On Monday, a lawsuit challenging the IRC’s legislative map began before Judge Roslyn Silver. Prior to the start of the hearing the plaintiffs’ lawyer, Michael Liburdi, said the testimony would prove to be very interesting.
Interesting and unexpected would describe the testimony of Democrat IRC commissioner, Jose Herrera, and Republican commissioner, Rick Stertz.
On Tuesday, Liburdi demonstrated that Herrera plays fast and loose with the truth and seemed to have a lot to hide and may have colluded with officials in the Arizona Democratic Party to rig the maps in their favor.
Herrera claimed he and D.J. Quinlan, the Arizona Democratic Party Executive Director, and the Party’s elections director during the map drawing process, barely knew each other. According to the Yellow Sheet, Herrera said that the two didn’t know each other “beyond a friendly hello when they see each other.” In his deposition, ‘Herrera said that Quinlan might have been one of the many people who approached him at public meetings. Herrera also claimed that he didn’t know if he and Quinlan had each other’s phone numbers, the Yellow Sheet reported.
However, as Liburdi predicted, the hearing became very interesting when Herrera’s phone records and an email were presented by the plaintiffs that contradicted the commissioner’s claims. According to evidence presented in the hearing Quinlan and Herrera spoke 16 times through October, November and December 2011. The calls occurred usually in clusters over consecutive days. According to the Yellow Sheet report this was the period when the IRC was in the later stages of developing the maps.
The Yellow Sheet described the scene; “With the copies of the records posted on television monitors throughout the courtroom of the US District Court in Phoenix, Herrera acknowledged he must have made the calls, but he added that he didn’t recall what they talked about.”
Herrera said he created a special email account for IRC business on the advice of counsel and claimed that he did not use any of his personal accounts for IRC business. However, 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 and an idea from Quinlan on achieving competitiveness in districts,” was CC’d to Minority Leader Chad Campbell, Andre Cherny, and former Representative, Schapira, according o the Yellow Sheet.
Herrera struggled to explain his decision on which mapping consultant would be hired to assist the commissioners. Herrera had found fault with the Republican activities of National Demographic Corporation, but had no problem with Strategic Telemetry and its Democrat activities including campaigns for Kerry, and Obama.
Evidence was presented that both IRC chairwoman, Colleen Mathis, and Herrera gave perfect scores to Strategic Telemetry and gave National Demographic Corporation very few points. “I had to,” Herrera told the Yellow Sheet reporter when asked why he gave Strategic Telemetry the highest score possible.
The IRC’s attorney did not bother to cross examine Herrera.
Quinlan testified that he met often with Democratic commissioner, Linda McNulty to discuss the boundaries of LD 8. The Yellow Sheet reported that he also admitted he had access to incumbent addresses on his mapping software, but claimed he didn’t share the information with McNulty.
The Yellow Sheet report notes that “RNC redistricting consultant Dr. Thomas Hofeller testified on Wednesday that the high number of deviations from neutral criteria for creating districts and the magnitude of the deviations lead to only one logical conclusion: that the IRC intentionally gerrymandered the political maps.”
Hofeller averred that the Commission intentionally diluted the Hispanic vote. Hofeller said that this was achieved by placing Latino voters into non-Latino heavily Democrat district, which then strengthened the Democrat presence in those districts.
Hofeller worked for the Republican National Committee and does not work for the plaintiffs in the case. Hofeller has been involved in redistricting for 40 years and at one time worked for the Bush administration.
In the first day of testimony in the IRC trial, claims that the redistricting Committee targeted incumbents’ homes were all but shot down by Republican commissioner Rick Stertz, of Tucson. David Cantelme, FAIR Trust attorney, tried to present evidence that the IRC had knowledge of whereabouts of incumbents’ homes and considered that when drawing up district maps.
According to the Yellow Sheet, Stertz testified that he had “no knowledge” as to “whether Strategic Telemetry, the IRC’s mapping consultant, maintained a list of incumbents’ or candidates’ residences, which would violate the requirement that the commission not take incumbency into account while drawing its maps.” The Yellow Sheet also reported that Cantelme provided no evidence of such a list.
In his testimony, according to the Yellow Sheet, “Stertz said that the commission its consultants were not allowed to know where incumbents lived, and went so far as to say that the Commission stopped any incumbent who tried to give their address to the Commission during their public meetings.
Cantelme asked Stertz, “That being the case, why would Strategic Telemetry have had a candidate list?” Again, Sterz denied any knowledge of any incumbent list and trusted that Strategic Telemetry did not know the addresses either.
At one point, Cantelme implied in his questioning that the incumbent location information “may have included and later removed and asked Stertz what it would “mean if someone tried to open a map file and received a message stating, “Incumbents not found.” Once again Stertz denied knowing anything about the matter, and testified that someone other than him would be better to ask.
According to the Yellow Sheet, Stertz said he was comfortable with the guidance provided by IRC attorneys Joe Kanefield and Mary O’Grady, as well as consultant Bruce Adelson.
However, Stertz did testify that he was concerned about the lack of neutral candidates for IRC chairmanship. The state Constitution requires the four partisan commissioners to choose the chair from a slate of independents.
Chair Colleen Mathis, a registered Independent, appeared to be anything but Independent according to Stertz. Stertz testified that “Mathis consistently voted with the Democrats and rarely took the advice from Republican counsel.
In his deposition, Stertz told attorneys with the Attorney General’s Office that the IRC’s Chairwoman, Colleen Mathis, offered him a quid pro quo, the two were parked in separate cars in the same parking lot. Stertz could see Mathis across the lot on the phone with him. Stertz said Mathis, who was with her husband at the time, told Stertz that someday he would need her help.
Christopher Mathis has since been called the sixth member of what should have been the five member Independent Redistricting Commission.
Christopher Mathis is a democratic operative. Christopher served as treasurer for the 2010 campaign of Nancy Young Wright, a Democratic candidate for the House of Representatives from Legislative District 26 in Pima County. Mathis failed to mention this and other relevant information on her application.