Arizona Senate, at Governor’s Urging, Ousts Chief of Redistricting Panel

By MARC LACEY
NYT

PHOENIX — A decision by Gov. Jan Brewer and Arizona’s Senate to oust the chairwoman of the citizens’ commission redrawing the state’s political boundaries prompted legal challenges on Wednesday as critics of the move accused Republicans of meddling in a redistricting process that voters sought to insulate from politics.

Following the recommendation of Ms. Brewer, a Republican, the Republican-controlled Senate voted 21 to 6 on Tuesday night to remove Colleen C. Mathis, chairwoman of the Independent Redistricting Commission. Lawyers raced to court in a long-shot effort to overturn the decision.

“I will not sit idly by while Arizona’s Congressional and legislative boundaries are drawn in a fashion that is anything but constitutional and proper,” said Ms. Brewer, who has condemned the maps proposed by the commission as biased toward Democrats.

Arizona voters decided in 2000 that a citizens’ commission of two Republicans, two Democrats and an independent chairman would draw political lines and that commissioners could be removed by a two-thirds vote of the Senate only for “substantial neglect of duty, gross misconduct in office or inability to discharge the duties of office.”

(More here.)