Why Biden Is Still By Far The Best Candidate For President [Updated]

 He looked and sounded older than he did four years ago.  

So what?  

He's a decent man.  He's had a good life with some terrible tragedies, so he understands and empathizes with others.

He's been in the Senate for 36 years and was Vice President for eight years.  He's made solid relationships with many, many important players in our government, among business leaders, labor leaders, and leaders of other nations. He knows how Washington works.  He knows how the world works.  And as President with a slim majority in the Senate, and for two years in the House, then a minority for two years, he's still accomplished an enormous amount, starting with the Infrastructure bill that is transforming the backbone of the US - the roads, the bridges, ports, airports and much more.  

His opponents are a felon facing lots more charges.  A misogynist, racist, adulterer, narcissist, would be dictator, who lauds our worst enemies and can't say two sentences without lying three or four times.  [UPDATE 6/29/24:  Some of you may have noted that this paragraph began "His opponents" plural, but I only wrote about one.  I meant to add that he was also fighting against the millionaires and billionaires who managed to stack the Supreme Court, and also the media who are asking Biden to drop out of the race, but aren't asking Trump to do that.  Below I've added a video that Anonymous linked to in the comments which shows a debate moderator who takes no prisoners when candidates don't answer his questions.]

It's an easy choice.

Is Biden old?  

He's certainly among the oldest US citizens.  Old age, if you have your marbles in tact, and he does, means you have the wisdom that accrues to those who have lived a long life with a curious mind.  

His opponent is almost as old, but his mind is diseased with narcissism and a massive inferiority complex that he masks with outrageous false boasts about his greatness.  The only skills he gained through life involved blaming others, avoiding legal consequences,  and generally being a despicable person.  

I'm not worried about Biden's age, 

because he cares about the US, all its citizens and non-citizens, and al the people around the world, rich and poor alike. 

And because he's not president in order to gain power and wealth.

And because he's got a vice president who would make a spectacular president.  

And because he knows that, and if he gets to the point where he can't perform his duties, he'll gracefully set down and let Kamala Harris take over.  

In the meantime, he's captain of a ship that is sailing well, despite the stormy seas the climate denying Republicans have roiled up.

You want to get a glimpse of what things would be like under a second Trump presidency?  

Read the Project 2025 - the blueprint for the next Trump presidency that dismantles the US democracy

Watch Hitler and the Nazis: Evil on Trial - on Netflix

[UPDATED 6/29/2024:  And here's the video Anonymous (first comment below) linked to.  This makes it easier to see and is a great lesson for the rest of the media when interviewing candidates.  Thanks, Anon.

Can someone tell me why Kyle Clark is not the moderator in the President Biden and Trump debate?? #trumpisunfitforoffice #Debate2024 pic.twitter.com/mNCxHcnb4D

— Sunsun Girly (@sunsungirly) June 25, 2024

Israel-Gaza VI: Finding Criteria For A Just Resolution

Thıs ıs a long post in which I try to link different ideas together.  Since I'm not posting every day nowadays, you can come back and finish this one over a few days. :) 


[OVERVIEW:  This post looks at the question:  What criteria would you use to determine the legitimacy of the Palestinian and Israel claims to Palestine?  Then it uses information from the previous five posts, as well as additional information, on Israel and Gaza to show why this is not the black and white issue both sides claim it to be.  Sounds pretty simple, but I started this back in early March and I've been trying to tease out the key points since.  Not sure it will get any better so posting it now. Have fun.]

Map from https://www.quora.com/What-does-from-the-river-to-the-sea-mean

Parts I-IV of this series of posts briefly discussed a number of subjects to show how complicated the Israeli-Gaza war is and why ıt ıs hard to speak intelligently and knowledgeably about the topic. 

 Part V outlined a few observations I came to while researching and writing the first four posts.  

In this post, I want to give an example of how those complexities make simple answers to any of this an easy, perhaps, but uninformed response. I'll refer to a number of the issues I identified in the earlier posts. I get that people grasp for some easy answer, especially in response to the unconscionable killing of Palestinians in Gaza.  But as comforting as that might be, slogans based on ignorance lead to even more confusion and anger.   

Let's look at the question of who has the best claim to the land between the river and the sea.  This refers to the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.  On the map you can see that would cover all of modern day Israel as well as the Palestinian areas - Gaza and the West Bank.  

I include the map here because it's been said that many people shouting the motto "From the river to the sea" supposedly didn't know which river and which sea were meant.  [But are these claims true or just made to discredit demonstrators?  The link talks about hiring a polling company to ask students - but it didn't say that they were specifically students demonstrating and shouting the phrase.  There is so much spin going on over this topic we need to take everything with a grain of salt. We need to ask people what they mean before we attack them.]

While the Hamas declaration of 1988 (highlighted in Part IV) clearly says Hamas wants an Islamic state controlling all of historic Palestine (the British Mandate), this NPR article says many students chanting the slogan mean they want peace and freedom for all people living between the river and the sea. 

Hamas originally claimed all the land (see the section on the Hamas declaration in Part IV) which would mean the elimination of Israel, on the grounds that Palestinians have lived there for generations.  They claim that Israel is a colonial state taken from the local Palestinians by Europeans and Americans.   Israelis claim that Jews have lived there for thousands of years.  

That's very different from wanting peace and freedom for everyone living from the river to the sea.  

Basically, the current Israeli government led by Netanyahu wants Israel to exist and to have control over the Palestinian areas, because, as I understand it, they do not trust Arabs to peacefully live in their own country adjacent to Israel. 

And Hamas wants an Islamic State to control the whole area.  At least that's what the 1988 declaration says.  Yesterday (April 25, 2024) AP said.

