Arizona's congressional map remains intact
Leading Off:
• Redistricting: Advocates for redistricting reform scored a crucial victory Monday when the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Arizona's Independent Redistricting Commission. Passed by voters in 2000 in an effort to remove legislators from the redistricting process, the commission was imperiled by the GOP's rabid desire to abolish it. Republicans tried everything the could over the last few years to undermine the panel (even impeaching its leader, a move later undone by the courts) so that they could draw that state's maps for themselves—exactly what voters did not want them doing. Fortunately, it's not to be.
At issue in this case was the meaning of an important clause in Article I of the constitution that governs the rules regarding congressional elections. It states the following:
The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.
Republican state legislators, who were the plaintiffs in this case, contended that the word "legislature" means the literal representative legislature, which would preclude the voters themselves from directly instituting rules that would determine the electoral rules. Legal scholars were divided over the issue, but some of them provided
very compelling reasons to agree with the defendants, which was the commission itself.
These observers argued that the concept of the legislature also encompasses the electorate, saying the term does not refer to a specific representative body but rather to those who are empowered to make laws. In a state that permits citizens to put forth ballot initiative like Arizona, this means the voters themselves, and the Supreme Court agreed with this interpretation.
Head below the fold to learn more about the practical impact of this case.
In practical terms, Arizona Republicans will remain both furious and impotent. Lawmakers had salivated at the prospect of redrawing the state's congressional boundaries to sabotage Democrats and boost their own fortunes. In particular, they would have made two swingy seats held by Democrats, the 1st District and the 9th District, much redder, and they also would have shored up another evenly divide seat, the 2nd, that the GOP captured for the first time last year.
Instead, all three districts will remain unchanged. Republicans will still have a good shot at the 1st, which is open because Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick is running for Senate, but they'll likely have to work hard to defend the 2nd, where freshman Rep. Martha McSally will face her first re-election campaign. Over in the 9th, Rep. Kyrsten Sinema is probably more likely to stay put now; she hadn't ruled out a Senate bid of her own, but she'd be favored to win another term in the House seeing as her district won't be changing.
More broadly, this ruling means that commissions in other states, most notably California, will also stand. While California Democrats could have exacted revenge had the Arizona case gone the other way by putting forth a very aggressive gerrymander of their own, it's unlikely they would have gone for the jugular.
What's more, activists in other states can now pursue redistricting commissions at the ballot box. Reformers and Democrats would be wise to make common cause in Florida, Michigan, Ohio, and even Utah—all states where Republicans have drawn the maps, predictably giving themselves a massive partisan advantage. While one recent effort failed in Ohio, the experience in both Arizona and California shows that such commissions can succeed when framed properly and backed by sufficient resources. If Democrats want to take back the House any time soon, the Supreme Court just reaffirmed that this is the place to focus. (Stephen Wolf & David Nir)
Senate:
• IN-Sen: State Rep. Christina Hale, the only other notable Hoosier Democrat to publicly express interest in a Senate campaign, has decided against running. That leaves ex-Rep. Baron Hill as the only Democrat in the race. So far, two Republicans have announced bids for this open seat, Rep. Marlin Stutzman and Eric Holcomb, a former staffer for retiring Sen. Dan Coats, but several others have yet to make up their minds. According to one new report, state Sen. Jim Merritt just opted out, but he hasn't confirmed that himself yet.
House:
• AZ-01: Now that the Supreme Court has affirmed the validity of Arizona's independently drawn congressional districts (see our lead item above), long-uncertain plans are finally starting to crystallize. Democratic incumbent Ann Kirkpatrick reaffirmed that she's sticking with the Senate race rather than changing course and staying in the House, but Team Blue may have a credible contender to replace her soon. State Sen. Barbara McGuire, who'd been waiting on the high court's ruling, quickly announced that she's forming an exploratory committee. McGuire's legislative district went for Mitt Romney by 8 points, and she even hung on during last year's GOP wave, so she has experience winning on difficult turf.
Romney carried the 1st District by a 50-48 margin, so it's no surprise that a few other Democrats and a whole bunch of Republicans are all still looking at the race. With the district lines locked down, we should start seeing all the various chess pieces in motion soon.
• FL-13: Last cycle, Democrats shamefully let Rep. David Jolly off the hook in November, leaving him unopposed just months after he won a hotly contested special by less than 2 percentage points. Fortunately, that's not going to happen this time. Eric Lynn, a former Defense Department official who entered the race in early April, just told Adam Smith he's already raised $400,000. If that doesn't include any self-funding, that would be an impressive figure indeed. One other Democrat is already running, former Tampa City Councilor Mary Mulhern, while another, St. Petersburg City Councilor Darden Rice, is considering a bid.
Grab Bag:
• Demographics: America's rapidly increasing diversity is one of the big stories not just in demographics but in politics as well ... but when you write a story about diversity in a particular place, it's important to make sure that you aren't being misled simply by the size of the box you're drawing around that population. Rice University's Urban Edge blog takes a look an interesting example: Seattle's Columbia City neighborhood, which several years ago was declared by the Census Bureau to be the nation's most diverse ZIP code (currently at 28 percent white, 27 percent black, 30 percent Asian, and 9 percent Hispanic).
ZIP codes aren't granular enough for that analysis, though (98118 has 43,600 people), and even Census tracts (which usually have around 4,000 people) don't tell the whole story. The article zooms in on a map of one particularly racially-balanced tract within the neighborhood, except dot-mapped at the block level rather than jumbling up all the tract's residents as a whole. The result doesn't look like Sesame Street at all, instead showing high levels of segregation: The west half of the tract (which has no views) is almost entirely black and the east half of the tract (which has spectacular views) is almost entirely white. In fact, if you look at a historic redlining map of Seattle (like this FHA map from 1936), you'll see that almost nothing has changed at all in the last century. (The Census tract highlighted in the Rice article is located just south of the "D5" and "B14" on the historic map).
• Voting Rights: In a victory for voting rights advocates, the Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal brought by Kansas and Arizona, which had tried to insist that federal voter registration forms demand proof of citizenship, which is required under state law. The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals had already ruled against the two states, so the Supreme Court's decision means that that earlier verdict stands.
However, it's not an unambiguous win because a big question remains: The 10th Circuit's decision applies only to federal elections, so can states still mandate citizenship paperwork in order for voters to be able to vote in state and local elections? That's what happened last year in Kansas, when a reportedly "small number" voters who'd registered using the federal form were only permitted to vote in federal races. At the same time, some 23,000 people who tried to register normally but had failed to provide citizenship records weren't allowed to vote at all.
This matter is the subject of a separate lawsuit that's pending before a state court judge in Kansas, brought by the ACLU and the League of Women Voters, so it may be some time before we get complete clarity.
The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir and Jeff Singer, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, and Daniel Donner.
