Beware the Ice of March

Tuesday I biked over to the dentist for a cleaning.  The shared sidewalk/trail on Providence was ice but at least had a good sand cover.













Lake Otis ice glared in the sun without sand, but was not flat out ice.  It seems to have had been more stamped down snow made into ice, but with little air pockets sucked out so it had a bit of traction. 

The picture on the right is a close up of the plowed snow on the right of the path above, as the low humidity and sunlight evaporate it.

Here's the ice at the bottom of our driveway,  created as the snow and ice in our driveway melt in the warmth of the day and then freeze solid at night.  We generally try to keep the driveway clear precisely so this doesn't happen.  But I've been away.  This is fall-on-your-ass ice and much of our street is like this right now.

While the street gets you from below, this ice gets you from above.

So when I went downtown yesterday, I was leery about biking on my studless tires. I took the bus.  But I walked home.  Sidewalks and streets downtown were in pretty good shape.  This ice is ice that should be there - it's Chester Creek.

  





And the Chester Creek Bike Trail proved to be in great shape - hard packed down snow, not ice, and a number of bikes passed me as I walked home. 

There was this interesting lumpy ice off to the side of the trail.  I clearly see something recognizable in it.  Does anyone else see something in this icy Rorschach? 

Getting off the groomed trail and onto a neighborhood street and it was challenging ice time again.  But it was a warm day - mid 30s.













At first I thought this was some fancy biking, but on reflection I don't think so - the grooves are too smooth and the curves too tight.  Any ideas?  I guess it could be done with a hose full of warm water, but how would that have happened at a busy street corner?

And finally some warmed ice edged by colder dirtier ice.

Redistricting Board Won't Use 'Protecting Incumbency' As a Principle

Last night I posted my running notes of the Alaska Redistricting Board's meeting a day after they received the 2010 Census data on which they base their decisions.  Receiving the data also sets off the State Constitutional clock which gives them 30 days to create a draft reapportionment plan. (This period is called the PRE-PLAN)  Then there are sixty days to write the final plan.  (This time period is called POST-PLAN)

That post yesterday was for the redistricting obsessed only.  This time I'm going to try to make the meeting more accessible to normal people who really should be interested in how our election districts are set. [Actually, it's turning out I'll do several posts about the meeting and this one focuses on the principles or criteria they will use to decide how to create the districts in the new plan.]

The agenda set out a few main decisions for them to make:

Board Attorney Michael White

1. Election of a Vice Chair (not sure how critical this is - they chose PeggyAnn McConnochie)
2. Adopt a time-line for public hearings  (See below)
3. Decide on  Pre-Plan hearing sites (places they'll visit to get public testimony)
4. Decide on Post-Plan hearing sites
5. Set public process & recording of hearings
6. Determine deadlines for submission of public comments and suggested plans
7. Set up Redistricting Guidelines
8. Decide what to do about legal issues
   a.  Reallocation of prisoner populations
   b.  What to do about military population
   c.  How to determine which Senate seats must go up for reelection in 2012
9. Decide on What Public Can Access (the short decision - everything they can figure out how to get online quickly)
10. How will they handle talking to the media - basic question was who would act as the Board's spokesperson
    

Can you see why this meeting went from 10:30am until 4:35pm? And why the last post went on forever? And how this post could go on for half of forever?

So I think I'll address one or two of these points each in their own posts. This one will look at lucky number seven - Redistricting Guidelines.

There are mandatory Federal and State Guidelines and then the board discussed two other possible guidelines, that are sometimes used in other states - protecting incumbency and

Board's attorney, Michael White's Redistricting Guidelines memo, dated March 16, 2011 lists in order of priority:

• Federal Constitutional Redistricting Principles
• Federal Statutory Redistricting Principles
• State Constitutional Redistricting Principles
• State Statutory Redistricting Principles

 [This document is in a long pdf file that contains all the handouts available at the meeting yesterday - it's pages 50-52.  But I'll cover it below.  This PDF file is not cut and pasteable. I'll note that the memo spelled principles as 'principals.'  I'm sure it was just a typo in the rush to get things out for the meeting, but I'll use the correct spelling even as I quote it.]



