A new legislative map that satisfies a judge’s order for more competitive districts is drawing criticism from some quarters for splitting up communities with common regional and political interests.

Outside of the Tucson and Phoenix areas, legislative districts in the north and west parts of the state face the biggest changes.

The new map puts the two biggest cities in Mohave County — Kingman and Bullhead City — into different districts. Until now they shared District 3. And Lake Havasu City actually gets split between two districts.

If the map is approved, Kingman will join a northern district that includes the Hopi and Navajo Indian reservations. The same district would also take in Page, Fredonia and Colorado City from the old District 3 boundaries.

While Bullhead City will stay in District 3, the newly drawn district that will shift horizontally to take in Flagstaff, which once was in the same district as the Navajo and Hopi reservations.

District 3 loses Buckskin, Quartzite and a large section of Lake Havasu City. Portions of Lake Havasu City now will be in separate districts.

The district shifts already are drawing criticism from some lawmakers who say that they split up communities with common interests.

Rep. Bill Wagner, R-3, of Bullhead City, said he laments the breakup of District 3 because it joined a string of communities along the Colorado River.

“I’d prefer to have communities with common interests making up the district,” Mr. Wagner said.

Regardless of how different the district looks next year, Mr. Wagner plans to run again for his House seat.

“Whatever is decided on, that is where I’ll campaign,” Mr. Wagner said. “I just hate to see the breakup of a good district.”

In 2000, voter-approved Proposition 106 created the Independent Redistricting Commission, charged with making maps that take into account, among other things, competitiveness and communities of interest.

The commission adopted a new set of maps in May 2002 that were used in the fall 2002 elections. A minority coalition including several current and former Democratic lawmakers filed suit claiming the commission’s maps weren’t competitive and that the newly drawn districts favored Republicans.

In January, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Kenneth Fields ruled the commission violated the Constitution by not considering competitiveness in its new maps. After a month of public hearings the commission produced a new map that increases the number of politically competitive districts to eight from four. Judge Fields accepted the reworked map and now the commission has 30 days to get public comment before sending it on to the U.S. Justice Department for final approval.

IRC Doesn’t Like Maps

The commission is appealing the ruling to the state Court of Appeals, but it is unknown how soon it will be heard, said Commission Chairman Steve Lynn.

Mr. Lynn said the court’s decision puts the importance of having competitive districts above the other constitutional requirements — to respect communities of common interests and to be geographically compact and contiguous.

“None of us cared for those maps. They aren’t maps we support and we wouldn’t have made them if the court hadn’t ordered us to,” Mr. Lynn said.

Not only did the emphasis placed on competitiveness force the commission to split geographic regions, in the case of Lake Havasu City they were forced to divide the city between districts to balance population, Mr. Lynn said.

“We know that splitting a city like Lake Havasu is not good,” Mr. Lynn said. “That’s what you have to do to make competitive districts in rural areas.”

The largest chunk of the city will be grouped into the district with Flagstaff while the rest of it will reside in a district that extends as far as west Phoenix.

Lake Havasu City officials are angry that part of their desert/river community will be represented by lawmakers from northern timber country who don’t have the same political agendas, said Mayor Bob Whelan of Lake Havasu City.

“We have a lot of problems with them cutting us in half and then taking half of our town and stuffing it in with west Phoenix,” Mr. Whelan said.

Mr. Whelan said balancing the districts’ populations by dividing the town is detrimental to city voters.

“It seems to me there are a lot of other ways they could have done it,” Mr. Whelan said. “This greatly diminishes the effect we have politically in Phoenix…. Cutting us in half we have no power in either district.”

Mr. Whelan said the city is planning on filing a complaint with the commission, but said he is not sure what impact if any it will have on Judge Fields decision to send the maps to the Department of Justice.

Navajo Nation tribal officials are upset by lobbying efforts by the Flagstaff Metropolitan Planning Organization, which had the city removed from the predominantly Native American district.

“We thought that a lot of our problems with segregation by race had all but disappeared. It is a disappointment to learn that this type of covert segregation still exists in communities where they live off Navajo dollars,” Speaker Lawrence Morgan said. “The message we are hearing from the neighboring cities is, ‘We want your money, but we don’t want to be included with you.’”

Mike Mandell, an attorney representing the minority coalition, said the new maps ensure that voters’ choices will count.

“It’s what the commission should have done in the first place,” Mr. Mandell said. “Voters actually have some choices in 100 per cent of those districts…. In the past, elections were over at the primary.”

The map can bee seen at www.azredistricting.com. Comments can be submitted by email, fax and mail. —

Bob Purvis is the Don Bolles Fellow in the University of Arizona Journalism Department. He is spending the spring semester of his senior year covering rural and suburban issues at the Legislature for the department’s Community News Service, serving 80 newspapers around the state.