Alaska Redistricting Trial Day 10 - Budd Simpson On The Hot Seat

[Beware of typos.  Read at your own risk.  Too tired to clean this up anymore now.]

There is just sooo much to look at today.  More than I have time for.  So today I'm going to try to outline the key areas that attorney Robin Brena tried to make.  

But first, my conclusion based on all the testimony of Simpson, Skagway Mayor Cremata, City Manager Ryan, and business owner Wrentmore.  The Doyon Map and the Senate Minority Map did as well.  The AFFER and AFFR maps did not - the AFFR map treated SE very differently puttSkagway with all the SE Islands down to the Canadian border and up the coast including Yakutat.

Judge Matthews (r),Brena (l) Simpson below

In all day yesterday and today there were lots of reasons - mainly the close ties between Skagway and downtown Juneau over many, many things from cruise line issues to that's where Skagway does all its business.  

There were no compelling reasons given for drawing the map the way Simpson drew it except to make it compact and to get the right number of people in the two districts because Juneau doesn't have enough people for two districts.  On redirect Simpson didn't dispute that it could work just as well  with the Skagway people in downtown and the Valley joined together.  He didn't deny that the overwhelming testimony was to keep Skagway in downtown and to keep the Valley together.  Singer, the board's attorney, to counter the public testimony asked, " Is redistricting a popularity contest?"  

Not sure if the judge can find a constitutional hook to overturn this pairing, but it really seemed that no one, except Simpson and the Board, are opposed to Skagway being with downtown Juneau and the Mendenhall Valley all together in its own district.  If there is opposition, it didn't come out in the trial.  

Points that Skagway attorney Brena seemed to have on his list.  I'll try to look at some of these in more detail over the weekend, because there  is a rich trove of issues.  

1.  Why was Simpson appointed to the Board and his ties to the GOP

In this section Simpson said that Sen. Giessel recommended him to the Governor and "she knew I was a Republican in SE and was interested in geographic diversity and knew me well enough to think I might be ok."  I've pointed out in a previous post that the Alaska Constitution says 

 "Appointments shall be made without regard to political affiliation."

  So already we have a constitutional violation if he was picked because he was a Republican.  Some discussion of holding GOP fundraisers and donating money to the party and to GOP candidates.  His wife very much a member of the party.  

2.  Simpson's connections to and knowledge about Skagway.

Partly this continues some of the political ties from #1.  Simpson hasn't spent a lot of time in Skagway.  Overnighted there once in the 1980s on Alcan trip.  More recently he stayed in a lodge outside of Skagway because he won an overnight  there at a political fundraiser.  They have a cabin near Haines so they spend more much more time there

3.  Sealaska is Simpson's biggest client

He's represented them for 40 years.  Brena pointed out that the district lines are closely to Sealaska boundaries in SE.  When pushed by Brena for how much they pay him, he said, "It's nobody's business."  Judge Matthews intervened and asked, Would it be accurate to say in the six figures?  Simpson said yes.  Brena asked, "Seven figures?"  Simpson said no.  

Brena also pointed out that Sealaska was part of the Doyon Coalition and their map had Skagway with downtown Juneau.  Did you get Sealaska's sign off to do it differently?  The gist was if he didn't get their signature, he did get their approval to change it.  

4.  A road from Juneau to Skagway

Brena spent some time on the fact that Simpson's wife had started a group that was pushing a road to Skagway.  He showed a Must Read Alaska column on the road.  [When I looked for the link to that article I saw there was a new article today "Redistricting sexism: Lawyer Robin Brena attacks wife of redistricting member because she favored Juneau Access Project."  Does that mean criticizing a woman is sexism?]

Brena got Simpson to say he agreed with the idea that a road is needed.  Brena asked Simpson if he could imagine why people might oppose the road and he said he couldn't.  

Then Brena walked him through a long explanation of how the road from Skagway to the Yukon put the freight business of the Skagway Railroad out of business and the people of Skagway know that a road from Juneau to Skagway would turn Skagway into a truck stop.  They were spending a lot of money building new port facilities to accommodate larger cruise ships but the road could ruin it all.  

The Skagway witness buttressed this when it was their turn.  Business woman (and sometime lobbyist) from Skagway added more to this argument.  She, as others had said, emphasized the need for a legislator who would understand Skagway's issues and downtown Juneau folks work with Skagway folks very closely on cruise line issues and many, many other issues.  But the people in residential Mendenhall Valley really are not connected with Skagway.  She gave an example of a Skagway issue she raised with another legislator in Juneau.  He was very sympathetic to her concern, but said she wasn't in his district.  Unless he got permission from her rep, he couldn't support her.  It was a courtesy among legislators.  So, if people continued pushing for a road to Skagway, and people in Mendenhall Valley thought, oh that would be nice, their rep would represent their interest and not the interests of the tiny fraction of his district in Skagway.  

