Appeals court says Open Meeting Law applies to Redistricting Commission
The Arizona Court of Appeals has ruled that the body responsible for drawing legislative and congressional district maps has to follow the state’s open meeting laws, but that prosecutors cannot restart an investigation into whether that happened.
The probe was looking into how the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission hired its mapping consultant, and whether the panel violated Arizona’s Open Meeting Law during that process. In response, commissioners asked the court to rule the IRC isn’t subject to those laws.
A lower court agreed, but the appeals court did not, saying in its ruling the Open Meeting Law does apply to the IRC. However, the appeals court also ruled there’s no reasonable cause to continue the investigation into that issue.
-Mark Brodie & Nick Blumberg