The Federal Constitutional Redistricting Principles are, briefly:

• A.  "One Person, One Vote". . ."legislative seats must be apportioned exclusively on the basis of population and the populations of the respective districts must be substantially equal."
• B.  "Districts of as nearly as equal size as practicable.  Maximum overall deviation of the no more than 10%, (i.e. plus or minus 5%)  Deviation is the measure of how much a district or plan varies from the ideal.  Good faith efforts to make deviations as small as practicable must be made.

Note:  The census data has come up with 17,755 as the ideal number for each district. (The 2010 State Population divided by 40 house districts.)  Of the 40 house districts, ten (10) fall in the plus or minus 5% range.  That's the MAXIMUM deviation allowed.  They are listed on this chart from lowest deviance (plus or minus) to the highest.

District	2010 Total Pop	2010 # Deviation	2010 % Deviation	Current Rep	Party	Location
31	17,744	-11	-0.06	Bob Lynn	(R)	Anchorage
19	17,804	+49	+0.28%	James ‘Pete’ Petersen	(D)	Anchorage
29	17,639	-116	-0.65	Chris Tuck	(D)	Anchorage
40	17,516	-239	-1.35%	Reggie Joule	(D)	Kotzebue
27	18,047	+292	+1.64%	Mia Costello	(R)	Anchorage
35	17,419	-336	-1.89%	Paul Seaton	(R)	Homer
28	18,473	+718	+4.04	Craig Johnson	(R)	Anchorage
33	18,493	+738	+4.16%	Kurt Olson	(R)	Soldotna
20	18,540	+785	+4.42%	Max Gruenberg	(D)	Anchorage
23	16,958	-797	-4.49%	Les Gara	(D)	Anchorage

There are some districts that are up to 19% below the ideal size and one 45% above.  These will challenge the board members.  You can see a chart with all 40 seats listed with their levels of deviance in a previous post.

• C.  "No purposeful discrimination against a group that has been consistently excluded from the political process."

In previous years, Alaska has been sued, successfully over discrimination in redistricting against Alaska Natives.  Because of this, Alaska is one of 16 states whose redistricting plan must be approved by the Department of Justice under the Federal Voting Rights Act.  You can read more details on this in a post I did last year on legislative hearings to enlarge the legislature. 

This does put pressure on the Board to be more careful because they know that not only Alaskans, but also the Federal Department of Justice will carefully review what they do.  

• D.  "No political or racial gerrymandering."

Then there are the Federal Statutory Redistricting Principles - two sections (2 and 5) of the US Voting Rights Act.

• Section 2 - No denial or abridgement of voting rights on account of race, color or status as a member of a language minority.
• Section 5 - No avoidable retrogression.  Retrogression is drawing a district in a manner that worsens minority voting strength as compared to the previous district configuration.  The minority group must be a large, cohesive and vote as a bloc.

Retrogression is the key issue the board has to be careful of in terms of the DOJ scrutiny.  Section 2 was an issue in a lawsuit about having translators and ballots in villages where English was not the main language of some voters.  I'm not sure how it affects the redistricting - except perhaps to keep large enough blocs of such voters together to allow them to get appropriate ballots and translators.  But I'm not sure.


The State Constitutional Redistricting Principles give some pretty specific guidelines.  The first one mimics the second US Constitutional Principle.

• A.  House districts of as nearly equal size as practicable (no overall deviation greater than 10% (plus or minus 5%)
• 10% deviation standard is not a safe harbor, good faith efforts must be made to reduce deviations to as small as practicable
• Deviations in Urban areas must be made as small as practicable because new technology makes it practicable to achieve those deviations

So those ten seats highlighted above, theoretically are acceptable, but those with the 4+% deviation probably are will face adjustments.   Seven of these ten are in Anchorage, two on the Kenai Peninsula, and Kotzebue.  The ones under 2% deviation are probably pretty safe, but the others - in Anchorage - probably are not.

• B.  Redistricting must be based upon the population within each district as reported by the official U.S. decennial census.
• C.  Districts must be contiguous.  Contiguity = All parts of a district being connected at some point with the rest of the district.
• D.  Districts must be relatively compact.  Compactness = Having the minimum distance between all parts of a district.  