5.  Testimony from Skagway and Juneau supported overwhelmingly keeping Skagway with downtown Juneau and not splitting up the Mendenhall Valley

Brena went through Simpson's handwritten notes person by person and got Simpson to confirm  all the Skagway people wanted Skagway and downtown in one districts.  All but one.  That one was Kathy Hosford.  Remember the lodge they stayed at outside of Skagway?  She owns it.  She's also the Republican District 3 chair.  And Simpson allowed that he may have already known her, that she may have been to his house, but he didn't remember for sure.  

Brena  went through Simpson's notes again on the Juneau public hearing.  Simpson allowed that those who spoke to Skagway wanted it with downtown.  Others didn't want to split the Valley (which has the same effect of putting Skagway with downtown, since the 4000 or so voters from the Valley put with downtown could be traded for about that number from Skagway, Haines, and Gustavus.

The Board's attorney's response to this when he questioned Simpson was, "Is redistricting a popularity contest?"  Can you get more cynical than that?  

6.  Why draw the line here?  

Some time was spent with Brena showing Simpson's line splitting Juneau and another line that would have split it at Sunny Point or at Fred Meyer.  Simpson didn't disagree that that could work too and keep Skagway with downtown.  He just said he started in Juneau south until he needed more people (Juneau is about 1.5 districts in population).  Brena pointed out that instead of splitting the Valley, he could move the white line (Simpson's D3/D4 split) to Fred Meyer (orange line) and add the Skagway group (Haines and Gustavus) into downtown Juneau and it would be even.  Simpson didn't disagree. (Which is as close to a yes as he came many times.)  

Another reason Simpson gave, when questioned by the Board's lawyer, was that Skagway was closer to Auke Bay than to downtown Juneau.  And when they looked at what he called the donut district (which put Skagway with downtown, by surrounding the valley with that other district, he complained it wasn't compact and - listen carefully - he said 

"[it's barely contiguous.  Northenr to Southern part almost has no people in it.  It’s basically a fiction."

I point this logic out because he and Marcum and Binkley say the opposite about compactness and contiguity when they defend the pairing of the Eagle River districts with south Muldoon and Government Hill.  

7.  Differences with Borromeo on Juneau maps

Brena began this session by asking if different Board members were given deference in decisions for the areas they were most familiar with.  Simpson agreed that they did that, and they did that with him and Southeast.  

When Brena first asked Simpson about the disagreement he had with member Borromeo over the Juneau districting, Simpson said there was no disagreement.  She merely made another map just as an exercise.  

But Brena went back to transcripts of the Board meeting.  It was clearly more than an exercise.  Borromeo wanted to know why it was different from the Doyon map.  Why he drew it that way even though the overwhelming testimony from Juneau and Skagway was against it.

In the end Borromeo says this givers her pause because of the Doyon maps. She also says she's heard from the Juneau residents (doesn't mention Skagway) and knows that the Juneau residents will be well represented, so she defers to Simpson.  

8.  Brena Continues Search For Conflict of Interest Waiver for Singer

I've mentioned before that Brena asked Board Chair Binkley if he had been aware, when they were moving Cantwell out of Denali Borough to be with other Ahtna villages in District 36, whether he knew that Board attorney Singer was representing Ahtna in two cases pending before the Alaska Supreme Court.  He said he didn't.  Singer said this was all taken care of and the letters sent in.  But Brena pointed out that it still hasn't been produced.  And they have a letter that there is another letter about conflicts that the Board never signed saying they were aware.  Singer led Simpson through questions which basically said it doesn't matter.  They didn't know that Ahtna would be involved.

Not sure this is related specifically to the Skagway case, but it did come up

10.  Why did Simpson make these pairings? 

Simpson never answered the question about all the testimony being for Skagway being with downtown Juneau and the Mendenhall Valley not split.  The only answers were vague comments about numbers, compactness, and contiguity.  And they also mentioned it didn't matter which part of Juneau Skagway was paired with because everything in a Borough is socio-economically integrated. Therefore, if Skagway was socio economically paired with downtown, then they were socio-economically paired with Mendenhall Valley.  

Those are are technical reasons, but not any more true than pairing Skagway with downtown.  

So why do what everyone was opposed to them doing?  Simpson didn't give a real answer to that.  I'm guessing that Brena's brining up the road from Juneau to Skagway was an innuendo of why.  And his mention of Kathy Hosford as the only person testifying for putting Skagway in the Mendenhall Valley was another oblique hint for the judge, suggesting some personal ties there.  

OK, It's 10pm Anchorage time and I've been at this since 9 am Anchorage time.  This will have to do.  

I did include my rough notes of the today's court session.  Simpson and Brena speak slower than most of the others so I was able to catch more.  But still, this is not verbatim and things are missing.  It's just to have a sense of what they talked about.

ARB Trial Day 10 Feb 3, 2022 by Steve on Scribd