On The Colorado Ballot Supreme Court Decision [UPDATED]

After the Supreme Court agreed to hear the Colorado case and then the immunity case, I mused that the justices made an agreement to let Trump on the ballot in Colorado, but to not grant him immunity. 

It just seemed to me they were getting enough heat about losing the public's trust  - something Chief Justice Roberts has on occasion paid attention to - that maybe they decided to go in Trump's favor in one case and that they would decide against him in the other case.  This would make them look more 'objective.'

Today, they decided for Trump.  Not only did they decide for Trump, but they did so unanimously, sort of.  I haven't read the decision carefully enough, but I've read a few articles on the decision.  

Basically the five male justices not only decided the key point - whether Trump should stay on the ballot - but they went on to reach a few other conclusions.  

The women, starting with Amy Comey Barrett who wrote:

"I join Parts I and II–B of the Court’s opinion. I agree that States lack the power to enforce Section 3 against Presidential candidates. That principle is sufficient to resolve this case, and I would decide no more than that."

Sotomayor wrote what some legal scholars characterized as a dissenting opinion disguised as a concurring opinion.  

Some extra legal considerations:

I've checked the difference between a concurrent and dissenting opinion.  Basically, a concurrent opinion agrees with the decision, but not the reasoning.  A dissenting opinion disagrees with the decision and the reasoning.  I haven't tracked down what happens if there are more than one 'decisions' and someone agrees with one, but not the others.  Does that have to be a concurrent decision?  Or a dissenting decision?  Or could it be both?

A retired attorney friend told me to look up 'dicta.'  From

"Dicta in law refers to a comment, suggestion, or observation made by a judge in an opinion that is not necessary to resolve the case, and as such, it is not legally binding on other courts but may still be cited as persuasive authority in future litigation. Also referred to as dictum and judicial dicta.  A dissenting opinion is also generally considered obiter dictum."

Were the majority conclusions that Barrett criticized then dicta, because they weren't necessary to resolve the case?  Or are they legally binding?   

UNANIMOUS DECISION

SO, this was a unanimous decision.  It's important, and increasingly rare, for the Supreme Court to rule unanimously on such politically charged cases.  It's important to do so to show the court is in agreement to thwart backlash from the public.  

Chief Justice Earl Warren worked hard to get all the justices to agree on the controversial Brown v Board of Education, the landmark ruling that racially segregated public schools were not Constitutional.  From Wikipedia:

"By the early 1950s, Warren had become personally convinced that segregation was morally wrong and legally indefensible. Warren sought not only to overturn Plessy but also to have a unanimous verdict. Warren, Black, Douglas, Burton, and Minton supported overturning the precedent, but for different reasons, Robert H. Jackson, Felix Frankfurter, Tom C. Clark, and Stanley Forman Reed were reluctant to overturn Plessy.[112] Nonetheless, Warren won over Jackson, Frankfurter, and Clark, in part by allowing states and federal courts the flexibility to pursue desegregation of schools at different speeds. Warren extensively courted the last holdout, Reed, who finally agreed to join a unanimous verdict because he feared that a dissent would encourage resistance to the Court's holding. After the Supreme Court formally voted to hold that the segregation of public schools was unconstitutional, Warren drafted an eight-page outline from which his law clerks drafted an opinion, and the Court handed down its decision in May 1954.[113] In the Deep South at the time, people could view signs claiming "Impeach Earl Warren."[114]"

Why was today's decision unanimous?  Why didn't Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson dissent instead of concurring?  The obvious answer is that they agreed with the basic decision that Colorado didn't have the power to keep Trump off the ballot.  And that may well be true.  

But my hope is, as I said at the beginning, that Roberts got the Court to vote unanimously on this one in exchange for a unanimous decision on the immunity case.  Because Roberts sees two cases are so potentially explosive (though that didn't bother him with Dobbs), he wanted them to both be unanimous - one for Trump, one against him - to make the Court look less partisan at this time when the Court is under so much pressure because of precedent breaking cases like Dobbs and because of the corruption scandals surround Justice Thomas and others.  

But I also have some reservations.  

• I'm not sure Roberts could get such a commitment from the more conservative judges
• Even if he could, I'm not sure they will honor any such commitment, just as Mike Johnson didn't honor the commitment to pass the Ukrainian assistance if there was a border bill.

However, to grant a past president, even a sitting president, immunity is ludicrous.  "No man is above the law" is the "Treat your neighbor as you would have him treat you" of the US legal system.  It doesn't always happen, but it's the standard.   

Even if Roberts can't get a unanimous decision, he should minimally be able to pull Kavanaugh into such a decision along with the liberal justices and himself.  

I think the arguments for keeping Trump off the ballot in Colorado were compelling.  But Colorado has been voting Democratic presidential candidates since 2008.  So keeping him on the ballot is probably not going to change the election.  But the implications of the majority decision do seem to have long term effects.  But let's just hope we don't have any other presidential candidates who have plotted insurrection of the United States.

That's my thinking.  It's not a prediction, because in these perilous times, predictions are like throwing paper into the wind.  Treat this as wishful speculation.  

You can read the 20 page decision yourself below.  

Read Supreme Court decision... by kballuck1

[March 5, 2024 UPDATE:  This podcast by three attorneys - Leah Litman, Kate Shaw, and Melissa Murray - takes a pretty dim view of the decision and probably makes my hypothesis seem like desperate wishful thinking.  It's worth listening to.  Just click on the link.]

Does The 14th Amendment Section 3 Apply To Trump?

 In one of the amicus briefs before the Supreme Court, attorneys Vikram Amar and Akhil Amar makes a very compelling case that Section 3 does in fact apply to Donald J. Trump.  But he adds to the debate the historical background to the language in the Section.  I encourage you to read the Brief.  It's written in very clear and plain English and tells a remarkable story of why it was written to disqualify people like Donald J. Trump from the Presidency.

