

Under state law, Arizona’s 30 legislative districts need to be roughly the same population size, but have a margin of 10%. So, it’s allowable to have one district with 250,000 people and another district with 275,000.

If voters sign off on Mesnard’s plan, the margin of difference in population would change to a cap of 5,000 residents rather than a percentage. That would amount to much more similar population sizes across districts.

The main reason the law allows districts to be different in population size is to keep “communities of interest” together. Democrats argued the bill could require some fracturing of those communities into separate districts.

Democrats said making the legislative districts tighter in population would likely make fewer competitive districts for them.

“It seems like this if it were to pass, it would basically skew - not just only this commission but the overall outcome - towards one party,” Sen. Theresa Hatathlie (D-Coalmine Mesa) said.

Bill sponsor J.D. Mesnard says the bill would only hurt Democrats to the extent that some majority-Republican districts are overpopulated now to create more competitive races.

Hatathlie also took issue with another part of Mesnard’s bill: requiring commissioners to come from certain high-population counties.

In the proposal, four of the commissioners would be required to come from the state’s most populous county and two from the second most populated. That means Maricopa and Pima counties would have high guaranteed representation.

Hatathlie represents parts of Apache, Coconino, Gila, Graham, Mohave, Navajo and Pinal counties. She pointed out that the counties with smaller populations, and particularly the ones with Native American communities, would have less of a voice on the commission.

The measure advanced out of the state Senate on Monday on party lines.

Mesnard proposed a similar measure several years ago, but it didn’t pass out of the state legislature.