The Republican majority in the Arizona Legislature is contemplating legal options to redraw the state’s congressional map in time for the 2028 elections.
Senate President Warren Petersen, R-Gilbert, told The Center Square on Wednesday that the Legislature is “considering litigation to compel the redistricting commission to convene and redraw the [congressional] map.”
Petersen made his comments after the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling Monday in Louisiana v. Callais. The court ruled Section 2 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act does not mandate states to create additional minority-majority districts in their congressional maps. Section 2 implemented a nationwide ban on "the denial or abridgment of the right to vote on account of race or color,” according to the National Archives.
One of the factors that the current Arizona map considers is race, according to Petersen. If the redistricting commission, which is made up of two Republicans, two Democrats and one independent, redrew the state’s congressional map, it could no longer consider race when drawing districts, he said.
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