He tells us that many aspects of the Constitution and its Amendments are not merely theoretical , rather they are there in response to specific"the event, the evil, the mischief" and that Justices did best when they 

"Over the centuries, America’s best constitutional interpreters, both on and off the bench, have generally excelled when they first spotted and then heeded the key historical episode—the event, the evil, the mischief—that prompted a given patch of constitutional text.

For example, the Constitution forbids those under age thirty-five from the presidency. Why? Because of a concern about dynasties—young favorite sons of famous fathers, such as William Pitt the Younger, the British prime minister in 1787, who took office at age 24. The Constitution’s requirement that a president be “natural born” had nothing to do with C-section babies or Shakespeare’s Macbeth, and everything to do with the Founders’ anxieties about European noblemen who might seek political power in America. Article I’s rules for congressional membership were crafted with Englishman John Wilkes in mind, as were the later rules of the Fourth Amendment. The first sentence of the Fourteenth Amendment repudiated specific language in Dred Scott. The equality commands of Section One of the Fourteenth Amendment aimed especially at ending Black Codes in the Deep South. In affirming fundamental rights from state and local abridgment, Section One had centrally in mind—among other things—the urgent need to protect freedom of speech, freedom of worship, and the right to keep guns for personal protection."

Much of the brief discusses the historical events that cause Section 3 to be written the way it was:  John Floyd's actions, as President Buchanan's Secretary of War to move soldiers from and ammunition to Southern and his attempts to prevent the newly elected President Abraham Lincoln from being sworn in as President by Congress.

In the end, this momentous case is easier than it may at first seem, once one understands the historical events that triggered Section Three.

The insurrectionary betrayals perpetrated by Floyd and other top officials in the lame-duck Buchanan Administration went far beyond the abandonment of southern forts. They also involved, through both actions and inactions of Floyd and his allies, efforts to prevent President-elect Lincoln from lawfully assuming power at his inauguration.

Even before the inauguration, alarms rang out in Congress about the First Insurrection already underway. On February 1, 1861, Pennsylvania’s Representative John W. Killinger declared on the House floor that “preparations are actually threatened to take possession of this Capitol, and prevent the inauguration of the President elect. So far has the conspiracy progressed, that it . . . holds within its grasp the sworn officers of the Government. . . . Before Mr. Lincoln is inaugurated, this District will be the theater of commotion, and it may be, of violence.”11 Later that month, Killinger’s fellow Pennsylvanian James Hepburn Campbell echoed this point about oath-breaking insurrectionists: “[T]his treasonable conspiracy, to resist the inauguration by force of arms, . . . has drawn within its fatal vortex chiefs of the Cabinet.”12 And on February 18, 1861, Floyd’s successor in the War Department—Joseph Holt, himself true to his oath—confirmed that oath-breaking insurrectionists such as Floyd had indeed aimed to prevent the inauguration: (emphasis added)

But in one obvious and high-profile respect, Section Three as enacted went far beyond the early draft. It referred to all insurrections, past and future, and not merely to “the late insurrection” of the 1860s. It laid down a rule for the benefit of generations yet unborn—for us today, if only we are wise enough and faithful enough to follow its words as written and intended. (emphasis added)

Why is this important?  I imagine most readers have already figured it out.  Amar is showing the Justices that the language in Section 3 are based on actions that are almost identical to Trump's.  They leave no ethical way for the Justices to sidestep the fact that this Section was written to prevent people like Trump who had sworn and oath to protect the Constitution and then violated that oath by, Floyd's case and Trump's, trying to prevent the certification and inauguration of a duly elected President.  Not only in the 1860s, but "to all insurrections, past and future."

In addition to providing the story of Floyd, Amar also highlights the fact that Colorado, like every state, has the power to create its own election rules.  And Amar goes through, in Part Two, a list of twenty questions that have been raised by this case.  

In Part Two, we shall canvass a wide range of issues raised by this case and explain why many of them are easy. Of course the president is an “officer” covered by Section Three. Of course a detailed congressional statute is not necessary to implement Section Three. Of course an ineligible person is ineligible unless and until amnestied. Of course a person can engage in an insurrection with words as well as deeds. Of course an insurrection can begin locally. And so on.

Will five justices find this and other arguments persuasive?  We already know that Justice Thomas' wife strongly supported the insurrection and he has not recused himself from this case so far.  But what about the others?  

Leaving Trump off the ballot in Colorado well might make any difference.  Colorado has been more blue than red lately and Biden is likely to win there.  So those Justices who generally don't let the constitution get in their way to support the far right, could go along in this case.  But if Colorado doesn't have to put Trump on the ballot, how many other states - particularly purple states - copy them?  That will be the rub members of the Court's staunch right wingers.

 

The Point Is Not Just To Take Back Rights, But To Do It So Fast And Furiously That We Can't Keep Up With The Outrages - 303 Creative

 In a couple of days the Supreme Court threw out Affirmative Action for colleges and universities (and surely employment and other areas will be challenged soon); blocked Biden's waiving of $10-20,000 in student loans (ignoring the word 'waive' in the law that gave him the right to do that); and allowed a would be (but not actual) wedding website designer to refuse to take gay couples as clients.  

I suspect they intentionally timed the one case hailed by supporters of democracy - the voting rights case - earlier so that these three would all be together and there'd be less time to analyze them and protest.  

For the most part, lots of pundits are using these cases to get hits and likes.  Some are even worth reading.  But I want to just think out loud here about the 303 Creative case - the wedding website case.  

I posted in the past about the baker and about the photographer who didn't want to make a wedding cake for, or take photos of gay weddings.  Some of those same issues arise. 

Here I want to just lay out ideas as I try to understand this case and how it affects one's religious beliefs and what other collateral damage it might lead to. 

And I'm also setting aside the allegations that have come up after the decision that this whole scenarios was made up.  Or the arguments that the courts don't rule unless some harm has been done, but they skipped that standard in this case.  

As I said, I'm just thinking out loud here.  (And maybe even venting a bit as we reach a point similar to the post civil war court that used states' rights as an excuse to ignore the massive civil rights violations perpetrated against former slaves.)