"A top Hamas political official told The Associated Press the Islamic militant group is willing to agree to a truce of five years or more with Israel and that it would lay down its weapons and convert into a political party if an independent Palestinian state is established along pre-1967 borders."

But the AP article goes on to say:

"Over the years, Hamas has sometimes moderated its public position with respect to the possibility of a Palestinian state alongside Israel. But its political program still officially “rejects any alternative to the full liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea” — referring to the area reaching from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, which includes lands that now make up Israel."

So one of the issues that both sides seem to totally disagree about is who has the right to live in this territory between the river and the sea.  Both groups?  One group? or the other?  How can this disagreement be resolved?  Let's just look at this one question to get a sense of how NOT easy this all is.  

Who has the most legitimate claims to the territory Israel occupies?

I would ask people to step back now and contemplate how one would evaluate those claims?  How should an impartial judge answer that question?  What criteria would such an objective observer use to determine who had the most legitimate claim to that land?  Must it be all or nothing?

Even coming up with criteria is fraught with problems.  Philosopher John Rawls has proposed a way to create rules for a just society - it would have to be done collectively, before anyone knows what role they will be assigned in that society.  Otherwise you give your role favorable conditions.  

",,,everyone decides principles of justice from behind a veil of ignorance. This "veil" is one that essentially blinds people to all facts about themselves so they cannot tailor principles to their own advantage:

"[N]o one knows his place in society, his class position or social status, nor does anyone know his fortune in the distribution of natural assets and abilities, his intelligence, strength, and the like. I shall even assume that the parties do not know their conceptions of the good or their special psychological propensities. The principles of justice are chosen behind a veil of ignorance."

The same problems are true about setting up the criteria for evaluating the claims to this land.  People will favor those criteria that they know will lead to the outcome they prefer.  But in the world we live in, that veil of ignorance is not possible.  

So which criteria to use?

1. Who's been there the longest?  
1. How would you measure this? 
1. Jews have lived in and around Jerusalem and other parts of Israel for about 3000 years.  
2. Christianity is 2000 years old, and 
3. Mohamed didn't found Islam until 610 AD.  
2. Whose traditions are connected to the land?     
1. Jerusalem holds major holy sites for all three religions. Plus others like Bahá'ì.
3. What group's culture has no other homeland where the majority of the population share their language, religion, and customs other than in this disputed land?  
4. What group has the most people?
5. Who will make the best use of the land? 
6. Flip a coin?

Below are some thoughts on intricacies of answering the questions above (particularly 1-3)

1.  National borders change constantly over time.  Hong Kong was under British rule from 1898- 1997.  India was a British colony for nearly two hundred years. After India became independent,  Pakistan split from India in 1947.  Bangladesh split from Pakistan in 1971. Russia colonized parts of Alaska from the 1830s until they sold all of Alaska to the United States in 1867. Though they only had colonized  relatively small portion of Alaska and the indigenous population had no say in any of this. Alaska became a US state in 1959.  Hawaii became an internationally recognized kingdom in 1808 but then was conquered by the US in 1898.  

Today's African nations' boundaries were dictated mostly by European colonial rulers, focused on exploiting natural resources, not which groups of people lived where.  

The Ottoman empire controlled Palestine for 400 years until the British took over and eventually, through the Balfour Declaration created Israel.  After the creation of Israel in 1948, the West Bank was basically controlled by Jordan and Gaza was controlled by Egypt until the 1967 war.  

2. Colonization

The Hamas Charter talks about Israel as a colonial power.  But let's look at that a little more carefully.  Here's a generally common definition much like this one from dictionary.com

"-a country or territory claimed and forcibly taken control of by a foreign power which sends its own people to settle there:

-a group of people who leave their native country to form a settlement in a territory that their own government has claimed and forcibly taken control of:"

European nations set up colonies in the Western Hemisphere, South America, Asia, Australia.  In all cases the colony was controlled by a mother country elsewhere.

Israel is a special case.  There is no mother country.  Instead we have a people scattered around in many other countries - always a small religious minority, often reviled and with fewer rights than other citizens.  And then, of course, there was the Holocaust.  

So Jews had no homeland where their religion and culture was protected and where they weren't a minority.  From Wikipedia:

"According to the Hebrew Bible, the First Temple was built in the 10th century BCE, during the reign of Solomon over the United Kingdom of Israel. It stood until c. 587 BCE, when it was destroyed during the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem.[1] Almost a century later, the First Temple was replaced by the Second Temple, which was built after the Neo-Babylonian Empire was conquered by the Achaemenid Persian Empire. While the Second Temple stood for a longer period of time than the First Temple, it was likewise destroyed during the Roman siege of Jerusalem in 70 CE."

My sense is that Hamas knows there is no Jewish mother country (in the US where Jews have their largest population, they make up less than 3% of the total population.)  Hamas seems to be using 'colonial' to imply that Western nations, in some sense, are the 'White" mother nations of Israel.  And Britain was the last European nation to have control over Palestine and agreed to the creation of Israel.  

But if the State of Israel were to be dissolved, there really is no 'home' country for Jews to go to.  Though Caryn Aviv and David Shneer, in their 2005 book New Jews argue that the idea of diaspora may be out of date, that there are vibrant Jewish communities around the world where Jews feel rooted and do not long to return Israel.  They argue for exchanging fear - and Israel as the safe home for Jews - for hope based on all the new ways Jews are redefining themselves.  But this is a tiny minority opinion.

On the other hand, Palestinian Muslims speak Arabic and follow Islam.  There are many Islamic countries in the world, where Arabic is spoken.  Yet their argument that being Palestinian makes them different from other Arab cultures is partially confirmed by the fact that neither Egypt nor Jordan - both close neighbors of Israel - do not want a large influx of Palestinians.  

