Redistricting Board Showing Their Agendas As Decision About Final Map Nears (Completed Now)

 You could watch the Alaska Redistricting Board yesterday via Zoom and you can again today starting at 9am.  It's a much better view than I expected.  And the public has had significantly more distance access to the Board meetings this year than ten years ago.

Join Zoom Meeting https://zoom.us/j/9074062894?pwd=VWxjem42YUloTnBFcTlpVWZVS0wwZz09

Meeting ID: 907 406 2894;  Passcode: MoreMaps

For the most part yesterday, I only saw about 37 participants on the Zoom.  Alaskans should just leave it on the background and then listen in when they start debating. 

I'll post this much now so people can link and watch.  Then I'll repost this when I've added a bit more about yesterday.  

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OK, this shouldn't be too long.  For the most part, I had the zoom on while I did other things.  Part of the meeting was quiet as people worked on their maps.  

Then there were parts that were loud and clear and somewhat contentious.  I'm going to address two parts: 

1.  Melanie Bahnke's ardent fight to not have Interior villages in the same district as Coastal Naive communities.  At one point she said she was taking off her Board hat and putting on her Native Leader hat as she cited "Socio-economic integration" over and over again.  There's no SEI between Coastal Native peoples and Interior people. was her mantra.  It got a little tense.  Chair John Binkley was a voice of calm trying to find a way to make everyone happy.  I had to run some errands so I didn't hear how it worked out.  When I got back they were working on Fairbanks.  

2.  This second point I only know second hand.  Apparently Board member Bethany Marcum drafted a new Anchorage map that pairs East Anchorage with Eagle River.  There's been plenty of testimony from both East Anchorage AND Eagle River not to do this.  But the Board's attorney has been pushing hard on the Supreme Court past rulings that said all of Anchorage is Socio-Economically Integrated.  Others have argued strongly Eagle River is seriously working on seceeding from Anchorage and should be in its own districts.  And there are maps that do this.  Note, Bill Wielechowski is the Democratic Senator from East Anchorage.  In the last round of redistricting, an East Anchorage house district was paired with an Eagle River house district to form Sen. Bettye Davis' new Senate district.  And at the next election, the more conservative Eagle River voters voted the only African-American Senator out of office.  I have a post from 2013 titled The Alaska Senator The Oil Companies Most Hate.  They'd love to get rid of him.

This proposed map seriously diminishes the voices of East Anchorage. Virtually everyone has testified against pairing East Anchorage with Eagle River including the Northeast Community Council, which overwhelmingly opposed it. Still time to fix it. https://t.co/h1sm43di3h

— Bill Wielechowski (@wielechowski) November 4, 2021

Let's remember that as open and relatively transparent the Board has been, and as hospitable the chair John Binkley has been, redistricting is essentially a political process to influence who gets into the legislature for the next ten years.  With Republicans doing all they can to make voting more difficult for POC voters all across the country, we shouldn't assume sweetness and light at the Alaska Redistricting Board.  

In the last round of redistricting there were four Republicans and one Alaska Native of uncertain party who was appointed by the Supreme Court Chief Justice.  This time Governor Dunleavy, who has been pushing far right issues from so called "federal overreach" to "severe budget cutting" to "anti-masking" and on and on, appointed Bethany Marcum and Budd Simpson.  Marcum is the executive director of the Alaska Policy Forum.  It's part of a nationwide franchise funded in part by the Koch network.  It's mission and goals push a hard libertarian, personal freedom line.  She's the one, if I recall right, who proposed the Board's rule of not protecting incumbents.  The Board has not made a rule to not target incumbents.  She also made the first Anchorage maps that paired lots of Democrats into the same districts.  She is just doing what she's paid to do by the Alaska Policy Forum and what Dunleavy chose her to do - get more Republican elected and weaken Democrats.  If the rest of the Board can't fix her partisan mapping, then it's up to the public to help those organizations that will sue the Board and urge the courts to correct the maps.  Here's a post that tells you about the 3rd Party groups that have submitted maps and you can contact the one(s) that most match your values and ask how you can support them with your time or your money.

9:56am  They were just about to vote to include Valdez with the Matsu Borough.  Marcum objected saying she wants to wait until they deal with Fairbanks because Valdez could go in that direction too.  She also raised the issue that Matsu is the fastest growing area.  Well, John Binkley, the other day pointed out that the Board cannot consider such issues.  They can only consider the official census numbers.  

And my Zoom connection just crashed.  OK, back on.  

The Fairbanks map is now up and John Binkley is recounting how the original maps overpopulated Fairbanks (all districts had more than the 18,335 per district target) and how the Fairbanks feedback, including the local government were opposed and that the Board should listen.