PROBLEMS FOR THE COURTS

1.  How do you distinguish a true religious belief from an excuse to discriminate?  How did Lorrie Smith pick gay weddings to block?  Is it really a deep religious belief?  Or is it dislike/hate of gays that is being masked by religion?  When the Constitution was written, I think 'religion' was more concrete.  Today there are thousands of different Christian denominations?  Where do they all come from and what prohibitions can various ones have that the Supreme Court will eventually say allows them to discriminate against some target?

Homosexuality is not mentioned in the ten commandments, but Lorrie couldn't possibly make a website for a gay couple.  Would she refuse a wedding website for a couple that have been living together unmarried for five years?  And maybe have some kids?  What about businesspeople who cheat their customers and their employees?  Would she refuse making a site for them?  

If Lorrie belongs to a church that is part of the Southern Baptist Convention, which does not allow women to be pastors, how would she react to a client who was a woman pastor and wanted a website?  Would she refuse?  Based on her being a woman?

Many Christian denominations believe women should stay at home and raise babies.  Could someone from one of them refuse to make a website for, say, a woman lawyer?  

2.  When you look at all the things that a religion professes, how do you determine which ones are critical in that religion and which ones are not central requirements or prohibitions?  How does the Court decide which belief of any religion is an important enough one to allow the holder of that belief to discriminate against protected classes? 

If a congregation believes whites are superior and other ethnicities are inferior, can they then discriminate against people of color?  Last week I would have said the answer is a loud NO, but today I have no idea how the Supreme Court majority would rule.  

The Bible lists hundreds of rules.  Rules that Orthodox Jews follow, including a number of dietary restrictions.  Eating shellfish or pork, for example, are called out as abominations.  Why are those rules ignored?  Should the Courts look at whether someone practices all the rules or just identifies a few that trouble them enough to discriminate?  

3.  How do the justices weigh one right against another?  Is being denied service from a business because of one's sexual orientation - even when laws clearly protect against this - a lesser right than someone's professed religious convictions?  What happens in a small community where there aren't many choices of businesses?  Does the gay couple have to simply move so they can find vendors who will serve them?  Doesn't sound very American.  But perhaps MAGA's remember when whites - particularly in the South - were, legally, superior, and that's the world they want to return to.  

4.  How do you separate your own personal beliefs when they agree with one side or the other?  At what point does recusal become mandatory?  In this court, for the conservative majority, it seems recusal isn't necessary because they are all above human bias that could cloud their view.  At least in their own minds.  Note the expensive trips and vacation that various judges never reported and say would not affect their legal decisions?  

ALTERNATIVES FOR THE WEB PAGE DESIGNER

This was not a case where anyone tried to resolve the issue.  This was a case put together to invalidate Colorado's law that make discrimination against LGBTQ folks illegal.  And as mentioned above, the issues argued - that a gay man requested a wedding website - apparently didn't even happen.  There are other ways that Lorrie Smith, the designer, could have handled this (assuming she had such a request.)

1.  She could make it clear on her website that she adhered to a religion that only sanctioned male/female marriage and that she wanted to help such couples celebrate their weddings.  She's not, then refusing gay couples, but she's making it clear that's not her interest.  People don't enroll their kids in religious affiliated schools unless they are comfortable with their kids getting that school's religious instruction.  Gay couples would not ask such a website designer to design their wedding websites for several reasons:  

    1.  They don't trust such a person to make them the website they want

    2.  They don't want to financially support a business that doesn't approve of their wedding.

The only time a gay couple might ask for her services would be to create a legal basis for challenging her legal right to deny them. (What Lorrie Smith was doing to challenge the Colorado anti-discrimination law.)  If she doesn't deny them, there's no problem.  If they push, she can offer them one of her basic templates.  If they don't like them, they can go elsewhere.  Just as a bride, who  doesn't like a wedding dress in one store, can go to another.  

2.  She can politely decline and give them the names of three other web designers who specialize in gay weddings, or at least, who do gay weddings.  Unless she is so opposed to gay weddings that she won't help them in any way.  That would probably be proof that the 1st Amendment angle Lorrie Smith's case used, was just an excuse to discriminate.

3.  More radically, and much less likely, she could meet with the couple and learn about them as people, what being gay means to them, and why they want to get married.  

Well, I guess I had less to say about this than I thought.  Basically, this seems to show that this was not so much about  protecting 1st Amendment Rights as it was about sending a case to the Supreme Court that could create the first wedge to break down anti-discrimination laws protecting the rights of LGBTQ folks.  

I realize for some that might be a giant leap, so let me explain.  Normal business folks try to work out things with customers when they ask for services the business doesn't offer.  I gave examples of how this could have been done.  But none of that seemed to have happened.  And it now appears that there never was a request by a gay couple. (Though I'm not sure how the Colorado attorneys failed to contact the alleged client.)  Rather this was a case designed by group that has been fighting against LGBTQ rights for years now.  It was created to be a test case and they believed, correctly, that the current Supreme Court would look favorably on their argument.  

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.  

Hoping For A Short, Boring Redistricting Board Meeting Monday - Here's Why

Quick Take:  The Board's job Monday is to either accept the Interim Plan as the Permanent Plan OR to 'show cause' why it shouldn't be the Permanent Plan.  

What does "show cause" mean?  Basically, it means they need to give good legal and/or factual reasons why, in this case, the Interim Plan, shouldn't be adopted.  

If the Board Monday has no good reasons to object to adopting the Interim Plan as the Permanent Plan until the next redistricting process in ten years (eight years now), it will be a short meeting.

If Board members feel the need to change the Interim Plan, I expect they will consult with the Board's attorney on how to do this and whether it is likely to succeed. Some, of that discussion, if not all of it, will (but not necessarily should) be held in Executive Session.  (The courts felt they overdid the Executive Session leading up the the Interim Plan.)

If they decide that they want to "show cause"  I expect they will either discuss their reasons, and/or adjourn to work on those reasons.  They may just ask the attorney to write up their response to be voted on at a later meeting.  This will then be sent to the Superior Court for consideration.  