But the Islamic State that Hamas declares (in their declaration) is mandated for Palestine, would be radically different from the culture that Palestinians have developed in Palestine.  

"The Islamic Resistance Movement [firmly] believes that the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf [Trust] upon all Muslim generations till the day of Resurrection." 

Such an Islamic state would be more different from current Palestinian culture than if Palestinians moved to most other Arab countries.  Or even non Arab countries. And how does this accommodate the Christian Arabs who live in Palestine?   

3.  Countries where Indigenous Populations regained control have been former colonies

Most former colonies that are now independent countries  are former European colonies.  The  borders imposed by the foreign conquerors often didn't match the local indigenous boundaries and led to countries that have different ethnic groups competing for power.  Israel and Palestine is such an example.  

So while it's accurate to say that England left behind the seeds of conflict in the former Palestine Mandate as it did in other former colonies, the Jews of Israel are different from the colonialists who exploited other European colonies.   While many, if not most, came from Europe, they can trace their historical connection to the land back 3000 years.  And others have come from Arabic countries in North Africa and the Middle East.  These are people who spoke Arabic as well as ancient biblical languages into the 20th Century.

In other cases - say the US and much of South America  - the European settlers simply attempted to Christianize the indigenous populations, move them,  and if that didn't work, annihilate them.  

When the Soviet Union collapsed, former member states, such as the Yugoslavia, broke up, not peacefully,  into smaller states based on ethnicity.  East Germany, more peacefully, joined West Germany.  

Is there a solution both sides would agree to?

To the extent that Hamas and Netanyahu's government are negotiating, probably not.   

The parties' demands are mutually exclusive 

The Israeli government under Netanyahu says elimination of Hamas and Israeli control of Gaza is what they will accept.  [But note, the wording changes regularly, but the basics seem to stay the same.] While Hamas has pulled back, at least on paper, from demanding that they will not be satisfied until the Jewish state no longer exists, they still believe that all of Palestine is rightfully an Islamic State whose laws should be based on the Koran.  

Could other nations get Hamas and and the current Israeli government to come to an agreement?

The world leaders have been trying since the creation of Israel with no lasting success.

What leverage do outside players have on Israel and Palestinians?

Both parties get their weapons from foreign countries, though Israel itself has a formidable arms industry of its own.  

The outside supporters could tell Israel and Hamas that they will cut off all weapons until there is a peace treaty.  Let's look at the key countries involved.

Middle East Eye says that while the US is by far the biggest arms supplier to Israel, they also get weapons from Germany, United Kingdom, Italy, and Canada, 

The American Friends Service Committee has put out a list of companies that profit from the Israeli attacks on Gaza.  Go to the link to see the list.  Besides major players like Boeing and Lockheed, there are many others.  

This AP article identifies sources of Palestinian weapons:

“'The majority of their arms are of Russian, Chinese or Iranian origin, but North Korean weapons and those produced in former Warsaw Pact countries are also present in the arsenal,' said N.R. Jenzen-Jones, an expert in military arms who is director of the Australian-based Armament Research Services. "

 There are Israeli Jews and Palestinians who would like a two state solution with peace and cooperation between the two

My conclusion is that both parties have legitimate claims to independent states in the land between the river and the sea.  I don't see an easy path to that option.  In fact the only paths I see now are in people's imaginations.  Here are visions of peaceful coexistence, one Israeli, one Palestinian.  : 

Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib     https://twitter.com/afalkhatib/status/1782241783843553568

Haggai Matar   https://www.972mag.com/lament-israelis-gaza-october-7/

Whether the voices of fear and anger will continue to dominate or whether some versions along the lines these two call for is possible, only time will tell.  

Finally, are students wrong to protest against the killings in Gaza?  Absolutely not.  Are they protesting perfectly?  Of course not.  Protest organizers often lose control of the protests they've organized.  Let's not get distracted from the issue they are protesting - the slaughter of almost 40,000 civilians, mostly women and children.  And administrators and police groups are reacting to them the same way administrators and police groups reacted to the anti-war demonstrations in the US in the 1960s and 70s.  Four students were shot by National Guard troops at Kent State University on May 4, 1970.  From the pictures I'm seeing of current demonstrations, Kent State might well be repeated soon.  Let's hope not.  

Thoughts On The Anchorage Mayor's Race

The only thing I know for certain, the current mayor needs to be retired.  He was the surprise winner last time in a runoff.  He was a candidate because of the pandemic and homelessness.  He was backed by those who opposed masks and the decisions to quarantine in Alaska and Anchorage.  A key group supporting him live in Geneva Woods, a neighborhood of large houses in mid-town, where his supporters were strongly opposed to the Municipality buying a Best Western Hotel that had seen better days and turning it into a shelter for the homeless.  Easy walking distance to their snooty neighborhood and that was unacceptable.  

His supporters have disrupted Assembly meetings, yelled epithets are LGBTQ and Jewish Assembly members, wore yellow stars and compared the restrictions due to COVID to be like the Holocaust (which they normally would deny even happened.)  

Many of his appointees have long gone.  One of his former City Managers is suing the city for about three quarters of a million dollars,  His approach to homeless folks was a mass shelter in a giant tent.  I'm still fairly certain that if we track down why he wanted to buy that tent, we'd find some sort of financial or political connection.  Snow removal has been a disaster.  

So, the mayor is not on my list.  

Suzanne LaFrance was on the Assembly for much of the Mayor's tenure, chair part of that time.  She early on announced she was running for Mayor.  This is a non-partisan race and I'm not sure if she is even registered as one part or another.  She's done a reasonably good job and certainly knows the details of what's gone on in Anchorage.  I even interviewed for six or seven years ago when she was a first time candidate running for the Assembly.  She was pretty raw, but dedicated.  She's learned a lot over the years.  