If you look at the current district map of Alaska (bottom of post) you'll see House Distric 6 is huge - the largest in the US - and hardly compact.  Alaska's low population density and large geographic size makes redistricting a particular challenge - especially with all these criteria.

• F.  House Districts consisting of relatively socio-economically integrated areas [the attorney's memo skipped E]

An additional criterion they discussed was "communities of interest" in addition, but followed the attorney's advice that 'socio-economically integrated areas' pretty much covers the same ground.

• G.   Consideration to be given to local government boundaries where it is practical to do so.
• H.   Senate districts composed of two contiguous house districts.

As of yesterday, the Census data for the Senate districts wasn't yet available.  Just the House.

• I.  Drainage and other geographic features must be used, whenever possible, in describing boundaries.

Finally, the State Statutory Redistricting Principle.  (There's only one.)

• A.  Compliance with AS 15.10.200.  Redistricting Board may not adjust the census numbers by using estimates, population surveys, or sampling for the purpose of excluding or discriminating among persons counted based on race, religion, color, national origin, sex, age, occupation, military or civilian status, or length of residency.

There was relatively little discussion of most of these principles.  The focus was on two possible additions to these mandated principles.  Both were voted down.  But the discussion is worth considering.

1.  Should "communities of interest" be added to the criteria for how to mark district lines.
2.  Should "protection of incumbents" be added to the criteria.

Communities of interest, as mentioned above, was seen by the attorney, Michael White, as 'too amorphous' to use and basically covered by the State criterion of "socio-economically integrated."  The Board accepted that conclusion and voted against adding this criterion.

The discussion on protecting incumbents was longer.  The attorney warned the Board that if the were going to consider incumbency in their decisions, they needed to make it one of their principles, so that it was open and clear.  And if they were going to use it, they would have to be completely non-partisan in its use.

The reasons it might be considered included:

• Needing to know an incumbent's address so that when redrawing the lines, they didn't accidentally
• exclude an incumbent from her district. 
• This could be particularly problematic in the case of Alaska Native incumbents because of the Federal Voting Rights Act and the issue of retrogression - "drawing a district in a manner that worsens minority voting strength as compared to the previous district configuration."
• they didn't accidentally put two incumbents into the same district so they would have to run against each other. 

But this also starts skirting the issue of gerrymandering which is explicitly prohibited.  In the end they voting against including criteria other than the Federally and State mandated criteria.

Below is an excerpt of some of the discussion on these topics. [This is from my running notes during the meeting.  Assume there are errors and omissions, but it gives you the sense of the discussion.  The notes of the whole meeting are in the previous post.]

Notes: 

G. Redistricting Guidelines

White (Attorney): It’s ok to use ‘protecting incumbents’ as long as it’s non-partisan. If you are defending a plan, you could have made district 12, 2% instead of 3%, then you could defend it by using the principle. If you use protection of incumbents as a guideline, then it should be voted on as a guideline. If you use where an incumbent lives, that’s ok. But if you’re going to use it, then you should adopt it. We will have to have data on where incumbents live for the Voting Rights Act stuff.
If you don’t expect to use it as a justification for your plan.
Brodie: is there a problem if you protect 30 but not ten [incumbents]?
White: Given the changes, it is inevitable. But if the board does it intentionally, to protect an incumbent, it should be one of your guidelines. But it has to be nonpartisan.
Last board didn’t use that as a guideline. If you have rational reasons based on your principles, then it’s ok. As long as information on incumbent’s address is not improperly used.
Brodie: Others? [criteria]
White: Metcalf mentioned communities of interest. Tried to use community councils and court rejected that. You can adopt that as a guideline, it’s pretty amorphous. Contiguous intactness protects against gerrymandering. In Eagle River they changed a little part that cut out an incumbent. Court threw it out.
Another Case - Cox - was thrown out, they used partisan interest and didn’t try to hide it. Others board could consider. I think statutory mandatory guidelines is legit and going beyond that isn’t necessary.
Brodie: doesn’t stop us from using community of interest?
White: If you use them, but haven’t adopted them a guidelines, not good.
Brodie: Other guidelines?
White: Yes, but not in Alaska. Like whole counties. For me communities of interest is pretty amorphous. Socie-economic integration gets that.
John Torgerson: I think socio-economic integration good. The incumbent guideline leads to gerrymandering.
PeggyAnn McConnochie: What’s in the federal and state guidelines. I’m naive enough that considering who is in the district and who might run against them is less important than socio-economic integration.
Greene: You  concur?
White: I think socio-ecomomic integration covers 'communities of interest'
If you deviate within 10% there’s no presumption it is a problem. More than ten%. State Supreme Court said, in urban area - Anchorage in decision - I think it applies to other urban areas. In rural areas, it’s harder and you have more leeway, but still under ten%. Yes, I think anything that community of interest covers, is covered in socio-economic integration.
John Torgerson: I think court went on to say that ferry system and other things are part of community of interest.
Motion before us is to add community of interest and incumbents as guidelines.
Brodie: in rural area it is easy to know where people live, I don’t know about in urban areas.
John Torgerson: motion to adopt
Motion fails.
Adopt redistricting guidelines presented in our [memo from attorney - stuff above in this post]
Adopt guidelines.