At least, that's how I understand this.  

Background:  I don't like to repeat myself, but this opening is a quick background for people who haven't watched this saga too closely.  If you know this pretty well, just skip on down.  

Back in May 2022 the Alaska Supreme Court said the plan the Alaska Redistricting Board had approved (the vote was 3-2) was unconstitutional partisan gerrymandering.  They sent it back to the Board through the Superior Court, ordering the Board to approve the Option 2 plan that the Board considered, but had not approved.  This, then would be the Interim Plan for the November 2022 election.  Given the looming deadline for candidates to file for office, the Supreme Court just couldn't wait for the Board to come up with a new plan on their own.  More recently, the Supreme Court completed its Opinion - a long document that looks at all the issues it had raised regarding the Board's original plan (thrown out by the Court), and its second plan (which was also thrown out.)  

Actually, that's an oversimplification.  The first plan, with a couple of changes, was essentially approved WITH THE EXCEPTION of some Senate seats in Anchorage.  So, the Interim plan for all 40 House seats, as understand this, is settled. 

Purpose of Monday's Meeting From The Supreme Court's Opinion

The Supreme Court's Opinion ended this way:

"IX. FINAL REMEDY

After the second remand, the Board adopted the Option 2 proclamation plan as the 2022 elections interim plan.240 The question of a final redistricting plan for the

[I've cut out footnotes]

decade remains. Having concluded that the Board engaged in unconstitutional gerrymandering in its initial final redistricting plan and that the Board then did so again in its amended final redistricting plan, our remanding for yet another redistricting plan may be questioned. Indeed, by clear implication article VI, section 11 authorizes courts to mandate a redistricting plan when, after a remand, the Board develops a new plan that is declared invalid.241 But we will remand out of respect for the Board’s constitutional role in redistricting.

Given that the Board adopted the current interim redistricting plan for its final plan deliberations — confirming the Board’s belief that the interim plan is constitutional — and given that Alaska’s voters have not had a chance to raise challenges to that plan in the superior court:

We REMAND for the superior court to order that the Board shall have 90 days to show cause why the interim redistricting plan should not be the Board’s final redistricting plan for the 2020 redistricting cycle:

A. Upon a showing by the Board of good cause for a remand, the superior court shall REMAND to the Board for another round of redistricting efforts; or

B. Absent a showing by the Board of good cause for a remand, the superior court shall direct the Board to approve the interim redistricting plan as its final redistricting plan, allowing any legal challenges to that plan to be filed in superior court in the normal course."  [Red emphasis added.]

Basically the court said:

1. You had two final options last year - Option 3A (which you adopted, but we found unconstitutional) and Option 2.
2. We told you to adopt Option 2 as the Interim Plan.  
3. You approved Option 2, thus implying you thought it was a constitutional plan.  [Though some Board members might say they had no choice given the time constraints.  If they hadn't approved it, I suspect the Court would have imposed it anyway.]
4. You now have 90 days to give a good reason why the Interim Plan should NOT be the final plan. (The Opinion was dated April 21, 2023.  So 90 days is just about July 21, 2023.)
5. If the Superior Court deems your objection to be a worthy objection, then that Court will remand (give back) to the Board, the task of further changes to the map.  
6. If you do not 'show good cause' for making further changes, the Interim Plan becomes the Permanent Plan
7. If you show cause but the Superior, and then the Supreme Court, reject your argument, the Interim Plan becomes the Permanent Plan.  
8. Once the Permanent Plan is in place, the public will have one more opportunity to challenge the plan.  My understanding of the various court rulings and the Board's public musings, all the 40 House seats and all but a few Anchorage Senate seats are already fixed. The period to challenge them was within 30 days of the original Proclamation Plan.  There were challenges to some other parts of the map and there were other parts of the map that no one challenged.  The only parts of the map that were still in dispute in May 2022 were a few Anchorage area Senate seats.  

Reading The Rules Carefully Is Always A Good Idea

When I was writing this post in my head, I was thinking the Board, on Monday, could either agree to leave things as they are (the Interim Plan becomes the Permanent Plan) or try to tinker with the map.  But rereading the Court's Final Remedy section of the Opinion, the first step is to 'show cause' and get the courts to agree there is cause before anyone is authorized to adjust any Anchorage Senate seats.  

What Cause Might The Board Show?

I don't see any cause that the Board could put forth.  But I'm not an attorney and there are always undetected cards they seem to be able to pull out of forgotten statutes and old cases upon which to make a claim.  

Here's how I see it:

1. The Superior and Supreme Courts have both agreed that the Interim Plan was Constitutional.
2. The Board, by approving the Interim Plan last May, implied they saw it as Constitutional. (They aren't supposed to approve a plan they don't think is constitutional.)

So the Board would be hard pressed to argue the plan isn't constitutional.

At that point, what else could they argue?  That it's constitutional, but they have a better plan?  I think it's too late for that.  

In its rulings about the Eagle River and Skagway Senate pairings, the supreme court discussed the concept of 'taking a hard look' at public testimony.  It ruled with the superior court and against the Board on this ground in Eagle River because the Board violated another constitutional requirement of districts

"specifically for unconstitutional political gerrymandering." (Court Opinion, p. 43)

However, in the Skagway case it ruled against the superior court ruling on 'taking a hard look' at public testimony, because

". . .if public comments merely reflect preferences for district boundaries without implicating substantive redistricting requirements, drawing district boundaries based on demonstrated substantive redistricting requirements and not the “weight of public comment” likely would not violate the hard look requirement. We nonetheless note that a Board’s failure to follow a clear majority preference between two otherwise equally constitutional legislative districts under article VI, section 6 may be evidence supporting a gerrymandering claim."