But then Chris Tuck announced he was running. Tuck is a Democrat who has been on the Anchorage School Board, but then spent more time in Juneau as a representative - including stints as minority and majority leader.  I met him when I blogged the legislature in 2010 and he's a very personable guy and has a reputation of being able to work out compromises across party lines.  He's got strong labor connections, yet LaFrance has garnered a lot of union support.  I was told he voted for legislation that labor opposed (or vice versa) but I have no details.  

Tuck's entry into the race threw the liberal challenge against the incumbent mayor into confusion.  Both were good candidates.  LaFrance supporters started pointing out that Tuck was anti-abortion.  He's never denied that, but he's also said he votes for what his constituents want, and to my knowledge, as a politician has gone along with the other Democrats on abortion issues.

Then Bill Popp joined the race.  Popp has been head of the Economic Development Council for many years and says he's never registered in either party.  Before Trump hijacked the Republican party, Popp's interest in business and economics would have aligned him with more traditional Republicans, at least with the Chamber of Commerce,  though I do not know his stance on social issues.  He has good knowledge of Anchorage.  

This race requires a candidate to get at least 45% to win.  The sense I get is that those who follow politics closely don't expect any of the candidates to reach that number.  

The question then is who will be in the runoff.  An article in the Anchorage Daily News today says the candidates suspect that Mayor Bronson will face one of the above three in a runoff.  

So, who to vote for?  I think LaFrance and Tuck would both make good mayors.  They're both level headed and decent people.  I suspect the same could be said for Popp, but I don't know him really, and my perception of him as part of the Chamber of Commerce crowd takes him out of my top two.  (Lots of people join the Chamber of Commerce, not because they are politically aligned with their fairly conservative business view of the world, but because that's where many of the key players gather weekly.  My uninformed sense is Popp probably fits in with the Chamber crowd comfortably.)

So, LaFrance or Tuck?  

I was happy when LaFrance announced her candidacy.  I was thrown into a conundrum when Tuck announced his interest in the race.  LaFrance seemed to be more intimately knowledgeable of City dealings because of her position on the Assembly and dealing with all the issues for the last six years from there.  

Tuck seemed like an interloper, though he represents Anchorage and is an astute politician who has paid close attention to the city in which his district lies.  I'd note that when Elvi Gray Jackson announced her US Senate run in 2022, Tuck announced he would run for her Alaska State Senate seat.  That avoided a run against fellow Anchorage legislator Andy Josephson.  Both had been redistricted into the same district.  But when Gray-Jackson saw what was developing in the US Senate race, she pulled out and signed back on to run for her State Senate seat.  At this point, Tuck pulled out altogether - choosing not to run against either fellow Democrat.  I think that reflects positively on his moral compass and willingness to support his fellow Democratic legislators.  

It also suggests to me that he didn't make the decision to run against LaFrance for mayor lightly.  

As I watched the lists of people signing up to support LaFrance or Tuck, it appeared to me that people who knew LaFrance the Assembly member, supported her.  Those who knew Tuck from his rule in the State legislature supported him.  

I think they'd both do a good job.  My biggest concern is that they'll cancel each other out and Popp ends up in a runoff with Bronson.  And, again, I think Popp will be a competent mayor, but not necessarily someone aligned with a forward looking stance.  (By that I mean, someone who recognizes that Climate Change is the biggest challenge facing humanity and business has been a prime supporter of policies that have brought us to this climate crisis.)

I've picked one of the two.  My absentee ballot is still in the house.  I've got some time yet before I have to turn it in.  I'm on pause just in case something happens to sway me toward the other candidate.  I'm not expecting anything to change, but just in case.  

The only conclusion I have come to firmly is that Anchorage should switch to Ranked Choice Voting.  Then folks can vote for the first and second (etc.) choices.   

Redistricting Board Awards $400,000 Attorney Fees To East Anchorage Plaintiffs

James Brooks reported in the Alaska Beacon and APRN that the Alaska Redistricting Board met Friday October 13 to approve a $400,000 payment to the East Anchorage plaintiffs who challenged the Eagle River Senate pairings and prevailed in the Supreme Court.  

I only learned about it when I read the Sunday Anchorage Daily News last week.  

So essentially I'll refer you to the link above for details since I didn't get to attend.  

The email alerts the Redistricting Board sent out to subscribers for a couple of years, were shut down after the final map was approved.  

There are still some possible settlements out there. The East Anchorage and Girdwood plaintiffs (who challenged the second Eagle River Senate pairings and also prevailed and received $115,000) are the two that had major victories and got settlements for their legal fees.

I'd note that the first and second Eagle River pairings were decided by a 3-2 vote, with the majority made up of Republicans and the minority making dramatic objections and predictions that the decision would be overturned by the Supreme Court.  

But Alaskans are the ones that bear the costs, not those who made the widely opposed decision.  

Legal expenses have been the largest part of the Board's budget.  Some of that is anticipated by the way the Constitution sets up the appeal process - basically Alaskans are given 30 days to challenge the Board's map.  They do this by filing objection with the Superior Court and any disputes (usually all of them) get decided in the Supreme Court.  

But as I said above, this was clearly a partisan gerrymandering attempt by the Republicans on the Board that went against all (non-partisan) common sense.  So much of the legal expenses paid to the Board's attorney* and the winning plaintiffs ($515,000) could have been avoided.  

I looked at the Board's budget a year ago and hope to look at the budget closer to it being final.

*It's harder to determine what part of the Board's attorney payments went to defend the Eagle River decisions.  Should we count the first map defense?  Some of it, but there were other plaintiffs as well who had other (non-Eagle River Senate pairing) objections.  Definitely we can count expenses after the Board majority passed the second Eagle River pairing, which I figure as at least $150,000.  See the Budget post.

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.  

