GOULD FILES PAPERWORK FOR CONGRESSIONAL RUN

posted by Andrea Kelly

Republican State Sen. Ron Gould has been rumored to be considering a Congressional run in 2012, but he appears to be in the race now, no longer exploring whether to launch a campaign.

Gould filed paperwork with the Federal Elections Committee to become a candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives in Arizona. He's said he'd like to run in what could be the new district four, along the state's western border with California (that is, if district lines don't change by the time the redistricting commission and the U.S. Department of Justice review the proposed lines).

While Gould's campaign committee is called "Gould for Congress (Exploratory)," he's submitted a formal statement of candidacy.

Usually, candidates who are exploring whether to run for a federal office open their exploratory committees with tax filings with the Internal Revenue Service, which is what Republican State Sen. Frank Antenori has done. Gould instead went straight to the Federal Elections Commission, which is where candidates are required to file financial and organizational records once they're officially running for office.

REDISTRICTING RESTART; LEGALITIES LINGER

posted by Michael Chihak

The Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission will resume meeting Tuesday. As it does, the specter of more legal fighting hangs over state politics.

The commission's will meet after a three-week hiatus for legal proceedings over the unseating and reinstalling of chair Colleen Mathis.

Meetings will be held Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday in Tempe so the five-member commission can review comments and testimony that came to it during a month of public meetings around the state. Those meetings ended in early November, when the commission was supposed to begin finalizing its congressional and legislative maps.

Instead, Gov. Jan Brewer notified Mathis that her removal was being sought for "gross negligence" in the way she conducted the commission's business. Brewer -- backed by a two-thirds vote in the state Senate -- accused Mathis of violating the state Open Meeting Law and of violating the state constitution's provisions for redistricting.

Mathis was removed on the Senate's vote, but she and the commission appealed to the state Supreme Court. The court first ordered Mathis reinstalled, saying Brewer had overstepped, then rejected the governor's request for a stay of the order pending further appeal.

The legal fireworks almost certainly won't end with that. Brewer's spokesman says she is considering her options, and legislators are considering theirs, too.

Don't be surprised if the governor takes another legal step this week, and that could include calling a special legislative session at which an early ballot measure would be proposed to in effect repeal the 2000 voter initiative that created the commission.