Approval of a new legislative map may not occur until well after the June 9 deadline for legislative candidates to file with the Secretary of State’s Office.

Judge Kenneth Fields of the Maricopa County Superior Court on March 5 said he is inclined to approve the latest legislative districts map, but the Independent Redistricting Commission has no choice but to post the proposed legislative boundaries for 30 days of public comment, as required by the state Constitution.

If the Redistricting Commission were to make any further changes to the map, the clock on yet another 30-day comment period would begin. The legislative boundaries then would have to be submitted for approval to the U.S. Department of Justice. The federal government, once it receives the proposed map, will have up to 60 days for review, but could ask for additional time. Assuming the Redistricting Commission adopts the current proposal after 30 days of public comment, and then the Department of Justice takes at least 60 days for review, the legislative map wouldn’t be ready until late June.

Secretary of State Warns Of Timeline Problems

That timeline presents practical difficulties for conducting an election, said Secretary of State Jan Brewer, who serves as chief elections officer for Arizona. The deadline for legislative candidates to file nominating petitions and other paperwork is June 9, and the Secretary of State’s Office must certify candidates by the next day.

County election officials begin to create ballots for each precinct immediately following the secretary of state’s certification of candidates, Mrs. Brewer said, while ARS 16-351 gives voters 10 business days following the filing deadline to lodge challenges in Superior Court.

“The Superior Court should hear and render a decision on nomination petition challenges within 10 days after filing of the action,” Mrs. Brewer stated in an affidavit delivered to Judge Fields on March 8. Appeals to challenges could take another two to three weeks. Meanwhile, ballots must wait to be printed until all challenges and appeals are settled.

Although the primary election doesn’t occur until Sept. 7, early voting ballots must be available 33 days prior to the primary election, or by Aug. 5.

“If the Arizona Supreme Court took two weeks to decide an appeal filed on July 6, 2004, a county election official could not print the affected ballots until July 21, 2004,” Mrs. Brewer’s affidavit states. “This is only 15 days before early voting begins.”

“Because of the short time period between the filing deadline, the time for court challenges and the time early voting commences, the statutory deadline for legislative candidates is a practical necessity and cannot be delayed without jeopardizing the availability of ballots for early voting,” Mrs. Brewer’s affidavit states.

Changing the filing deadline for candidates could not be done without first getting Justice Department approval, a process for which the federal agency can take as many as 60 days.

In an interview March 9 with Arizona Capitol Times, Mrs. Brewer said: “My big concern is that we have certain dates that we have to meet. Election officials need to be able to do their jobs; candidates deserve to have a fair process. When you start changing things in haste, you create bigger problems, bigger issues.”

One way that the state might avoid a last-minute scramble to print ballots would be to use the interim legislative boundaries used in the 2002 election. Those lines already have the approval of the Justice Department, but Judge Fields also would have to grant permission to use them again for 2004. The judge has given no indication he will consider any interim map, although Judge Fields on Jan. 28 signed an order stating that the commission’s original legislative map, although unconstitutional, may still be used by candidates gathering nominating petition signatures.

The Redistricting Commission drew up its first proposal for a legislative map in early November 2003. Judge Fields in a Jan. 16 ruling declared that the first map was unconstitutional, because the boundaries didn’t give enough consideration to competitiveness, as required by a constitutional amendment voters approved in 2000. That same ballot measure also recreated the Independent Redistricting Commission, removing political mapmaking from legislators.

The latest legislative map was submitted to Judge Fields in a hearing on March 5. That proposal has eight districts, instead of four, that meet the judge’s order that voter registrations between the two major parties vary no more than 7 per cent. In those eight competitive districts, Democrats have a slight plurality of voter registrations in four while Republicans have slight pluralities in the other four.

Of the remaining districts that are not competitive, the Republicans hold registration advantage in 13 districts while Democrats have an advantage in nine districts. Statewide, Republicans lead Democrats 41 per cent to 36 per cent in voter registrations.

The 2002 election saw 17 Republicans and 13 Democrats – a split of 57 per cent to 43 per cent – elected to the Senate; while the House races saw 39 Republicans and 21 Democrats (one of whom has since become an independent) elected, a split of 65 per cent to 35 per cent. —