56% Of the Alaska Redistricting Board Expenditures Were Legal Fees

Overview

This is a budget post.  Not for the faint of heart. One has to look at numbers and then answer these questions: Did the Board spend its money wisely? Did anything stand out as you looked at the budget?  What does it mean? In this and a second budget post I'm going to: Post the copy of the budget I got as of July 22, 2022  for those with more budget savvy and  as a precedent, so that future Redistricting Board budgets get published and reviewed publicly The Board's biggest single expense category was Legal Fees.  In this post I look a bit more closely at the section on Legal expenses and raise some issues to consider in the future  Raise some questions about the payments made to Board Members (in a later post).  The only conclusion I can make at this point is that saying the Board Members were volunteers, as many people did, is more than slightly misleading.

I feel a bit like a sculptor who has a slab of marble and is trying to release the statue that is hidden inside the stone.  I have a slab of data in the form of budget expenditures and I’m trying to figure out how to release the meaning of that data in a way that makes sense to the reader. And I’m also not completely sure what the meaning of all the data is myself.   

I’ve had a copy of the Alaska Redistricting Board’s budget as of July 22, 2022 since that date and I’ve been walking around it trying to figure out where to start chipping away.  I went through it and sent a bunch of questions to the Executive Director which he answered in detail.  

Budgets, on the surface, are lists of categories and numbers.  While they (should) list all the expenditures, one needs some experience and skill to tease out what's hidden between the lines.  I don't claim to be a fluent interpreter of budgets.  

The point of reviewing the budget is to keep the Board accountable in terms of the public monies it spent.  The underlying question one needs to answer is:

Did they use their money efficiently and effectively?

To make that determination, a budget analyst might ask: 

1. Did the Board stay within its budget?  
2. Are there any unusual expenditures?

1.  Did the Board stay within its budget?  

$3.5 million were allocated to the Board (Board Executive Director Peter Torkelson said this was based on what the 2010 Board spent), but the 2020 Board only spent $1.97 million by July 22, 2022 when the Board staff sent me the budget. 

Of course, staying within your budget assumes that the original budget was reasonable.  Comparing it to the 2010 Board is one benchmark.  A big savings this round, according to Board Executive Director Torkelson, was that in 2010 the trial was in Fairbanks so there were lots of travel expenses. But there was also more significant litigation AFTER the second Proclamation was approved in 2010.  That Board did NOT broadcast its regular Anchorage meetings across the state.  But I don't know that there is a better comparison organization.  And this Board spent considerably less, so far.  

Of that $1.97 million total,  $1,111,513.46 went to SCHWABE WILLIAMSON & WYATT, the company that won the contract to give legal advice and to represent the Board in court. (Link shows proposals for all firms that submitted them including Schwabe).   

That's the main thing that stood out for me.  I also have questions about how much money was spent on retirement funds and other things that suggested Board members were possibly treated as state employees rather than volunteer Board members.  But I'm awaiting more information and that will be another budget post.

Did The Board Spend The Money Wisely?

I would note that I believe that the Board staff was dedicated to serving the public interest. My belief is based on numerous conversations - in person, by phone, by email - that I had with staff, particularly the Executive Director Peter Torkelson.  He was always forthcoming with information and documents - including sending me this copy of the budget.  I also closely observed the Board in action from December 2020 through the last meeting held in May 2022. Torkelson put an unprecedented amount of information on the Board's website.  Well, "unprecedented" is not a high bar, considering what little past Boards did. The previous Board also did much more than past boards had.  Technology has moved quickly and Torkelson had the skills and public interest values to take advantage of it. 

 I hope future Boards can match the level of transparency of this Board.  Not only was there an enormous amount of documentation (maps, transcripts and video and audio of meetings, transcripts of public input, etc.) but it was also put up with minimum delay - sometimes immediately, often within a day, usually within a few days, rarely more than a week.   

I suspect this budget reflects a Board and staff that was pretty much playing by the rules when it comes to how money was spent.  Some Board members may have spent more on travel and hotels than others, but not enough to matter that much.  The Board probably could have saved a bit of money here or there, but this organization reincarnates once a decade with new players and it's reasonable to expect them to learn along the way.  And in many cases, there were extra expenses due to the Board being transparent in ways past Boards haven't been.  

The only large expenses that immediately stand out as avoidable are the legal costs for defending the second Proclamation Plan that continued the attempt to give Eagle River two Senate seats.  We don't know what the attorney advised in Executive Session, but we do know the three Republican majority members of the Board were more than eager to make that decision.

The Whole Budget:   

Alaska Redistricting Board Fy22 Spending as of July 22, 2022 by Steve on Scribd

Just Because the Grass Is Green, Doesn't Mean Someone Painted It Green

Just because 85-90% of the legal fees came after the original Proclamation Plan was approved, doesn't mean the attorneys advice caused that.  A key reason for the delay in posting this has been my concern that by raising the idea that an attorney might increase his income by insuring post Proclamation litigation, readers would conclude that happened.  Voters these days believe some of the most implausible accusations against candidates and parties.  In those cases it's mostly pure fiction, while in this case there are facts that show most of the legal fees were post Proclamation.   Can I even raise the issue without having some readers conclude this was intentional?  Probably not.  But while I can't rule it out 100%, I have NO evidence to suggest the timing was anything but the natural flow of the redistricting process and I will outline below why I think it's highly unlikely there was any intentional action by the Board's attorneys.  I raise this possibility only because I thought it could happen in the future and so legislators and Board members in 2030 and beyond should just be aware of it.  After writing this all out, I don't think this is an issue. Some may say I protest too much here, but 1) the budget begs for this issue to be raised and 2) once raised it should be quickly dismissed without reflecting poorly on the attorneys who represented the Board.

