Since Sentinel publisher Dylan Smith declined to publish this rebuttal, and since it's really too long for a simple comment to Morlock's screed, I have no choice but to post it here. My apologies to Smith, who I genuinely respect. But I'm most surprised that he would allow something so detached from reality to be published on his website. Without further ado.
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Apparently, Blake Morlock (Redistricting win doesn’t mask how IRC failed in state races, June 29) was champing at the bit to burst the bubble of Arizona Democrats. At least for those who cheer the recent Supreme Court victory in Arizona Legislature v Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission. But in his apparent thesis, that “The Arizona Legislature is in troubbbllle ... you just sued the people of the state of Arizona and lost. Oh man. This is going to get bad....” He makes nonsensical leaps outside of any logical or rational framework.
Morlock
declared, “Wait. Wait. It won’t. It won’t and I will tell you
why.” He says the AIRC “blew it. They gaffed it. They ganked it.
They shanked it and hardly anyone has said a word about it.”
Morlock’s
conclusion? “Giving Kyrsten Sinema a solid shot at a seat in
Congress was done at the expense of actual competitive districts”
for the state legislature. Was this guy even IN
Arizona in 2011/2012?
Not one bit of Morlock’s fantastical,
highly imaginative story has any connection to either the mission of
the AIRC or the process as it took played out.
If he wanted to
say he’s disappointed that the legislative district map ended up
not being as competitive as he would like it, he could have done
that. And I would have wholeheartedly agreed. But BLAMING the AIRC
for woes of the Arizona Democratic Party can only be done if one
didn’t observe the 2011 independent redistricting cycle.
In
this case, one of the most important things that needs to be
understood by Arizona voters is that the legislative district map was
NOT dependent in ANY way on the final Congressional map. The two
processes were conducted by the same people but were otherwise
mutually exclusive. If Mr. Morlock doesn’t “get it” I’d be
happy to meet over coffee to help him understand.
I
can only wonder where Morlock was when I was observing the
interaction of the commissioners, AIRC staff or of the public in any
of the meetings. All map drawing took place fully in the open... in
open meetings attended and observed by the public and by journalists.
I was there. I documented the process extensively, writing well more
than 400 blog posts directly on the subject from December 2010 until
now. From when commissioner hopefuls were first screened to when the
maps were approved by the AIRC, submitted to the Department of
Justice for preclearance and then subjected to vitriolic court
challenges.
His musings about whether “Mathis
made a deal to work with commission Democrats on the House side and
Republicans to lock in the Legislature...” are beyond absurd and at
least borderline slanderous. Anyone who observed the process knows
that there was no such back room dealings. Republicans on the
commission have accused Mathis of making deals with the Democrats but
nothing in the record of the proceedings or any reportage on it even
comes close to the scenarios that flowed from Morlock’s
imagination, especially regarding deals with Republicans.
Currently, the Arizona Democratic Party
is rudderless. I’ll grant him that. But that’s not the case with
the Maricopa County or Pima County Democrats. Sure, it’s
frustrating for anyone who cares. But Morlock’s fiction exercise
simply has no basis in reality. If he wants to prescribe solutions
for the Arizona Democratic Party, go for it. But a hair
on fire op-ed blaming the Independent
Redistricting Commission for ADP’s problems is nowhere near the
target, let alone the bull’s eye.
I’m
all for using the kind of picturesque language Morlock used to
communicate his perspective. If only he would have been talking about
what actually took place.
To put Morlock’s screed in
perspective, I’d compare journalist Gail Sheehy’s memoir Daring:
My Passages
to the highly hyped Last
Magazine,
written by the late Michael Hastings and published
posthumously.
Sheehy’s prose brings ideas and events to
life. In the 1990s, her Pathfinders
provided inspiration to me as a budding writer. Hastings, killed in a
fiery crash of his new, high-tech automobile, was also a daring
journalist. Recklessly daring. His Last Magazine reflected that
recklessness and detachment from reality.
One
reader’s Amazon.com review of Hastings’ book provides an apt
description. “Michael
Hastings was a complicated man and a true gonzo reporter. Lurking on
his desktop at the time of his tragic death was, apparently, this
book. It should have stayed on the laptop. Perhaps with a great deal
of shaping, it might have been a profane but insightful view of
futile combat situations or a keen insider satire about the mix of
politics, careerism, and status-seeking that has invaded big-time
journalism. As it is, the book has no bite, just a lot of nasty pages
of obscene ramblings and a nonsensical 'plot', long on
stream-of-consciousness, short on revelations or even clear-minded
critique. I would rather have rewound time and not read this book,
and left my memory of Hastings’ estimable writing at a much better
place.
The
tone of that review fully reflects my observations about Morlock’s
piece, except, thankfully, Morlock has not and hopefully will not
meet with any tragedy like Hastings.
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