Arizona lawmaker proposes stricter rules for legislative districts. Critics say it hurts diversity

Legislative District 7 is bigger than Indiana — and by most accounts, more scenic.

From Peach Springs in the northwestern part of the state, it extends east along the Grand Canyon to Monument Valley, the Four Corners and south to Alpine.

It is the only legislative district where a majority of residents are Native American.

It also has fewer residents than any other district in the state.

While each of the state’s 30 legislative districts include somewhere around 210,000 residents, the population of the districts can vary by thousands.

District 7 had 203,026 residents when its boundaries were set in 2011. The biggest district in the state — the Southeast Valley's District 12, including Gilbert and Queen Creek — had 221,735 residents.

Some state legislators argue that residents of smaller districts, such as District 7, are overrepresented at the Capitol while residents of bigger districts have had their voices diluted.

Under a proposed constitutional amendment approved along party lines by the Senate on Wednesday, District 7 simply would not exist as it does today.

Senate Concurrent Resolution 1018 would require that each district have no more than 5,000 more residents when compared with any other district.

Though the measure’s Republican backers argue it is simply a matter of fairness, critics contend it would undercut the diversity of the Legislature and the representation of indigenous people by breaking up districts like District 7.

Reshaping Arizona politics

The measure would require approval from the state House of Representatives and voters. But it is one effort in a back-and-forth over a redistricting process that could reshape the politics of Arizona in the coming years.

The Independent Redistricting Commission, which draws the boundaries for legislative and congressional districts, will get to work next year with Census data from 2020.

The state constitution sets out a few criteria for crafting districts, including population. But it also includes other considerations, such as requiring that the commission keep districts as compact as possible and keep similar communities together where it can. That is, the commission is supposed to avoid splitting up towns or neighborhoods.

Mesnard: Voters voices diluted in big districts 

Sen. J.D. Mesnard, a Republican from Chandler sponsoring the measure, argued that limiting the differences in population between districts helps the state live up to the idea of "one person, one vote."

"There is very little that is more fundamental to our representative democracy than equal representation," Mesnard told the Senate on Tuesday.

Currently, he argued, the voices of voters in bigger districts are diluted by districts that have fewer residents.

"If you're in a district where they essentially overpopulate, those folks have less representation," he said.

Several other states have much smaller variations in the populations of legislative districts, he noted, pointing to some where the difference is just a couple of percentage points or even less. With the technological precision involved in redistricting today, Mesnard argued, there is no reason the state cannot draw district boundaries that have nearly equal populations.

Bill would 'dilute the voting power of indigenous people'

But critics have said that the measure would break up districts like District 7, where all three legislators are Navajo.

“It really is going to dilute the voting power of indigenous people,” said Sen. Sally Ann Gonzales, a Democrat from Tucson and part of the Legislature’s Indigenous Peoples Caucus.

The Navajo Nation Human Rights Commission opposes the constitutional amendment and a committee of the Navajo Nation Council passed a resolution against it, contending the measure would violate a section of the Voting Rights Act that prohibits states from creating district lines that improperly diminish the electoral power of minorities.

Instead, critics argue, the Independent Redistricting Commission should have flexibility to create districts that might vary in population to some extent but are designed to meet other goals, such as creating what are known as majority minority districts.

Michael Li, senior counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law, said the proposed constitutional amendment would be unusual in specifying the precise extent to which populations can vary from one legislative to the next.

The measure would require districts not vary by more than what amounts to 2.3%, according to the state's population in 2010, or 2% if based on the state's projected population in 2020, Li said.

By setting the limit at a specific number — 5,000 — rather than a percentage of the population, the limit only would become more restrictive as Arizona's population grows, he said.

"That low a deviation could make it hard to draw districts where minorities elect their community’s preferred candidates — certainly Latinos (Latino districts in the 2010 Arizona map were generally underpopulated) but also potentially other groups like the Hopi," Li said.

Contact Andrew Oxford at andrew.oxford@arizonarepublic.com or on Twitter at @andrewboxford.