Key substantive accomplishments:
- Board adopted their revised Cantwell map - putting it back into Denali Borough as directed thy the Court. This was easy and there was no real debate because everyone agreed.
- Narrowed the number of plans the Board is considering from three to two.
- Option 2 remains the same - The East Anchorage Plaintiffs plan which just changes four Senate pairings
- Option 3b (I think that's the agreed on label) replaces Option 3 -The Ruedrich plan which keeps North Eagle River/Chugiak connected with JBER and Government Hill and North Anchorage and pairs South Eagle River with South Anchorage Hillside down to Girdwood. Ruedrich offered some changes today which leave more Senate pairings that were in the original proclamation plan.
Beyond that there was a lot of tension at times and a lot of making nice trying to smooth over the tensions. I can talk about those things - maybe in a later post - but they are more of interest regarding interpersonal relations, listening, trying to do things without acknowledging what you're trying to do - than with where the Board is now in terms of getting their job done and what that final package might look like.
But I would like to comment on a few things:
Law School helps with logic and dealing with reality
I've called the Board's attorney, Matt Singer, out for his manner of presenting things during the Court hearings. I want to say that he's a much nicer person when he's in his role as advisor to the Board. Perhaps that comes from having five bosses some of whom strongly disagree with each other. And despite my prior criticism of his courtroom manner, he won three out of the five cases against the Board in the Superior Court and the same number at the Supreme Court. Though they weren't the same cases.
In the last few days he's been an important voice for reason and reasonableness. He's tactfully tried to pull the Board back from some problematic decisions.
For example, Craig Campbell submitted a new map that created a new Senate district that wasn't contiguous, but had a solution to this. The Board just needed to take some unpopulated census tracks and swap them from one district to another to make the new Senate seat contiguous.
Singer calmly advised (paraphrased since I didn't catch it verbatim)
"Could Board adjust House map? It would need a very good explanation for the Court. Because there are other alternatives before you. Would be a real push. Adding Mr. Campbell’s to add non-populated census blocks, the sound of it raises question of compactness. Making it less compact would raise eyebrows. Not my first choice or recommendation."
He didn't use words like "absurd" but rather when he was saying no he delicately strung his words together so as not to offend.
I would say the same for Simpson as well. When Binkley proclaimed that he wouldn't vote to approve the Cantwell map ordered by the Supreme Court because he disagreed with the ruling, (again, an approximation of what he said:)
"We all voted in favor of the Cantwell extension, whatever, all though it was a good idea. We were trying to accommodate residents of the area, I certainly agree with you regarding the corporation boundaries. Feel it should be a consideration, not requirement, mapping of legislative districts. However the order of the SC is clear on this point and my vote will be in favor, rather than continue to create heat over this issue. Should heed the court’s decision and move on."
He did this a few other times. Is this a less partisan Simpson? I don't think we should assume that, but he is a trained and successful attorney and he understand the rule of law and how the system works.
[Added about midnightr: Borromeo is also an attorney and has been generally direct and and logical. And I don't mean to imply that you need to go to law school to get logical and understand the rule of law. Bahnke has stayed close to the key issues and been logical in her comments and actions as well.]
Why Were Borromeo's Conflicts Ignored During the Scheduling?
The Court gave the Board about a two week window to work on fixing the maps. April 1 through 15. On the first day, member Simpson said he'd cleared his calendar and was available. I believe member Marcum mentioned a conflict and Bahnke mentioned she couldn't meet on Friday. Then the Board set up dates for this week - Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday I think. Borromeo was pushing to get things done right away. She said it could be done in 15 minutes.
Tuesday, new dates were proposed - Thursday, Saturday. Then Binkley, I think, said they should finish things on Wednesday and Thursday April 13 and 14. At this point Borromeo said she had all day meetings those days. Simpson said he couldn't make it on Saturday, Sunday or Monday. Someone mentioned that he'd said he cleared his calendar for two weeks. He responded that when the schedule was set the first day, he adding activities on the off days. Bahnke wanted to meet on Tuesday and that's when we learned that Binkley had a conflict on Tuesday.
Several more times Borromeo mentioned she had a all day meetings on April 13 and 14.
