Today, the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission (AIRC) continued its march toward a biased and partisan congressional map that does not reflect the state of Arizona. In a 3-2 vote, Chair Erika Neuberg again sided with the Republican commissioners on a draft congressional map that created fewer competitive districts even compared to the AIRC’s own draft maps passed in October and would solidify a majority GOP congressional delegation in Arizona for the decade. In response, Kelly Burton, National Democratic Redistricting Committee President, released the following statement:

“Today, the AIRC voted to continue Chair Erika Neuberg’s partisan, biased pattern of siding with Republicans and iterating from Republican maps with little to no compromise. As it stands, Draft Congressional Map 12.1 is unequivocally partisan and does not reflect critical public input expressed by Arizona’s growing and diverse communities of interest. Chair Neuberg’s reasoning for moving forward with this Republican map blatantly disregards repeated good faith compromise attempts by Democratic commissioners to create maps that fairly reflect all Arizonans. Her votes demonstrate, once again, an unacceptable bias towards the Republican commissioners’ changes.  

“In order to create fair and balanced maps reflecting the state’s population and communities of interest, Arizonans voted to enshrine an independent redistricting commission into the state constitution two decades ago. Chair Neuberg has a duty to fulfill her responsibility to voters and carry out the will of the people, but so far, she has been neglectful in her stewardship of the AIRC. Her failure to lead not only breaks her personal commitment to Arizona voters, it prevents the AIRC from fulfilling its duty of drawing fair maps for the state.”

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