On the other hand, there were unnecessary legal expenses to defend the second Proclamation Plan, but that was due to the Board's Republican Majority's decision.  I'll mention briefly that below. 

The Legal Expenses - 85-90% were paid after the First Proclamation Plan was approved

The chart below shows the payments made to the attorneys' firm Schwabe, Williamson & Wyatt over time.  The first column shows key events in the timeline in relationship to the payments.  

9/01/2021 - 10/25/2021 ($55,904) The first payments were made while the attorneys attended Board meetings and gave advice to the Board to help the Board understand the parameters for their mapping decisions set by the Alaska and US Constitutions and past Supreme Court decisions as well as other Federal and State legislation.

11/22/21- 1/25/22 ($229,626) -  Proclamation Plan was approved 11/10/21.  After this date the plan was complete.  The attorneys' bill goes up sharply in response to the five lawsuits challenging the Board.  It was also after there was a sharp public rupture between the majority of three Republican Board members and the two members not identified by party.  That dispute only related to one of the five lawsuits - the two Eagle River Senate seats.  The other four would have been filed anyway and would have required a lot of attorney time.  

3/15/22 - 3/16/22 ($370,015) - Judge Matthews ruled on 2/15/22.  These bills clearly represent work done earlier, during the trial and then work appealing parts of his decision and responding to plaintiffs' appeals. 

3/29/22 ($175,797) - The Alaska Supreme Court ruled on 3/25/22.  

4/25/22 ($122,141) - The Board picks Option B for second Proclamation Plan (which still gave Eagle River two Senate seats) on 4/13/22.  

5/31/22 - 7/1/22 ($158,029) - The Superior Court and the Supreme Court ruled on May 17 and May 24 respectively.  Both essentially told the Board to join the Eagle River house districts into one Senate seat.  The Board quickly complied.  At this point, we await the longer Supreme Court decision which will explain its ruling in detail (setting precedents for future Boards) and decide whether the 2022 map will become the permanent map or have the Board make the final map.  I've written about the factors that likely will affect that determination here.

Events	Date of expenditure	Recipient		Category of Expense	Amount
	09/01/2021	SCHWABE WILLIAMSON & WYATT PC		ATTORNEY FEES	16,098.71
	09/01/2021	SCHWABE WILLIAMSON & WYATT PC		ATTORNEY FEES	3,403.53
	09/21/2021	SCHWABE WILLIAMSON & WYATT PC		ATTORNEY FEES	10,414.08
	10/25/2021	SCHWABE WILLIAMSON & WYATT PC		ATTORNEY FEES	25,988.16
11/10/21 Proclamation Plan approved	11/22/2021	SCHWABE WILLIAMSON & WYATT PC		ATTORNEY FEES	18,830.00
	12/27/2021	SCHWABE WILLIAMSON & WYATT PC		ATTORNEY FEES	33,887.50
	01/25/2022	SCHWABE WILLIAMSON & WYATT PC		ATTORNEY FEES	176,908.45
2/16/22   Judge Matthews ruling	03/15/2022	SCHWABE WILLIAMSON & WYATT PC		ATTORNEY FEES	14,895.55
	03/15/2022	SCHWABE WILLIAMSON & WYATT PC		ATTORNEY FEES	32,623.90
	03/16/2022	SCHWABE WILLIAMSON & WYATT PC		ATTORNEY FEES	322,495.83
3/25  Supreme Court Rules	03/29/2022	SCHWABE WILLIAMSON & WYATT PC		ATTORNEY FEES	175,797.40
4/13  Board picks Option 3B	04/25/2022	SCHWABE WILLIAMSON & WYATT PC		ATTORNEY FEES	122,141.21
5/17/22 - Judge Matthews 2nd Ruling 5/24/22- Supreme Court Ruling	05/31/2022	SCHWABE WILLIAMSON & WYATT PC		ATTORNEY FEES	65,870.38
	07/12/2022	SCHWABE WILLIAMSON & WYATT PC		ATTORNEY FEES	92,158.76
					1,111,513.46

[This table combined information from the budget as provided to me by the Board's Executive Director plus dates I retrieved from blog posts on this site.]

What do the charts tell us about the legal representation?

1. We have to take these figures and the juxtapositioning with dates of payments and events with a grain of salt.  The timing of the bills and the State's actual expenditures doesn't necessarily neatly match when the work was done.  Rather, it reflects when the firm was able to calculate and submit the bills and the State issued payment. 
2. That said, the bulk of the attorney costs come after the initial Proclamation Plan was completed.  The bills are for litigation, only a tiny fraction for advice.  Peter Tolkerson told me via email that "Non attorney time and costs make up less than 10% of total legal spend. . . Non-attorney staff [para-legals] costs have run about 4% of total legal spend."
3. Did the Board get hit with excessive legal fees?  I'm guessing not.  There have always been challenges to Redistricting Board proclamations.  This time the Board's attorney had to fend off five challenges at once in a very short period.  Four of the challenges were for decisions the whole Board agreed on.  One (Eagle River Senate seat(s)) was for a decision the Board was  bitterly split on.  Did the attorney give advice that the majority's decision was defensible or did he advise against it?  We don't know.  It happened in Executive Session.  We do know that the two minority Board members argued publicly, loudly, and ultimately correctly, that the Eagle River decisions in both the first and second Proclamation plans were unconstitutional and they would lose in court.                                                  We also know that the original "legal subcommittee" was made up of the two attorneys on the Board - Budd Simpson and Nicole Borromeo.  But sometime later a new subcommittee formed that had only Simpson and John Binkley. Borromeo was cut out of the process.   So it's possible we will eventually hear about some of what happened behind closed doors at Executive Sessions, it's unlikely we'll hear anything about what happened after Borromeo was replaced on the legal subcommittee..  
4. More experienced and astute budget analysts might well be able to distill more information from the budget as presented to me.  I hope publishing it here will pique their interest and if I missed something important, someone else will raise it.
5. Below are some additional emailed comments about the legal portion of the budget in response to questions I had about how the Board was actually billed.  I'd noted in my question that the Schawbe bid for the contract had included a slightly discounted half day and full day rate instead of the hourly rate.  Again, from Peter Torkelson:

