REDISTRICTING INVESTIGATION ONGOING

posted by Andrea Kelly

Arizona's Attorney General, Tom Horne, continues to look into two allegations that the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission may not be doing business on the up-and-up.

His office received a complaint that the commission had violated open meetings laws and that it didn't follow a proper procurement policy when hiring contractors, including the company that will assist in drawing the congressional and legislative district maps.

Horne said today he's continuing to look into the complaints.

"There's a lot of public interest in this so I've asked people to give it a priority and do it as soon as possible," Horne said.

"We are going to be investigating the documents the minutes of the executive session and interviewing the commission members and doing whatever else we need to do to ensure there have been no violations of open meeting laws or procurement laws. If we find no violations, I think people will be relieved to find that out. If we do find violations, then we'll have to pursue them," Horne said.

Last week, Ray Bladine, the executive director of the redistricting commission, said in an interview the commission followed the state procurement policy for hiring its contractors. That policy requires meetings to be held in executive session, not accessible to the public.