Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
I spent the weekend speaking to individuals who are preparing to file a complaint this week about unregistered lobbyists who have been at every AIRC public hearing pressuring commissioners and even badgering members of the public. Things may get interesting.
For a taste of what this is about, Steve Muratore has a good summary at The Arizona Eagletarian: Redistricting — To Define or Not to Define, THAT is the question — UPDATED:
Since I've expounded on the situation with Cantelme's representation of UNfair Trust, it might also be appropriate to update the situation with John Mills, the taxpayer funded political operative reporting directly to Arizona House Speaker Andy Tobin. At more than one recent AIRC meeting (including yesterday in Casa Grande), Mills and Cantelme sat together and have been overheard discussing strategy.
On Monday (also in Casa Grande), Mills came up to interrupt in a conversation I was having with two people before the beginning of the meeting. I was explaining some of the issues that had been in the news regarding the commission. Mills contradicted me, which certainly is not surprising. I pointed out that he gets paid by taxpayers to do political work. He again contradicted me. Again, not surprising.
Remember, House public information officer Paul Boyer acknowledged to me that Mills attends these meetings while on the clock. Boyer said Mills was authorized to do so because the Prop 106 language allows the legislature to make recommendations on the maps that the AIRC eventually develops.
The question arises when Mills does ANYTHING other than just observe and report to his boss about what takes place at AIRC meetings. Can spinning political messages to citizens and interrupting when I'm talking to those citizens reasonably be construed as the legislature making recommendations to the AIRC on draft maps?
On Wednesday (at the Phoenix City Council Chambers), after a female citizen testified about prison gerrymandering, Mills confronted her alone in the lobby when she got up to visit the rest room. She told me about it. I expressed my displeasure to Mills at a later recess in the meeting. He wanted to tell me his side of the story. But I was not interested in his excuses.
Recall that in May, when I had asked for Mills thoughts on something the commission had decided, he told me he just wasn't going to talk to me about it. At the next meeting, he told me that if I wanted him to comment on anything, I needed to contact Paul Boyer. On Wednesday, he got upset that I didn't want to listen to him excuse his abusive behavior.
This is not the first incident where Mills went well beyond the limits of what could reasonably be allowable for him to be doing, while being paid by taxpayers, at AIRC meetings. He confronted me early on in the process, when I spoke about the number of competitive districts that could be drawn on the new maps without compromising Voting Rights Act compliance. Mills has also been seen at public meetings at least one other time rudely challenging a citizen.
Shouldn't Mills be called out — to the person who gives him orders and sign his time sheets — for this blatantly unlawful conduct?
We may soon find out.
Mr. Mills is the Republican staffer who recruited homeless people to run as sham Green Party candidates in 2010. See TRUTHAZ.
FAIR Trust, if that is its actual name, reportedly is a group put together by Republican politicians in Arizona to represent GOP interests at the Independent Redistricting Commission.
Unlike the Democratic Party redistricting organizations, i.e., the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee (a 527), the National Democratic Redistricting Trust, and Foundation for the Future (a 527), the secretive FAIR Trust is not readily identifiable as a 501(c)(4) nonprofit organization or a 527, or in some way related to the Republican Party's nonprofit group, Making America’s Promise Secure (MAPS). The national parties and redistricting: how each side is organizing | Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee.
Making America’s Promise Secure (MAPS) is one of at least four conservative groups raising money for redistricting-related efforts independent from the GOP's national party apparatus. GOP lags in early redistricting race (Politico, By Kenneth P. Vogel, June 5, 2010). The Republican State Leadership Committee absorbed the American Majority Project, a nonprofit group formed by GOP lawyer Ben Ginsberg, "and launched a reapportionment initiative called REDistricting MAjority Project or REDMAP, which is intended to target and win state legislative races that can tip the balance of legislatures that craft and vote on redistricting plans."
The Republican State Leadership Committee, a 527 group run by GOP operative Ed Gillespie, uses soft-money funds, including millions of dollars in corporate donations, for redistricting that "is expected to be funneled through a nonprofit arm of the organization, which means it won’t have to publicly report those donations." Redistricting Draws Unregulated Cash | Funders' Committee for Civic Participation (Politico, by John Bresnahan, March 30, 2011). “As far as the soft money goes, there’s different groups set up in different states.”