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Category: Redistricting (Political Process)
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Published: Friday, 15 September 2006
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Written by PT Editors
November 2, 2005
PT talks to Steve Lynn, chairman of the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission, about the process, pitfalls and politics behind drawing legislative and congressional districts.
PT: How did Arizona's Prop. 106 come to pass? How did voters make that connection between their daily lives and redistricting?
Lynn: It was fairly interesting. It helped that Prop. 106 was authored by three notoriously nonpartisan groups of people. But what allowed it to pass was the adoption of the proposal by the Democratic Party as a supposed mechanism to elect more Democrats. Now, that didn't happen, and it wasn't because the commission was partisan Republican—it was split evenly with one independent. It happened because the law precluded spending a lot of energy trying to make districts more competitive.
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Category: Redistricting (Political Process)
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Published: Thursday, 14 September 2006
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Written by PT Editors
September 8, 2006
What do California's mayors think of redistricting? PT spoke with Ronald O. Loveridge, Mayor of Riverside; and John Beckman, the Mayor of Lodi.
PT: Mayor Loveridge, what's on the minds of the citizens of Riverside?
Loveridge: We are a city of 300,000. I'd describe us as being a diverse, exciting and successful city. If you ask people on the streets or in polls, traffic congestion is an issue that surfaces that people talk about in terms of quality of life. There's also a sort of destiny question of building empires for the major point of growth for jobs and people in California. There's concern over how you sustain quality of life while you grow.
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Category: Redistricting (Political Process)
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Published: Thursday, 14 September 2006
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Written by PT Editors
September 8, 2006
Critics say that redistricting comes down to power politics--proponents argue that it promises better schools, less crowded freeways and improved healthcare. California voters will render their verdict on November 8.
State Senators Don Perata, Alan Lowenthal, and their colleagues connect the dots between gerrymandering, incumbency and fixing what may ultimately be the problem.
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