Alaska Redistricting Board - Meets, Sets Travel Agenda and Ground Rules

I went to the Alaska Redistricting Board meeting today downtown in the old Sunshine Mall where their office is. I'd read an announcement that said it went from 10:30am until 12:30pm. I wasn't really expecting a meeting that would last until 4:35pm, but it did. I walked home - which I really needed - and I'm not quite sure what I should post now. I'm too tired to try to put together a neat synopsis, but I do have pretty complete notes. So, I'll run them through spell check and put up the same warning I've used for other situations like this:

THESE ARE ROUGH NOTES I TOOK DURING THE MEETING. THEY AREN'T VERBATIM, THEY PROBABLY HAVE LOTS OF TYPOS, GAPS, AND MY OWN ABBREVIATIONS, BUT THEY SHOULD GIVE YOU A REASONABLY GOOD IDEA OF WHAT WENT ON - SUBSTANCE AND MOOD.

I would note that it is always good to check your stereotypes against the facts. With four people appointed by Republicans and one by an independent (I don't know how the Supreme Court Chief Justice registers) it does make the board seem pretty one-sided. But the talk today was pretty strongly aware of the dangers of political bias in this process and the chair said several times there would be no bias and that he had not spoken to the Governor or the head of the Republican Party about the process other than at his interview for the job with the Governor. Of course, that doesn't mean there might not be unconscious bias or even that it's all a show, but I felt more encouraged.




The Notes:



Alaska Redistricting Board Meeting
Wednesday March 16, 2010
411 W. 4th Suite 302

1. Call to Order
2. Roll Call - John Torgerson, Jim Holm, Marie N. Greene, PeggyAnn McConnochie
Robert Brodie missing - trouble flying out of Kodiak
3. Agenda Approval
4. Approve prior Minutes

l-r: Torgerson, Bickford (staff), Holm McConnochie, White(attorney)

5. Election of Vice-Chair - postponed until Robert Brodie arrives

6. Roll Call Staff, Public - Staff: Taylor Bickford, Michael White, attorney, Ron Miller, Executive Director

7. Public Comments
A. Invited Presentation Native POLICY CENTER
Denise Morris - Pres. First Alaskans , and have Liz Medicine Crow and Rick Mueller,
Policy Analyst at First Alaskans.

Break to get Teleconference online. Technical problems with teleconferencing.


10:52: Teleconference ok

Denise Morris again: Juneau connected.

Denise Morris: Pres of 1st Alaskans, Liz Medicine Crow, Rick Mueller Sr. Pol Analyst

Policy Center insures Alaska Natives are empowered and participate in policy
Also leadership group, Elders-Youth conference each year
Involvement in redistricting - FA dedicated as

[Can’t hear you - break try to move mic closer]

ANative Policy center in 2006 designated as Census info center for Alaska. We’ve been publishing info on redistricting. ANQuarterly - importance in involvement in participating in redistricting, Info on outreach, prepared public hearing and notice schedule, draft of letters people can use. Want to be resource for Redistricting Board - sharing information. We’ve had about 7000 hits on website in last month alone. Networked and linked to all organizations around alaska.
As draft plans are available we’d like to distribute them.