But the court ruled that House Districts 3 and 4 were unconstitutional based solely on its “weight of public testimony” approach to the hard look analysis. Because the court otherwise agreed substantive redistricting requirements were satisfied and no salient problems were raised that the Board failed to consider, we reverse the court’s invalidation of House Districts 3 and 4 and its accompanying remand to the Board." (Opinion, p. 43-44)

It would seem that same logic would be applicable here.  Just because some Board members might prefer different pairings, that's not good enough to tamper with an already constitutional map.  The Board isn't exactly 'the public.'  However, in this situation, if the Board wants to protest against Senate pairings that the courts and the Board have already agreed are constitutional, it would seem to be up against a similar obstacle the public is up against if it "merely reflects preferences for district boundaries without implicating substantive redistricting requirements."

Furthermore, the only (true) reasons the Board majority might want to make changes, as I see it, would be to try to give Republicans some advantage they don't have with the current plan, or to mess with the Democrats, by creating new Senate pairings which would force Democratic incumbents to run against each other.    

Why do I say that?  

1.  There are only a few districts, as I understand this, that are still in play.  

1. At this point, all 40 House districts are set.  They've been approved and the time for the public to challenge them is over.
2. The only districts that could be in play now are a couple of northeast Anchorage Senate seats.  I posted the map below and incumbent lists in my previous post, but it's worth looking at again.  

I've circled the Senate seats that could possibly be in play.  The House seats can't be changed, 

they can only be paired differently to create different Senate seats.  Below are the incumbents 

of the House and Senate seats.  I'd note these are the district numbers in the Interim Plan.  

House Seats	Senate Seats
17 - Zack Fields - Democrat	I - Loki Tobin - Democrat
18 - Cliff Groh - Democrat	J - Forrest Dunbar - Democrat
19 - Genevieve Mina - Democrat	K - Bill Wielechowski - Democrat
20 - Andrew Gray - Democrat
21 - Donna Mears - Democrat
22 - Stanley Wright - Republican

2.  Why are these the only ones in play?  Because the rest of the map was approved.  The only changes were to pair the two Eagle River house districts into one Senate district.  That left district 18 an orphan and it was paired with downtown district 17. And an orphan South Anchorage district. If they do any changes it would be to the Senate pairings in the circle - and maybe with a ripple effect beyond - because everything else was locked down and approved.  (District 9 was also an orphan district, when the two Eagle River districts were paired, but I haven't even considered that the Board might want to mess around with that district.) (Actually, my description suggests the court changed Map 3B.  In fact, they adopted Map 2, the map the Board did not choose.  So these were the pairings on that map.)

3.  As you can see, the Senate seats in this area are held by Democrats.  And the six key House seats are held by five Democrats and one Republican.  

4.  The Board majority argued long and loud, but short of actual facts or data, that JBER, the military base shouldn't be paired with 'liberal' downtown. 

"The Board cited no evidence, aside from its own speculation, that JBER is a community of interest; in any case, there was no showing that the House district encompassing the populated portion of the military base as a whole would tend to share political preferences more closely with an Eagle River House district than with the downtown Anchorage House district. We thus reject the Board’s argument that concerns about JBER justify splitting Eagle River."  (Opinion p. 105)

In fact, the Board had already put  JBER in a house district with much more liberal Government Hill and other north and northeast Anchorage neighborhoods.  

Edited from Elections page to fit in one image

Note:  This was a ranked choice vote.  Most, if not all of Franks' votes had Groh as second choice.  Also, only 6% of the registered voters on JBER even voted.  

In the 2022 House District 18 house election, the Democrats got 55% of the vote and the Republican got 44%.  HD 18 voted for Democrat Mary Peltola for US House and for Democrat Zak Fields for state Senate.  

So all the arguments that Board members Marcum and Simpson made about how terrible it would be to combine the JBER district (as they called District 18) with liberal downtown was hot air.  They'd already put JBER into a House district that was more liberal than the Base.  And that elected a Democrat.  

5.  But they may think that pairing House District 22, which did elect a Republican to the state House, with their so called JBER district (18) would result in a Republican Senate seat.  And so they may want to try to do that.  This would also mean finding other Senate pairings for the orphaned House seats - 18 and 21, which aren't contiguous, so it would force even more changes.  

6.  But the District 22 Republican only won by 72 votes out of 3700 votes.  Not really a GOP stronghold.  And with the electoral reality of District 18 (the one including JBER) as a strong Democratic district.  The resultant Senate seat would still be held by a Democrat. 

7.  But the other new Senate pairings that pairing 18 with 22 would force, they could force a two or more Democratic Senate incumbents to run against each other.  

8.  But this would all be so transparently partisan gerrymandering again that neither the superior nor the supreme court would accept it.  

9.  They only reason the Board majority might do something like this would be brazen shamelessness.  After all with Trump and Santos and DeSantis as models and the rest of the Republicans either supporting them or at least staying quiet, this would not be a big step for the Alaskan GOP to take.  

It wouldn't cost them anything, and there's the possibility it would work.  

10.  But I think it's just too obvious.  Even if Marcum and Simpson were willing to try this, I suspect the third Republican on the board, Chair John Binkley has more integrity than that.  He's had time to think this over and see it would merely waste even more public funds.  While he went along the first rounds, now it's pretty clear that the courts won't support this.  

11.  And their 'cause' also needs to show why any new plan is worth the disruption to voters and elected officials having to adjust themselves to new electoral districts.

12.  I'd also draw your attention to these words in the court's "Final Remedy" quoted above:  

"Indeed, by clear implication article VI, section 11 authorizes courts to mandate a redistricting plan when, after a remand, the Board develops a new plan that is declared invalid.241 But we will remand out of respect for the Board’s constitutional role in redistricting."

The court is saying, "We have the power to simply mandate a plan.  But out of respect for the institution of the Board (not necessarily for this particular Board) we'll give the Board one more shot to do this right."

That's my take on what will happen Monday.  There could be some other scheme Randy Ruederich has hatched for the Board to try.  But ultimately, the courts will be looking very carefully and I don't see any justifications the Board could make to oppose making the Interim Plan the Permanent Plan that the courts would accept.  

But even if the Board votes to make the Interim Plan the Permanent Plan, the public will still have thirty days to challenge it in court.  But this wouldn't be on the State's dime, and with the Board joining the superior and supreme courts, it would take some ingenious soul to find a loophole here.  

