GOP bill to gerrymander Arizona’s biggest county flops for now – By Stephen Wolf (DailyKos) / Apr 1 2023
Arizona’s Senate has rejected a GOP effort to carve up the state’s largest county in a desperate bid to cling to power, but even though one-quarter of Republican lawmakers voted against it, the plan is not dead. The bill’s chief sponsor says he intends to bring it up again next year, and could win more support the next time around.
Earlier this year, GOP lawmakers introduced legislation that would divide Maricopa County, which contains three-fifths of the state’s population and most of the Phoenix metro area, into four separate counties. The right-wing hardliners who backed the measure claimed they’re motivated by a desire to improve local government, but the proposal would almost certainly dilute the political power of the Phoenix area’s growing Latino and Black populations while advantaging white Republicans. The scheme harkens back to the Jim Crow era, when white supremacists redrew county lines across the South to undermine Black voting power.
While both Arizona at large and Maricopa in particular had long been Republican strongholds, both jurisdictions flipped to Joe Biden in 2020 and began voting Democratic for Senate and governor for the first time in many years. That same year, Republicans narrowly preserved their 4-1 majority on the county’s Board of Supervisors despite Biden’s win, but GOP county leaders have since strongly resisted Donald Trump’s election denial schemes and in doing so enraged their party’s MAGA wing. Thanks to this internal Republican split and Maricopa’s blue trend, Democrats have a real chance to flip the board in 2024 and take charge of this county of 4.4 million people, which is the nation’s fourth largest.
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