Phoenix to adjust City Council district boundaries

The city is required by law to adjust council district boundaries every 10 years based on the most recent census data. While each of Phoenix’s eight districts has added people since the last redistricting, some have gained significantly more. The goal is to make each district’s population as close to 201,017 as possible. Representation of the population must also be taken into consideration.

Another round of community meetings will take place in September before an outside firm hired by the city to manage the process presents its plan to to the City Council in late September. Once approved, the new boundaries will take effect Jan. 1, 2024.

Phoenix City Clerk Denise Archibald discusses these changes.

What is the process of redistricting like?

“To maintain impartiality and to make sure that it’s a fair process, we basically get a consultant. This year, we received authorization from the City Council through a procurement process to engage with ARCBridge Consulting. They are redistricting experts, and so they are the ones that collect all the data. It’s really a data driven process. We’re trying to look at the 2020 census and see what were the changes in population growth, and equalize that population for each district,” Archibald said.

Each of the districts grew, some more than others. There are four districts that need to gain population and four that need to reduce population. In addition to this, there are also some legal principles that need to be followed, including maintaining the Voting Rights Act requirements, compactness, contiguity, etc.

“We also try to follow the county’s precinct boundaries. So in addition to all of those requirements, they start re-drawing those boundaries in accordance with those requirements,” Archibald said.