Thread: Latino leaders pessimistic about new Latino districts

Latino pressure on redistricting effort

Activists want areas where Hispanics can easily win elections


Howard Fischer Capitol Media Services | Posted: Thursday, September 1, 2011 12:00 am


PHOENIX - A collision is looming between Hispanic political activists and others over exactly how many of the state's 30 legislative districts should be virtual locks for Latino candidates.

State Rep. Richard Miranda, D-Phoenix, one of the leaders of the Arizona Minority Commission, said Wednesday that there needs to be one additional "majority-minority" district in Maricopa County. That is generally defined as one where there are sufficient Hispanics living there and interested in voting to elect one of their own.

Miranda defines that as a district where about two-thirds of the population is Hispanic, because they tend to have lower voter turnouts.

He also believes there is an opportunity to carve out another Hispanic district in Southern Arizona, perhaps drawing lines to merge voters in Douglas and Nogales with areas of Tucson. And Miranda wants a guarantee at least two of the congressional districts will also remain "majority-minority" districts.

But clustering Latinos together also means fewer of them to spread around elsewhere. And with Hispanics largely voting Democratic, that can create more opportunities for Republicans.

"That is an issue," Miranda conceded. But he remains convinced that Democrats do not necessarily need to be hurt.

The whole issue of putting ethnicity first angered Lynne St. Angelo, an Oro Valley resident.

"The Hispanic coalition had the nerve to say that their districts couldn't be competitive," she told members of the Independent Redistricting Commission on Wednesday, with Latinos wanting to maintain "their hold on political power." St. Angelo argued the whole purpose of creating an Independent Redistricting Commission a decade ago was to ensure that no one group had a lock of power.

Others told commissioners about their desire to create as many competitive districts as possible, where there is a roughly equal chance of a candidate from either party getting elected.

But the Hispanics seem to have a legal edge in this fight, which will determine who controls the Legislature for the next decade.

[b]First, the federal Voting Rights Act prohibits Arizona from doing anything to dilute minority voting strength. And Miranda told commissioners the fact that 43 percent of total population growth in the state in the last decade was Latino adds strength to calls to create even more districts.
[b]

St. Angelo argued that the Voting Rights Act is illegal, pointing out that Attorney General Tom Horne is challenging that law, at least as it applies to Arizona. But the chances of a final ruling on that before the final lines have to be drawn for the 2012 election are virtually nil.

What's at stake is the political balance of the state for the next decade.

In pure numbers, Arizona is only a marginally Republican state. The latest voter registration figures showed the GOP with 35.5 percent of registered voters against 31.1 percent for Democrats. Independents and other minor parties make up the rest.

But they are not evenly spread around the state. As a result, 13 of the 30 legislative districts elected nothing but Republicans since 2004, with Democrats doing the same in eight others.

Supporters of competitiveness contend there are ways to draw lines to make more districts competitive, with party registration in each within 7 percent of each other. Changes necessary to do that, however, create conflicts with the Voting Rights Act.

Read more: http://azstarnet.com/news/local/govt-an ... z1Wjvx8pI7

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