Mueller, Morris, Medicine Crow from First Alaskans Institute

Liz Medicine Crow - Tlingit Haida from Kake = Vice Director and ?? Alaska Native Policy Center  [Vice President of First Alaskans Institute and the Director of the Native Policy Center.] Looked at issues that greatly impact AK Native people - one is the Census and redistricting process. Trying to understand how these things impact AK natives.
We’re at the beginning of this.
Plan how to engage and empower AN community to participate, feel welcome, know how to engage. Tips on how to present public testimony. Drafts now until we talk to you. Also looking at the different proposed plans shared, concerns raised, and see how it will impact the AKN community.

Will come here to monitor. Yesterday. You released information on population. Put it up on our Facebook page. 7000 hits in a month. Your FB page is good, allows people to hook up immediately. Looking to be as helpful as we can for ANs and others. Also looking at 2020 process.

Rick Mueller - policy analyst, originally from Ketchikan. Job to look at draft plan, analyze it district by district and see how it impacts AK Native community pos and neg.

Q: PeggyAnn McConnochie: Thanks for your involvement - we
are going to need a lot of help, is greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Marie Green: One suggestion - use local radio stations in rural Alaska. This material is great and I appreciate what you’ve already done.

Ron Miller: Liz was recently named one of the top under 40 Alaskans.

John Torgerson: Thank you very much.

B. Other public comments
Torgerson: About 20 people who want to testify. Limit to 30 minutes
By Phone: [I did get the list of people calling in so I could spell the names right]
Robert Venables- rep SE Conference: Thank you all for providing teleconference. Encourage as much meetings held in SE, especially district 5 which seems to be disappearing.
John Torgerson: Thanks, appreciate use of your connections around the communities. Will set this afternoon, which communities we’ll visit. You can go online and get updates.

Dave Metheny: STatewide coordinator for AK Dem party. Process not been particularly smooth on opening end. Case: changing phone numbers over the last three days. Wondering why testimony on front end, so we could respond to issue raised in meeting. Will all the work be done in open meetings with criteria being transparent? Cognizant open meeting laws apply except for executive session. Also people must have ‘adequate’ notice of meetings. Also, trouble getting info from redistricting board at this point. Hope you open it up a bit more. We need help to get Dem activists involved in process. Hope that motive of board is true, questioning slightly at this point.

John Torgerson: What info trouble getting?
Metheny- census data, timelines of meeting, phone lines. Want to get our people plugged in.
John Torgerson: We got the census data yesterday, it was on the web in two hours. How much faster should we do it?
Metheny: That’s fine.
John Torgerson: We will follow public meeting law - five days notice I believe.

Randy Ruedrich: Thank board for taking important task that will have impact on AK for ten years. Address issue that came to attention. March 1 memo - prisoner population attributions. Corrections published in Feb 2002- B of Census will provide group data for each prison in the state to allow you to consider attributing info back to their residences. We have about 5800 indivduals, 30-35% AK Native. That means representation of prison system is more than 100% greater as we work voting rights issues. To protect voting rights of AK natives, if over 2000 in system and can attribute them back to their home towns will increase those districts and impacts will be less and impact on majority and minority populations will be less. Encourage you to pursue this. If the average felon is only in for 387 days. Half the people counted in the correction system are already home. Got back faster than census data. Encourage you to seek legal counsel on this. Before we go to District Court in DC.

PeggyAnn McConnochie McConnochie: Incarcerated in AK or anywhere?
Ruedrich: In state. We have some in Colorado. Basically those in April of last year. This data is available, so we could get the 4800 ….
John Torgerson: we gave it to our attorney. He’ll share his thoughts this pm
Heide Schoppenhorst, District 6 ???: Not sure about meeting purpose. Residents in rural Alaska, rumors that not enough people in villages and Dis. 6 might get lumped in with another district. Please don’t lump us with a place like Fairbanks. A big city isn't going to represent rural Alaska. If lumped with someone, we’d like Noth Slope.

