Old Dog Learning New Tricks - Getting Access To Redistricting Board Court Hearings

Yesterday I sat on the phone waiting to hear the hearing on the Alaska Redistricting Board.  Turns out it was via Zoom.  Today,  I've gotten through to Judge Thomas Matthews office - he's the judge who will now be hearing the challenges to the Redistricting Board's Proclamation.  

I've filled out a TF945 form for "Application for Photographing, Filming, Recording, or Streaming a Court Proceeding".  I still need to get the email address to send it in.  The guidelines - Bulletin 45 - appear geared to manage in-court journalists and camera folks - and it seems they haven't updated their thinking for online coverage.  But, I get it, things are changing.  

There will be a hearing at 9am tomorrow via Zoom.  Here's the link to the court youtube page.  Presumably you'll (I'll) be able to get to hear tomorrow that way.  

click on image to enlarge and focus

From the Alaska Department of Law Legal Definitions:

"Discovery

The process by which the prosecution turns over all evidence against the defendant. Discovery can include written or oral statements."

If you missed the UPDATE to yesterday's post, Matt Buxton's report on what happened in court is linked.  Great coverage, lots of detail.  

Last time round - in 2011 - there was basically one major case against the Board, handled by a Fairbanks attorney.  While he got the courts to order some changes, he seemed to be a bit understaffed for such a big case.  The Board's attorney had had lots of experience in redistricting law.  But this time around there are five law suits - consolidated into one case - with various teams of attorneys.  The Board's attorney is less experienced in this area than the Board's 2010 attorney.  But he does have back up at his firm to help out.  

The time crunch is even greater this time around since the mapping process started five months later than it did in 2010, because the Census data was late in being released.  The time crunch is vicious this time.  They are supposed to be done 120 days before the deadline for people to file to run for the 2022 election.  Not sure how the Board's attorney is going to deal with responding to five different law suits at once.  

Most of the suits are fairly narrowly focused, sort of.  Valdez and Skagway don't like the districts they've been put in.  It's almost inevitable that will happen in Alaska redistricting.  Whether there was a violation of the State constitution, federal voting laws, or Alaska Supreme Court precedents is the real question.  Matsu has a complaint about a district being overpopulated.  The Board gets some help on that case from Doyon who's filed in opposition to the Matsu case.  Then there's Calista's case to get two villages into the same district as Bethel and the Anchorage/ER Senate pairing case.  I bet Board attorney Matt Singer is wondering why he wanted to represent the Board at this point.  

Some of these cases where a district has to be adjusted could trigger a bunch of other necessary changes to nearby districts.  And all this has to be done on a very tight schedule.  

I'd note that in 2010, the Board's new map was used, if I remember this correctly, for the 2012 election even while it was being challenged and a new map was made for the 2014 election.  

Hang on to your seats.