"The RFP response offered some discounts and then we negotiated further for additional savings.  The more meaningful savings have been the bulk discount we hammered out with the original contract.*  At the time we weren't sure we would need it, but in retrospect, that was naive. We were likely to rack up significant bills for any number of our unanimous decisions, as you noted (Valdez, Matsu, Skagway etc). *The negotiated bulk discount is 5%  Of Counsel and Paralegal fees (not partner attorney fees) from total firm billings of $100k - $500k and 7.5% from 500k to $1M and 10% over $1M per calendar year.  So far we have saved about $20k."      [I had to get clarification on "5% Of Counsel." Torkelson wrote back "'Of Counsel' is a common title for attorneys in a law firm who are not yet partners.]

Torkelson also noted that because the trials were in Anchorage this time (2010 trial was in Fairbanks), the Board saved money on travel and lodging compared to the previous Board.   

Is there credible evidence that the Board's attorney intentionally gave the Board advice that would increase the likelihood of Post Proclamation litigation?  [Spoiler Alert:  No!]

The only 'evidence' that there might have been bad advice with the intent to increase post Proclamation litigation is purely theoretical.  It's this: 

1.  Law firms are for profit businesses.  Their goal is to make as much money as they can.  If 90% of the income from representing the Alaska Redistricting Board comes from defending the Board from post-proclamation legal challenges, there’s an incentive there to make sure there are legal challenges.  

That's it. It's theoretical. No facts.

What then is my evidence that would suggest that just as grass grows green naturally, extensive litigation flows naturally from Redistricting Proclamation plans?

1.  There are other incentives for attorneys besides money.

I emailed the Board's attorney, Matt Singer, to find out what his motivations for bidding on the contract were.  

"I'm doing a post on the Redistricting Board Budget and the fact that about 56% of the budget went to legal fees and of the legal fees, about 90% were paid after the original Proclamation Plan was approved.  I'm trying to come up with a list of reasons why a law firm would seek such a contract in addition to money.  Could you send me the list of reasons you and your firm bid on this contract? 

His response was longer and a lot more thoughtful than I expected.  

"Regarding your question below, in outdoor pursuits, we use the phrase "Type II fun" to describe a task that is difficult at the time, but feels rewarding afterward, often because it challenges the practitioner to test their limits and grow. I'd call Redistricting a Type II kind of fun for a lawyer. The subject matter is fascinating and nuanced, the issues are important, the work is very demanding, and it is all done under immense time pressure and scrutiny (including by friendly bloggers like yourself). 

In addition, our "Hickel process" in Alaska redistricting is a deep dive into culture, history, geography, transportation, and a myriad of other interesting tidbits about how Alaskans live, work and play. Many of us who chose to make our professions here in Alaska did so out of a deep interest and admiration for this great state. Redistricting, at its core, is about understanding Alaska and its people. We were blessed with a board that collectively has covered just about every inch of this state, and so being a fly on the wall for their discussions and deliberations was a great privilege.

I suspect it is no coincidence that many of the lawyers who competed with us in response to the Board's RFP ended up being lawyers representing challengers in the redistricting process. For those of us interested in the subject matter, it would be hard not to get involved if given the opportunity. 

Lawyers are interested in working on redistricting for many of the same reasons that you have taken the time to follow and write about the subject. Are you doing it for the money, or are there other factors at play?"

I got to watch Singer extensively at Board meetings and Court hearings.  We even interacted a few times.  My gut says that this is a sincere response to my question and not carefully crafted argument to sway a friendly blogger.  There are more incentives than money involved.   

Another key incentives that come to mind is upholding one's reputation, and giving bad advice doesn't help that at all.  

2.  Litigation naturally flows from redistricting Proclamation Plans - The Statutes and Constitution even anticipate that

In a follow up email Singer wrote: 

". . .it sounded like you are musing about why the attorney’s fees are mostly incurred after the proclamation plan is adopted.  This is a bit like musing about why most of a book’s pages come after the prologue.  In Alaska redistricting, litigation has been a part of the process in every cycle since statehood, and the litigation follows the adoption of the proclamation.  In other words, the time consuming legal work comes after the proclamation.  As you saw this round, even parties with longshot claims will file lawsuits in a bid to influence the outcome.

Litigation in redistricting is such a certainty that our legislature defined the role of the Board’s lawyer as this: “defend the plan and board in all matters concerning redistricting until a final plan for redistricting and a proclamation of redistricting have been adopted and all challenges to them brought under art. VI, sec. 11, Constitution of the State of Alaska, have been resolved after final remand or affirmation.”  Alaska Statute 15.10.220." 

Let's also look at art. VI, sec 11 of the Alaska Constitution that he cites :

"Any qualified voter may apply to the superior court to compel the Redistricting Board, by mandamus or otherwise, to perform its duties under this article or to correct any error in redistricting. Application to compel the board to perform must be filed not later than thirty days following the expiration of the ninety-day period specified in this article. Application to compel correction of any error in redistricting must be filed within thirty days following the adoption of the final redistricting plan and proclamation by the board. Original jurisdiction in these matters is vested in the superior court. On appeal from the superior court, the cause shall be reviewed by the supreme court on the law and the facts. Notwithstanding section 15 of article IV, all dispositions by the superior court and the supreme court under this section shall be expedited and shall have priority over all other matters pending before the respective court. Upon a final judicial decision that a plan is invalid, the matter shall be returned to the board for correction and development of a new plan. If that new plan is declared invalid, the matter may be referred again to the board. [Amended 1998]" [emphasis added]

3.  Four of the six challenges to the board were on decisions the board had agreed to unanimously.  I say six challenges, though two were related to the same issue - the Eagle River Senate pairings.  One brought by one set of plaintiffs after the first Plan and another brought by different plaintiffs after the second plan.