Tanya Beatus: Fairbanks: Speaking on behalf for Alaskans for Fair Redistricting: Non-partisan, unions, AK native, civic. Volunteers interested in process. Not new. Have teams seeking inputs from people to understand the ramifications both urban and rural. Understand hard taks to get right number and meeting all the legal tasks. And all this in 90 days. We stand ready to help and hope to present plan for your consideration.
John Torgerson. We will have a meeting in Fbanks.
Tom Okleasik: Kotzebue: goal to enhance education and have more democracy. In redistricting important. Only one senator and rep to legislature. Particularly with the resources that go to state budget from our district.

Don Gray: Interior District vice chair for Dem Party 6,7,8,9,11, and part of 12. 40 year resident. Appreciate the work you do. Lots of changes over the decades. 1980s, only had 8900 people in my Fairbanks district. Became district 7 in 90s. One district from North Pole to UAF - 15 miles. Long skinny arm that wnt thru Dist. 33. I lived in 32 then. 32 came about in he 90s. Not the kind of district we’d like to see. 2000 districts became more compact. Board goal to make communities focal point there. I hope looking ahead, we’re a district - very helpful to see how we’ve grown - over 20,000 in what is currently district 7, up 15,000 from years ago. All the others larger than the ideal 17,755.
….You have big task. Speed precision and fairness
,
Ed Schoenfeld: No questions, just listening.

Lupe Marroquin: Representing self and former election professional. Thanks for your service. What is involvement of Gov’s office in this process and conversations with the Gov and if so what were the topics and how resolved and will the public continue to be advised.
John Torgerson: Constitutionally created board, neither under leg or gov. we cannot be public officials, independent, to keep board as private citizens. Gov. appointed two members - other than initial interview, I’ve had no conversations with the governor. Don’t intend to.

John Bolling: Craig. Thanks in advance. Hope board will be able to visit here.
John Torgerson. We did get letter from City of Craig and we will listen. My advice to board is we take up your invitation to invite neighboring folks.

Geric Jordan: Thank you. Mr. Chairman. Mayor of Sitka. Lifelong AK resident. Want to be sure you keep Sitka intact, don’t cross line thru community. Will members of the public be able to speak privately to the board members. Under open meetings act, 2 or less, can meet.
Mr. White: Any time more than 2 get together it has to be an open meeting. There is no legal impediement to indiviuals talking to individual members. As member of the public free to contact any board memeber. If that board member will talk to you hasn’t been decided.
Jordan: So, yes, private citizen will be allowed to meet with two members privately.
White: Not what I said. We haven’t decided yet. Whether board will hold meetings with indiividuals. not decided.
Jordan: Have you met with members of the public about redistricting?
John Torgerson: I have and I would recommend this board not put a cap on members talking to indiviuals. It’s part of the process. I think unconstitutional to gag board members from talking to the public. We are in the same offices, but don’t gt together. Indivi

[These people were in the room. I didn’t get their names so I apologize if I spell them wrong.]
Kristie Smithers: City Clerk right? Thank. AK Association of Municipa Clerks, Wasilla, Clerk from Palmer (Janette Bower), Sheri Pierce? Valdez Muni Clerk. Speaking for clerks, about 100 members. Some have done redistricting and newer clerks a bit intimidated. Not sure of the impact. In vally, very fast growing. Lots of interesting annexations. Over past few years, some examples, a map. Covered by District 14. Had annexation. One parcel in district 15. Doesn’t impact me because no reg voters in that area. I might have to have a precinct for one possible voters. That would allow others to know how that person cast ballot. Not only muni that has these issues, Kenai, Matsu, etc. Muni clerks run our elections every year. Public comes to us to ask why this happens. We have a lot of issues - “Why do I have to drive by three precincts to get to my precincts? Drive 14 miles? Have to have mail ballots.

Use water bodies, Alaska RR. RCA boundaries - they will encompass cities in future. City boundaries not necessarily the best. We are here to help you. Appreciate your time today.

John Torgerson: Precinct boundaries set by Lt. Gov office not the board.
Christie Smithers: We can’t cross state district boundaries to allow one person.