Eventually they worked out that they could have public testimony without all the members being there and since they were recorded, people could watch the recordings when they were free.
But that still left a tug of war between those who wanted to finish things earlier (the B Team - see yesterday's post) and those who wanted to take their time and pointed out that the Judge didn't ask for a new plan by April 15, just a status report (The R Team). So today there was more debate. Borromeo wanted to finish things on Saturday and the R Team wanted to give the public and themselves more time to get up to speed. Binkley repeated that they'll spend the time they need on the 13th and 14th. I was thinking - but Borromeo said she had all day meetings those days. And then she said it herself: "Why are other people’s conflicts taken into account, but not mine?"
Why? Was Binkley so set on holding off until the 13th and 14th that he didn't want to hear what she said, so he didn't? He seemed to have those dates set from early on. Was the conflict between dealing with her request and what he'd decided too much to handle so he just ignored it? Usually Binkley is the flexible man. Anything can be changed at the last minute. Let's not lock ourselves in. Even though the Board specifically decided yesterday that the first public testimony today would be reserved for people talking about Cantwell, Binkley let three people talk about Anchorage. He didn't politely say, "We're just doing Cantwell first" and ask them to wait. And when someone mentioned this, he said, well they called in and I didn't want to cut them off. So as willing as Binkley is normally to be extremely flexible - to the point that it makes the Board less efficient - in this case he was dead set on April 13 and 14. Given the R team's consistent mantra of taking the time we need, there's not that much rush, plus the public testimony from those opposed to the Bahnke plan also saying the process should be delayed until later, I can't help but think that this is a coordinated effort. No proof, just looking at the bits of evidence out there.
I'm still gathering information on this issue so I'll stop here and just leave it for people to consider.
Don't Forget Senate Rotation and Truncation
One of the issues I want to talk about is expediency vs. taking our time, because it's been an issue debated by Board members and by members of the public testifying. I'm working on this topic, trying to get answers no one has been able to definitively give me.
But part of this debate came up earlier, I think, when member Bahnke said she was disturbed about not meeting to make the decisions until next Wednesday and Thursday (April 13 and 14) because the court wanted an update by April 15. She asked about whether metes and bounds would be necessary for the changed Senate seats. Chair Binkley responded that for Senate seats that isn't necessary because they are made up of House seats which have already had their metes and bounds done. (That is creating a verbal description of the boundaries of each district.) That is true, though today Binkley wanted to add the Craig Campbell map to the Options and it would have required changes to a House district and that would have then required metes and bounds for that newly adjusted district. That's not going to happen because the Board rejected that idea.
But once the new Senate seats are approved, there will need to be an assessment of whether the new Senate seats need to be truncated (probably, because all but one were truncated the first time round) and then how the new seats will fit into the Senate Rotation system. (One third of the senate must be up for election each year, so the Board has to determine which year each of the new seats will need to run in which election cycle.) Last time round, the Board managed to do this in a way that forced Republican Senators who hadn't been strong supporters of the Governor into extra elections. I wrote about this last November 26, 2021.
So, post Senate pairings will not be quite as 'home and clear' as Chair Binkley suggested. Though since there should only be four or so Senate seats affected, this might not take too long, but I would hope people look at this process more carefully to be sure there isn't a hidden political twist to this as there was last time.
Concluding Remarks
As you can probably tell, the meetings have been packed with undercurrents and I could write on half a dozen or more but there isn't enough time. And with daily meetings, more comes in each day.
I would note an email I got as a subscriber to the Board's email announcement this evening that also summarizes what happened today and where you can find the public testimony. I'll just copy it to the end here.
Thursday's meeting starts at noon.
- The Board adopted proposed revisions to House Districts 29, 30 and 36 in response to the Alaska Supreme Court's order that Cantwell should be placed with the Denali Borough. A new House district shapefile has been produced, error checked and is being utilized to craft revised metes and bounds.
- The Board received substantial public testimony regarding Senate pairings in Anchorage.
- The Board unanimously adopted a revised version of Senate Pairing Option 3, now labeled 3B for the purposes of public feedback and review.
- The Board unanimously withdrew Senate Pairing Option 1, originally adopted for purposes of public feedback on Monday, April 4th.
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