4.  Redistricting law is complicated and ambiguous.  It is made up of the Federal and State Constitutions, (including the minutes of the Alaska State Constitutional Convention), Federal and State statutes, and what judges have interpreted in prior Redistricting court cases.  One has to sift through all that to guess what will be ruled legal or illegal.  For example, the Board unanimously agreed to pull Cantwell out of the Mat-su Borough and put it into a huge Interior district so that it was with other Ahtna villages.  This was despite clear past court rulings that Boroughs should not be broken if at all possible and it violated the Constitutional requirement for compactness.  The Board knew the law was against this decision.  But it was also a strong request by the Calista and Ahtna Native Corporations arguing the Cantwell was Socio-Economically Integrated with the other Ahtna villages.  It didn’t involve a lot of people - maybe 200, and fewer actual voters.  It was challenged by the Valdez plaintiffs and by Mat-Su.  The Superior Court judge let it be in his ruling.  But the Supreme Court said they couldn’t do it.  Putting Cantwell back into a Mat-Su district didn’t get either Valdez or Mat-Su the bigger changes they wanted.  The point here is that there are lots of ways an attorney can justify a decision and lots of ways one can challenge a decision.  And it’s also unclear whether the advice would result in a lawsuit or not, or which way the Court will rule.  I’d note that had Valdez been originally put in a district that went up the highway to Fairbanks, they probably wouldn’t have challenged the decision even if Cantwell had been part of that district.  Maybe Mat-Su wouldn’t have sued either.

5.  Redistricting happens every ten years and only a few attorneys get involved in Alaska.  So there are relatively few opportunities to practice redistricting law and to become an expert in this area.  Understanding it well comes from reading everything about it - nationally and locally - and being involved in the process.  Both paths together help bring a better understanding.  And both take a lot of time, more than most lawyers who aren’t involved have time for.  And because redistricting only happens once a decade, there may well not be a chance to use one's expertise in court again.

 6.  Redistricting is highly political and somebody will always believe they were the loser and the map should be changed to accommodate their grievance.  This is implied in my second point - there's always litigation.  Someone or several someones will be aggrieved enough to pay an attorney to challenge some part of the Board's final map.  It's happened in every round of Alaska redistricting.

Conclusion

My conclusion is that it makes no sense to misadvise the Board in hopes of increasing litigation.  An attorney can give the Board the best possible advice and there will still be litigation.  

I'm leaving out two other areas of exploration that might fit in this post.  

• An examination of the kinds of advice Singer did give the Board.  
• There were key areas where at times the advice seemed either overly broad and/or it changed.  This was particularly true in terms of the early mantra - everything within a Borough is Socio-Economically Integrated (SEI).  At one point this stretched to: Mat-Su and Anchorage have had overlapping districts so everything in Anchorage and Mat-Su is Socio-economically integrated.  And then at another point - since Mat-Su and Valdez have shared a district, they are SEI.  And since Mat-Su and Anchorage are SEI, all three are SEI. Ultimately the Eagle River Senate seats were overturned, at least in part, by a similar concept - communities of interest - which judges said were not the same in all Anchorage neighborhoods.
• Other concepts like contiguity and the role of public participation in redistricting offered challenges in this round of redistricting, but these are matters for the court to decide
• A look at the nature of the attorney-client relationship
• Alaska Legal Rules of Professional Conduct outlines what is expected of attorneys.  Eagle River plaintiffs' attorney Holly Wells raised the issue of different ways to think about this relationship when it comes to attorneys of public entities.  Is their duty to the whole Board, the Board majority, the public, and how do you balance these?  Matt Singer would rightly point back to the role of the attorney to the Board he cited above from the statutes.
• Directly related is what role public testimony should play in redistricting.  Superior Court Judge Matthews ruled that the Board didn't give it enough weight in both the Eagle River suit or the Skagway suit.  The Supreme Court disagreed in the Skagway case, and we haven't yet heard their thinking on this in the Eagle River case which they seemed to rule against the Board based on other issues.  
• Conflicts of interest also have to be explored - This came to light when Valdez attorney pointed out that the Board's attorney also represented Ahtna Corporation in two upcoming Supreme Court cases and claimed that he should have told the Board that when they were considering Ahtna's role in getting the Cantwell moved out of the Mat-Su district.  
• The attorney's role is to explain the law as best he can and predict the likelihood of winning in court.  The Board then weighs that advice and decides how much risk they are willing to take.  But in this case, the client (the Board) does not bear the financial cost of a bad decision, the public does.

This post, many would argue, is already too long.  The first additional point - how redistricting criteria were explained and used and clarification the Supreme Court ought to make - I've already discussed in detail in various previous posts.  Here's one that succinctly identifies key issues/terns I'd like the Court to clarify.

The second point - on the attorney-client relationship - I'd like to explore in a future post.  

To reiterate - I'm personally convinced there was no wrong-doing on the part the Board's attorney to increase the post Proclamation litigation.  There was no need since it happens anyway even with the very best advice.  

  

 (Yes, I've been toying with this way too long.  But this is more for the 2030 Board than for today.  The only deadline I've given myself is to post this before the Supreme Court publishes its full opinion to supplement its brief ruling back in May.  And I figure that won't happen at least until after the November 8 election.  So I'm closing in on that deadline.  People are probably focused on other things right now, but I need to get this up finally.)