Alaska Redistricting: Meeting Wednesday Dec 15; Law Suits Due Soon; VRA Language Requirements Alaska

 Let's just get a few things out here:

NEXT MEETING OF THE BOARD 

"The Alaska Redistricting Board will be meeting virtually on Wednesday, December 15 starting at 2:30pm. The meeting can be accessed in the following ways:

Listening to the audio stream on the legislature’s website at: www.akl.tv.

Calling in to the listen-only teleconference using the legislature’s teleconference system:  from Anchorage 563-9085; from Juneau 586-9085; from anywhere else: 844-586-9085.

The agenda and backup materials are posted to our website at: Alaska Redistricting Board - Minutes & Audio (akredistrict.org). They are also attached to the public notices on the State of Alaska’s Online Public Notice system at: http://notice.alaska.gov/204673 and on the Legislature’s website here.

Note: public testimony will not be taken at this meeting."

Looking at the Agenda, I'd say there won't be much public discussion of anything important.  

Agenda

1. Call to Order and Establish Quorum
2. Adoption of Agenda
3. Adoption of Minutes from previous BoardMeetings
4. Litigation review in Executive Session with Legal Counsel
5. Litigation management discussion
6. Adjournment 

There's also a link to documents - "Board Packet" -  that includes:

1.  Board Minutes Since September 2020 - I'd note that while the Board has been good about putting lots of documents up on the website, including audio and video, in a timely manner, none of the parts that said "minutes" on the site had links.  Now, we get them.  Some over a year old.  How did these get approved?  It would seem that decision, at least how it was going to be done, should have been public.  That said, the minutes are far more detailed than the minutes kept by the 2010 Board.  

I'd point to his from the February 26, 2021 meeting about contacts Board members had with members of the public:

"Although it may be helpful for there be a policy for individual board members not to engage in off-record discussions, this is also a valuable way to gain public input.

• Ms. Bahnke suggested that if the board allows itself to individually engage with the public and community groups in their formal role as Redistricting Board members, a record of the engagement activities of each board member should be publicly shared."

It would be helpful to hear from members Binkley, Marcum, and Simpson detailing the contacts they had with people not on the Board concerning advice on making maps, pairing House districts into Senate seats, and allocating senate terms.  After early testimony that voiced concern that partisan politics had played a big role in the early maps, Members Borromeo and Bahnke publicly said they had not had contact with anyone except other Board members and staff concerning how they made their maps.  The other three Board members remained silent on this.

2.  A copy of the Matsu Borough lawsuit 

 

LAWSUIT DEADLINE IS 30 DAYS AFTER PROCLAMATION - BY MY COUNT FRIDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2021

 One lawsuit is already in and available at the end of the Board packet.  I believe there will be at least one more filed, possibly more.  So today (Thursday December 9) or tomorrow we should know.

VRA LANGUAGE REQUIREMENTS FOR ALASKA BALLOTS 

This twitter thread explains this better than I can.  [Click on the Tweet to get to the whole thread] But I'm putting up the image with the list of Alaska communities required to have ballots in languages besides English.  I had a few questions - still unanswered:

1. Why is there a Yup'ik requirement for Kenai and Kodiak?  
2. My first reaction was why Filipino?  I thought that there were many languages spoken in the Philippines - the main one being Tagalog.  Well, Wikipedia answered my question:

"Filipino (English: /ˌfɪlɪˈpiːnoʊ/ (About this soundlisten);[2] Wikang Filipino, locally [wɪˈkɐŋ ˌfiːliˈpiːno]) is the national language (Wikang pambansa / Pambansang wika) of the Philippines. Filipino is also designated, along with English, as an official language of the country.[3] It is a standardized variety of the Tagalog language,"

NEW: The Census Bureau has released an updated list of state and local governments that are required to provide language assistance to voters who do not speak English very well, per Section 203 of the Voting Rights Acthttps://t.co/OJn5Vfi8Pg pic.twitter.com/jGCDeudY4j

— Hansi Lo Wang (he/him) (@hansilowang) December 8, 2021