Attorneys in the lawsuit against the IRC will engage in a “freestyle discussion” today the three federal judges hearing the case. The judges are expected to show their disposition on the matter in the course of discussion by the questions they ask of the parties.
On Thursday, Republican commissioner Scott Freeman echoed the testimony by Republican commissioner Rick Stertz earlier in the week.
According to the Yellow Sheet, Freeman described, once again, the sentiment that Mathis and the commission’s two Democrats rolled him and Stertz by working behind the scenes to organize their scoring on the bidding for mapping consultants and got everything they wanted from the process.
On Thursday, in an interview with popular Tucson radio host, James T. Harris, one former senator, whose district had been gerrymandered by the IRC’s mapping tactics, said he was vindicated by the testimony of Democrat commissioner, Jose Herrera, which appeared to indicate heavy involvement of democrat commissioners with the Arizona Democratic Party during the redistricting process.
The redistricting of districts pitted republican incumbents against each other in primaries in some cases. In other cases, the new maps appeared to disenfranchise minority voters.
On Tuesday Herrera’s email and telephone records indicated that the commissioner worked with Party officials to rig the maps in their favor. Plaintiffs presented an email sent from former Democratic Party Executive Director, Luis Heredia, to Herrera. The email, giving advice to Herrera “on how to use voter registration rolls” to achieve competitive districts.
The Commission focused primarily on creating competitive districts and gave little consideration to more important criteria such as equal population, contiguity, and communities of interest.
According to many IRC observers, it appeared that the IRC engaged in “packing and cracking.” They deliberately overpopulated Republican leaning districts, and under populated Democrat leaning districts, thus creating more Democratic leaning districts.