PHOENIX — The way Justin Wadsack sees it, some people looking for a new home might want to live in a congressional district represented by someone who shares their political views.
The only problem: The Tucson Republican said state law currently prohibits real estate agents like her from providing that kind of information. The same goes for congressional, county supervisor, and city council districts.
So Wadsack on Wednesday had members of the Senate Government Committee vote to not only repeal the ban but also require agencies to proactively provide that information to homebuyers.
“Purchasing a home is the biggest and biggest investment anyone can make,” she told her colleagues on the panel.
“If they're a Democrat and they want to move into a Democratic area, they should know that they're moving into a Democratic area,” Wadsack said. “That would make it easier for them to approach city council members.”
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Senator Justin Wadsack
Howard Fisher, Capitol Media Services, File 2024
There is precedent for what SB 1581 contains. Wadsack said Arizona law already requires real estate agents using multiple listing services to disclose in which school districts the homes being offered are located.
“When buyers come to me, one of their top search criteria is, 'Please make sure I'm in the Marana School District. I don't want to live in TUSD,'” she said. mentioned neighboring Tucson Unified University. school district.
“And we need to be able to only display homes within the Marana School District in our search criteria through the MLS,” Wadsack said. “How is this different from saying, 'I only want to be in CD 6 Congressional District, or I want to be in LD 18?'”
Wadsack said this works both ways politically.
For example, someone might want Democratic Sen. Priya Sundareshan, also of Tucson, to become a state senator, she said.
“I don't want anyone else to represent me other than her,” Wadsack says, a comment that could be coming from a potential home buyer. She said, “She wants to be able to call her office and say, 'I'm your voter.'”
That information is already public record, she acknowledged.
But Wadsack noted that figuring out that a particular property is in a particular legislative, legislative, supervisory or city council district requires some searching and searching multiple databases.
She also says buyers can't assume that if they move to a certain part of town they'll get the specific representation they want. “Because district lines are, for lack of a better word, gerrymandered in many ways.”
Wadsack said the issue of political representation is important for people moving to Arizona from other areas.
“They want to know how one state's political ideology might apply to another state,” she says. “And they don’t want to go back to a different scenario that they just walked away from.”
Sen. Juan Mendez, D-Tempe, said he believes there are good reasons for the restriction and why it shouldn't be removed.
“This opens the door to the kinds of conversations that have allowed redlining to occur in the past,” he said.
In general, redlining is the practice of banks and other financial institutions to designate certain areas as high-risk and refuse to provide mortgage loans to buyers in those areas, often due to racial characteristics. point. But it also takes the form of real estate agents directing customers to areas they believe are aligned with people who share similar beliefs.
But Wadsack said her bill only deals with disclosing specific districts by number. The names of the representatives and their political affiliations have not been disclosed.
And agents are not allowed to accept requests from clients who may wish to work in areas represented by either party, she said.
Red lines aside, Mendez wondered how useful this information would be.
He noted that district boundaries change every 10 years, which is a much shorter period of time than most people own a home. What that means is that people who are currently buying a home with the intention of being represented by a particular individual or political party may find that in just a few years, the political landscape is changing beneath their feet. , Mendez said.
That's true, Wadsack acknowledged.
“But if you're in a neighborhood you no longer want to live in, you can look on the MLS and include 'I want to live in LD 18' as part of your search criteria,” she says. .
“We need to give people a choice,” Wadsack continued. “Checking the political status of things is now part of everyone's daily life.”
Sundareshan said he was concerned about “everything being politicized.”
“But we also saw potential benefits here for civic education purposes,” she said, and buyers were provided with more information.
“When you look at the school district information, you also see there are other jurisdictions that you are a part of,” Sundareshan said. “And that may increase public knowledge and participation.”
The 5-1 vote on the bill will send it to the full Senate.
Howard Fisher is a veteran journalist who has been reporting since 1970 and covering state politics and Congress since 1982. Follow him on X (previously he was known as Twitter) and Threads (@azcapmedia) or via email. azcapmedia@gmail.com.