 

Tackling Alaska Supreme Court Redistricting Opinion

 

The first Supreme Court order regarding the 2010 Alaska Redistricting Board cases was issued on March 25, 2022.  It confirmed some of the Superior Court's decisions - mainly the Eagle River Senate seats - but not others - Valdez and Matsu complaints (though it agreed with them on the Cantwell appendage) and Skagway complaint.  The Board incorporated the Court's recommendations except in the case of the Eagle River Senate seats.  They offered a new map which also split the Eagle River house districts into two different Senate seats.  

Another on May 25, 2022 that ordered the Board to adopt Plan 2 as an Interim Plan so that candidates for the 2022 elections would know what districts they were in.  The court rejected the Board's new Eagle River Senate seat split and ordered the Board through the superior Court to approve plan 2 (which combined the two Eagle River house seats into one Senate seat.)

"IN THE MATTER OF THE 2021 THE STATE OF ALASKA REDISTRICTING CASES" was issued on April 21, 2023.  

I've been slowly plodding through the Opinion.  I'm not an attorney, but I have been following the Board and the subsequent court proceedings closely since December 2020.

In this post I want to simply describe the process I'm using to review what the justices said and the implications for future redistricting boards - particularly the 2030 Board.  In an academic paper this would be called the methodology section, though that's probably to generous a term for what I'm offering here.  I'm briefly explaining how I'm going about this.  

Step 1:  Quickly go through the text to see 

• what issues they covered
• what decisions they made about the current plan and the Board 
• (to remand the case through the Superior Court to the Board and have the Board either approve the Interim Plan as the Permanent Plan or tell the Court why it shouldn't be the Permanent Plan and offer alternatives.  
• to clarify that after approval the public still has the opportunity to challenge it)

Step 2:  Using the Court's headings, create an outline of the plan (which you can see here)

Step 3A:  Read through the Opinion more carefully with the Outline alongside and mark things that seem important on both the Opinion and the Outline.  Here are some examples of pages I marked up.

Okay.  This is not intended to be a tease.  But this is taking a while and I want to show you why.  Issues are raised in one section and then, sometimes, in another.  And maybe this intro, will make the final post(s) easier to understand.  Probably wishful thinking.

Step 3B:  As I did this, I also started to draft notes about what I think might end up being important.  These are tentative notes which I hope will become clearer (to me)  as I write them and then go back to the opinion to check if there are other comments that support or challenge what I've written.  

I call these Step 3A and 3B because I did them more or less at the same time, but they are different activities.  For example, here are some of my tentative notes (3B): 

"There seem to be several different kinds of issues

1. Procedural legal issues that seem to relate to how the court makes decisions, but don’t seem to set precedents (other than legal procedural ones in case of a challenge) for future redistricting boards to take careful consideration of.
2. Clarifications of past court decisions which will be important to future Boards  - These are the key issues I’m looking for and hoping I understand correctly
1. Partisan Gerrymandering
2. Public Participation and degree to which it should be considered by the Board - meaning of 'hard look'
3. Clarification of the related terms:
1. Socio-economic Integration
2. Communities of interest
3. Politically salient class
4. Equal protection
5. Kenai Peninsula neutral factors test.
3. Reasoned Decision making - Board didn’t show reasoned decision-making for splitting ER"

Step 4:  This is still ahead of me.  I need to expand my notes on the important issues and then try to look at all the ways the court discussed each issue.  When they said it applied.  When they said it didn't.  When they offered similar concepts and distinguished between them, etc.  

Step 5:  Review my previous post(s) which discusses the legal issues that, given the Board's actions and their attorney's public advice, I thought needed to be clarified by the Court and see which of my concerns were addressed.  

Step 6:  Try to take all those notes and create a post (and now I'm thinking several posts, maybe different posts on different issues).  I'm also thinking I need to talk to some lawyers about this as well.  

Why does this matter? 

Future Boards need to know what the ground rules are for creating Alaska house and senate districts so they can create maps that future courts will find proper and legal.  And they might even avoid future litigation.  

For example when I pointed out to the 2010 Board attorney Michael White that it appeared that some of the districts appeared to be political gerrymandering, he smiled at me as though I were a little dim, and said, no maps have ever been thrown out because of gerrymandering.  

And I suspect that some of the Board members may have heard similar stories.  

But one thing that is clear from the Courts' 2022/23 rulings is that gerrymandering is unconstitutional in Alaska.  Will that stop attempts to gerrymander in the future?  Probably not.  But Boards will have to cover their tracks better than this Board did when they do gerrymander.  

This year, Board attorney Matt Singer took the Board into executive session to explain redistricting law in the Constitution, constitutional convention, and past court cases.  Michael White did that session in 2011 in public and I think that Singer used a pretty broad interpretation of attorney-client privilege to justify briefing the Board privately on these issues. We don't know what he told them.  I'd note that the Superior and Supreme Court agree.  

But we do know that Singer's mantra throughout the process was "All areas within a Borough or City boundary are Socio-Economically Integrated."  The Court is clearly saying in this decision that while that is technically true, there are other similar, but different concepts - like 'community of interest' - that also have to be considered, even inside of a single Borough.  

Ideally, I can come up with a guide to the rules for future Boards and for citizens that will be useful in 2030.  I would hope that others would do the same thing, because I may well be missing things or misinterpreting them.  

Supreme Court's Redistricting Opinion Next Steps. Is Marcum Still On The Board?

The Alaska Supreme Court finally issued its Opinion explaining its reasoning for its earlier Orders.  (Three its in one sentence, sorry, I don't have time to make this pretty.)  See this post for more.  The immediate consequence of the decision is that the Alaska Redistricting Board was given 90 days to object to keeping the interim plan in place for the next ten years.  

For those not up on all these details - probably most people - the Court ruled the Board's last two plans  faulty because of gerrymandering.  So the court made a change in the Board's plan for the 2022 election.   The deadline for candidates to file to run for office was nearing and they needed to know what districts they would be running in.  So, that was the interim plan.  

