Redistricting -- extreme short notice UPDATED 12:30pm MST

Legislative staffers are still expecting to hear that the governor will call the legislature into special session today. Expectation is STILL for a 1pm (today) start time -- now less than an hour away.

Several questions must naturally be asked about why this is so urgently important.

However, one of the more poignant questions has to be what can be so doggone urgent as to issue a call without giving adequate time for members from outside of Maricopa County or the Phoenix metro area time to travel and arrive on time.

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According to the Yellow Sheet, a complicating factor for the senate GOP arises from the illustrious Frank Antenori:

...Antenori told our reporter he has the votes needed to kill any attempt to remove commissioners if the special session call doesn’t include language allowing for the referral of a measure to the February presidential preference primary ballot to either amend or repeal the IRC – something he said Brewer is unwilling to do. “I’m not going to let this freaking governor push me around. This is pure, stupid, stubborn Jan Brewer,” he said. Antenori placed the blame for Brewer’s position on the GOP congressional delegation and FAIR Trust, and said they prefer dismantling the IRC via removal and sending the maps to a three-judge panel because they believe they can persuade them to draw favorable lines. After a flurry of phone calls last night and this morning, Antenori said he now has the backing of four other caucus members and expects to peel another two or three off from leadership before the closed caucus ends: “If I go into this caucus room at 12:30, this thing goes down. I’m not playing around…. This is the line in the sand. We’re referring it to the ballot, whether we’re amending (prop 106), scrapping it, fixing it. I don’t care. It cannot stand as is.”