Alaska Redistricting Board Done Mapping - Board & Girdwood Plaintiffs Trying To Wrap Things Up

[Warning:  After points 1 and 2, I suspect only those really interested in Board trivia will be able to keep their eyes open.  Even I'm having trouble getting everything straight.  Be careful to note when I'm talking about the Superior Court and when the Supreme Court.  That was a wrinkle I hadn't thought about.]

Board activity on two fronts in the last couple of days:

1.  The maps are done.  Wednesday was the last day of the 30 day period to challenge the final Proclamation Plan.  There were no challenges.  So the Plan that was used for the 2022 election becomes the permanent plan.

2.  There are still questions about attorney fees for the Girdwood plaintiffs. (I thought other attorney fees issues were dealt with after the Interim Plan was approved, but it appears from Peter Torkelson's email that they might have been on hold too.) The Girdwood plaintiffs are the folks whose challenge led to the Supreme Court saying the Eagle River pairings were unconstitutional partisan gerrymandering in the second round.  

This all gets a little complicated.  I started by asking what I thought was a straightforward question about why the Board filed an objection to the request for fee reimbursement when Board Member Borromeo had said the decision to object should be discussed in Executive Session.  They didn't go into ES at the last meeting (when they approved the Permanent Plan) and there hasn't been a meeting since then.  .  

Looking at the Docket, it seems the Board's objection was only filed on June 2, 2023, more than two weeks after the Board met to approve the Final Proclamation Plan.  

Dkt#	Document	Item	Status	Date Filed or Issued	Filed or Issued By
40		Order Re: 39, Motion to Extend Time to File Reply to Opposition	Distributed	6/16/2023	Court
39		Motion to Extend Time to File Reply to Opposition	Filed	6/16/2023	Theiss, Louis
38		Opposition Re: 37, Motion for Attorney's Fees	Filed	6/2/2023	Alaska Redistricting Board
37		Motion for Attorney's Fees	Filed	5/12/2023	Theiss, Louis

 

 Board Executive Director Peter Torkelson emailed this response:

"The Girdwood fee objection was filed, along with all the others, to meet the Supreme Court's earlier deadline and does not preclude the Board from negotiating one or more settlements." 

That clarified some things, and another email said that there was a deadline to file an objection and the Board attorney, I'm assuming here, had to file something by the deadline or forfeit the right to object.  

The Board had postponed meeting until they knew whether there were any court challenges to the map.  The deadline for that was, as I said above, Wednesday.  There were none.  So now the Board can meet.  No challenges to discuss, but there's the reimbursement of attorneys fees to discuss.  

There are other complications too.  There are attorney fees for the Superior Court which, if I understand this right, will be decided by the Superior Court.  Then there are attorney fees for the Supreme Court which will be decided by the Supreme Court.  

I also reached out to Mike Schechter, one of the attorneys for the Girdwood plaintiffs.  

He said the Board and the Plaintiffs are working together on the schedule for the Superior court..

"The schedule that the parties are jointly proposing to the superior court:

Attorney fee briefs are due July 25. Board's oppositions due August 22. Reply Briefs due September 5."

Meanwhile, today (Friday June 16) the Supreme Court gave the Girdwood Plaintiffs until June 30  to reply to the Board's opposition motion.  Of the files listed above on the Docket above, only today's Court order had a link allowing me to see the actual document. 

Just to be as clear as possible, above is today's SUPREME COURT order.  

Below is the joint motion to the SUPERIOR COURT.  (Although it's signed by the Board attorneys, Mike Schechter assured me it's from the plaintiffs as well.)

So the 2010 Redistricting Board work is slowly moving to closure.