Most of the state map has been approved and won't be affected.  There are only a few house districts in north Anchorage that could possibly be realigned into different Senate seats.  There is no way the court will allow the Board to make changes that would give Republicans more power in the legislature.  So it would seem that remanding the interim plan back to the Board is just a courtesy, maybe a way for the court to allow the Board to technically approve this plan as the actual plan for the next ten years. 

But that means the Board has to 

1. Reconvene and meet to 
1. approve the interim plan as the final plan, or
2. come up with an alternative within those very narrow options they have left and send it with a rationale back to the court
2. Do nothing and let the 90 days and let the interim plan become the final plan by default
3. 
   

Is Bethany Marcum still on the Board?

At the Alaska Press Club Conference Friday and Saturday, the Court's decision, which was announced Friday morning, was a big topic among some of the journalists who have reported on the Redistricting Board.  

One of the questions that came up was whether Board Member Bethany Marcum was still on the Board.  She's been nominated to the University of Alaska Board of Regents and some speculated that would mean she was off the Board. 

So I emailed Peter Torkelson who still is the Executive Director for the Board.  I asked 

• Is Marcum still on the Board?
• If not, since Governor appointed her, would he be appointing a new member?
• Are all the other members still on the Board?

Peter's normal quick response was that Marcum had resigned on March 23, 2023.  And the legal advisors believe that since the Governor appointed her, he would be the person legally entitled to appoint her successor.  He pointed out that Governor Parnell did that in 2011 for another Board member.  (Even though I covered the Board, I don't remember that at all.  But perhaps it happened early in the process.  I didn't start covering them until about March 2011.)  He didn't mention other members so I assume they are all still officially on the Board.

A new member could be someone who followed the process closely - say a Randy Ruedrich - but there aren't too many people who would really understand all the details and nuances of what the Board has been through.  I mention Randy even though the Court pointed out that the Constitution requires that appointments be made without regard to political party.  I simply don't think that Governor Dunleavy is capable of appointing someone who isn't committed to Dunleavy's political goals.  Unless he believes, as I do here, that there really aren't any changes to be legally made that would make a difference except to shake up a couple of districts and the incumbents of those districts.  

The Board's Eagle River Senate decisions, which passed 3-2, and were vigorously and loudly objected to by the minority members Banke and  Borromeo, were judged by the Court to be unconstitutional gerrymandering.  

I suspect the most dignified thing for the Board to do now would be to meet and vote to endorse the interim plan as the final plan and send their approval to the Supreme Court.  Board Members Marcum and Simpson were the most partisan Republican promoters of the gerrymandering.  The third Republican on the Board, John Simpson, went along with that, but I think he was less committed to that decision than the other two.  

I'd note that during the 2010 Redistricting process I asked then Board Attorney Mike White about a new plan being challenged on gerrymandering grounds.  His reply was that no plan had ever been overturned because of political gerrymandering and he wasn't worried.  Well, this round, the Supreme Court has definitively said that partisan gerrymandering is unconstitutional.  

I'm slowly reading through the Court's Opinion.  My present plan is read through the Opinion and identify what I see as the key points that are new.  Then I want to pull up the post(s?) I've written about what I hoped the Court would address.  Then I can see if they addressed all the issues I was concerned about.  So far, they have addressed the issue of the Governor intentionally appointing Republicans to the Board.  And they weren't just Republicans, they were hard core Republicans with a history of working with the Republican Party.  

I was concerned about how blatant the political appointments were this time round and that if the Court didn't address it, it would become an unenforceable part of the Constitution.  But they did address it - but I have to read more of the Opinion to see how it informs their conclusions.  I suspect it played a role in their deciding that the Eagle River Senate pairings were politically motivated.  

We'll see.  Meanwhile my previous post extracts the outline of their Opinion (all the headings) so you can have something like a Table of Contents of the Opinion.  There's also a link to the decision.  

Just one more piece of trivia.  I've tried to pay attention to follow the Court's language.  Particularly regarding "decisions," "orders," and "opinions."  So I checked online and here's what Cornell's Law School says:

• An order tells the parties to a case or cases something that they should do.  Orders can deal with housekeeping matters, such as scheduling or permission to file a brief, or with something substantive and important, such as whether the case will be dismissed or not.  An order may accompany an opinion or opinions, but if it does not, it tends to be brief and not to offer reasons. It may deal with one or more cases, and may dispose of those cases or not.
• A decision is a loose term for the set of opinions that accompany an order, combined with that order.  There may be more than one case associated with a particular decision.     
• An opinion is a general term describing the written views of a judge or judges with respect to a particular order.  Not all orders--including important orders, and including in both the district courts and the courts of appeals--have opinions.  A single order by a court might produce a zero or more majority opinions, zero or more concurring opinions, zero or more dissenting opinions, and zero or more opinions that concur in part and dissent in part.  It is also possible that a decision produces other documents that are not opinions -- for example, a syllabus, appendix, or summary describing all the other documents related to the decision.

What we got Friday was an Opinion.  

Alaska Supreme Court Issues Redistricting Opinion - Gives Board 90 Days To Object To Keeping Interim Plan

 Yesterday, the Alaska Supreme Court finally issued its Opinion detailing its reasoning for its earlier Alaska Redistricting Board Orders.  It's lengthy - 112 pages plus appendices.  

I've gone through it quickly (this weekend is the Alaska Press Club Conference) and pulled out an outline based on the Opinion's headings, which I'm posting below.  

But first, the Opinion concludes by telling the Superior Court to remand to the Board the Interim plan (which they imposed on the Board last June to be used in the 2022 election) and give the Board 90 days to object to the Interim Plan.  

"We REMAND for the superior court to order that the Board shall have 90 days to show cause why the interim redistricting plan should not be the Board’s final redistricting plan for the 2020 redistricting cycle:

A. Upon a showing by the Board of good cause for a remand, the superior court shall REMAND to the Board for another round of redistricting efforts; or

B. Absent a showing by the Board of good cause for a remand, the superior court shall direct the Board to approve the interim redistricting plan as its final redistricting plan, allowing any legal challenges to that plan to be filed in superior court in the normal course."

What will the Board do?  Most of the map was finalized and approved.  There were just a few House and Senate seats that could possibly be in play.  Board member Bethany Marcum was appointed to the Board of Regents and presumably would have to resign from the Redistricting Board if approved.  Dermot Cole wrote about this yesterday.   Matt Acuña Buxton has also written about the decision.

Here is a link to the whole Opinion.

Here is an outline of the Opinion.  

THE SUPREME COURT OF IN THE MATTER OF THE 2021 )

THE STATE OF ALASKA

Supreme Court Nos. 18332/18419 ) (Consolidated)

(Municipality of Skagway, S-18330) (Alaska Redistricting Board, S-18332) )

REDISTRICTING CASES (Matanuska-Susitna Borough, S-18328) (City of Valdez, S-18329) )

Alaska Redistricting Board, S-18419)

Superior Court No. 3AN-21-08869 CI

OPINION

No. 7646 – April 21, 2023

I. INTRODUCTION (p2)

II. CONSTITUTIONAL BACKDROP (p4)

A. Article VI, Section 6: Substantive Standards; Gerrymandering Concerns 

B. Article VI, Sections 3 And 8: Redistricting Entity; Gerrymandering Concerns 

C. Related Constitutional Provisions And Concerns 

1. Equal protection

2. Due process 

3. The “Hickel Process” and the Voting Rights Act 

D. Article VI, Section 10: Redistricting Process 

E. Article VI, Section 11: Plan Challenges 

III. 2021 REDISTRICTING PROCESS ROUND 1: BOARD’S FINAL PLAN; SUPERIOR COURT’S DECISION; PETITIONS FOR REVIEW (p24)

A. Board Proceedings 

B. Superior Court Proceedings 

C. Petitions For Review 

1. The Board’s petition 

2. Skagway’s petition 

3. Mat-Su’s and Valdez’s petitions 

IV. RESOLUTION OF ROUND 1 PETITIONS FOR REVIEW (p28)

1. Common Issues
   1. The superior court did not err when it concluded that the Board sufficiently followed the Hickel Process.

2. The superior court did not err by concluding that it was not in the public’s best interest to vacate Board actions resulting from Open Meetings Act violations. 

a. The Board’s OMA arguments 

b. Mat-Su’s OMA arguments 

3. Making the traditional hard look analysis more restrictive by blending it with other constitutional concerns was error. 

  a. Our view of the superior court’s hard look analysis 

b. The Board’s arguments 

c. Mat-Su’s and Valdez’s arguments 

B. Mat-Su’s And Valdez’s Substantive Constitutional Challenges 

1. Aside from the “Cantwell Appendage,” Mat-Su’s and Valdez’s article IV, section 6 arguments fail. 

a. Compactness
i. House District 29 

ii. House District 36 

b. Socioeconomic integration 

i. House District 29 

ii. House District 36 

c. “As near as practicable” to the population quotient 

2. Mat-Su’s equal protection challenge fails. 

a. One person, one vote 

b. Fair and effective representation 

C. Skagway’s Substantive Constitutional Challenges 

1. Socioeconomic integration

2. Fair representation and geographic discrimination 

D. The Board’s East Anchorage Ruling Challenges 

1. The Board’s evidentiary issues 

a. The superior court did not abuse its discretion when it denied the Board’s requests to compel discovery.167 

b. The superior court did not abuse its discretion when it adopted streamlined proceedings regarding witness testimony at trial.171 

2. The Board’s article VI, section 10 arguments 

a. Superior court’s article VI, section 10 ruling 

b. Article VI, section 10’s 30-day deadline and the meaning of “proposed redistricting plan” 

c. Article VI, section 10’s public hearings requirement and procedural due process 

i. Hearings 

ii. Procedural due process 

3. The Board’s equal protection arguments181 

a. “Politically salient class” versus “communities of interest” 

b. Whether socioeconomic integration and “communities of interest” are synonymous (p83)

c. Discriminatory intent
i. Secretive procedures 

ii. Partisanship 

d. Proportionality of representation 

e. Conclusion 

V. CONCLUSION OF CHALLENGES TO 2021 PROCLAMATION (p.95)

VI.  2021 REDISTRICTING PROCESS AFTER REMAND, ROUND 2: BOARD PROCEDURES AND AMENDED PLAN; CHALLENGE AND SUPERIOR COURT’S DECISION; BOARD’S PETITION FOR REVIEW (p96)

A. Board Proceedings On Remand 

B. Superior Court Proceedings 

1. Girdwood’s article VI, section 6 challenge 

2. Girdwood’s equal protection challenge 

C. The Board’s Petition For Review 

VII. RESOLUTION OF ROUND 2 PETITION FOR REVIEW (p.101)

A. The Superior Court Did Not Improperly Consider The Weight Of The Public’s Testimony. 

B. The Superior Court Correctly Concluded That The Senate District Pairings Continued To Violate Equal Protection. 

1. The superior court did not adopt a new burden of proof from federal case law. 

2. The superior court did not improperly distinguish our holding in 2001 Redistricting I. 

3. The superior court did not err in its discussion of communities of interest. 

4. The superior court’s discussion of local government boundaries was not erroneous. 

5. The superior court did not err when it applied the Kenai Peninsula neutral factors test and concluded that Senate Districts E and L constituted an unconstitutional political gerrymander. 

C. The Superior Court Did Not Err When It Ordered As An Interim Plan The Only Other Alternative Considered By The Board. 

VIII. CONCLUSION OF ROUND 2 CHALLENGES TO AMENDED PROCLAMATION (p.110)

IX. FINAL REMEDY (p.110)

Appendix A:  Maps

Appendix B:  Supreme Court of Alaska Order 3/25/2022

Appendix C:  Maps

Appendix D:  Supreme Court of Alaska Order 5?24/2022

Appendix E:  Maps