Jake Metcalf. 4th genration alaskan, born and raised in Juneau, lived in BEthel, now in Anchorage. SErved in City Council in Bethel. Anchorage School Board. Also as former chair of AK Dem party 2004-7. Chair of AK Dem Party redistricitng committee. I know that you and bord have one of democracies most important tasks to complete in a fair manner. Relying on process to be open and fair and legally ???
Have a list of questions in letter form. I’ll read a few I know time is limited.
1. What criteria used in drawing the lines. Keeping community of interest together - will you use?
2. Given pop shifts over the decades, possible to avoid retrogression in minority voting strength.
3. How much variance among districts do you think is allowable?
Looked briefly at material you’ve provided here. mr. White’s memo to you on a number of questions. One answer - advice - avoid backdoor politics and that board has to follow open meetings law. My advice and question: open government, transparency especially important in this process. Follow up on Mr. Jordan’s question in Sitka about meetings with individuals - and I agree that members should get to talk. I’m wondering if the board individually or in groups of one or two have met with Mr. Ruedrich. If there have been, what I’d ask for is that in the future to avoid backdoor politics, that in future such meetings all parties at the meeting. Important.
John Torgerson: I’ve met with Mr. Ruedrich as much as I’ve met with you. Zero. Call me and I’ll meet with you. Not saying we’ll agree, but you’ll be able to pull on my ear. Some..

Deborah Williams: Exec Dir AK Dem Party . Thanks you the board and staff. Thanks for the tremendous public service you are doing. Nothing more important than one person one meaningful vote. This R Board has the technical ability to make our votes meaningful or not very meaningful. Ability to gerrymander, depriving people of meaningful voting. And call also draw lines to ??? political prties and keeping current office holders out. I’m not hinting this board is going to do that.
Our current districts in Anc and Fbks are compact and represent the communities well. There will have to be adjustments, but those adjustments, espe. in Anchorage and FBks. Avoid pitting incumbents against each other and gerrymandering. There can be - as you say in your own documents - no political gerrymandering. Our constitution says this should not be political. Thank you so much for your work. You’ve heard from a lot of Dems today, We do care a lot. We really wish you the best.
Leonard Lawson: Here representing alliance for reproductive justice. Our director couldn’t make it. We want to involve people. We want to be involved for our members. Extreme work to learn software etc. We would really like to know the guideles the board will use to draw districts. What will happen when guidelines conflict? Which will you choose. Guidelines, hard and fast rules, order of precedence. We are in the same 30 day and 60 day deadlines.
2. Lookng through some of th legal issues in the documents you provided. You asked about incumbent maps. Is the board going to be using them? You said the use of non-partisan incumbent protection is justified. What does that mean? That all stay in districts they’re in? etc.
1. When guidelines come out?
2. How important is incumbent protection? How non-partisan?
3. Protecting existing districts important? If districts keep changing discourages involvement.
John Torgerson: guidelines on agenda for later this afternoon.
Amazing to say, with all the population changes - don’t know how you can preserve the district? 9000 people growth in one district? 4000 loss in another.
Incumbent map question -could you put tht in writing?

Handouts - These should all be online

Rest of the agenda:
8. Old Business review of open meeting act.
Mr. White: video ** a few places I stopped taking notes and took video - later for that
John Torgerson: PeggyAnn McConnochie has served on public boards

9. New Business
A. Budget update
$1,954,255 total 975,000 left project to carry forward into FY 12
Budget is under gov’s office - personnel - submitted request to continue in 2012. about $3.2 million for overall appropriation - 2000-2001 process little less that $5million
No money for payments for lawsuits.
Mr. Holms - balance is negative #. Why?
John Torgerson:
Miller: Personnel services $400,000+ projecting. Have available ??? very liberal projections to make sure we have enough. Part will be taken by voting rights act consultant.

[12:05pm] B. Adopt time-line for public hearings
Need our fifth member here to complete this.
Miller: left message thought plane would get here around 11:45 and would come straight from the airport.
Torgerson: I hate to delay because of teleconference. Don’t know what else to do. Take recess. Need all our board members when we take up this agenda and go forward as a board. With that we’ll take at least a ten mintue recess.

12:30 - Brodie had weather problems coming out of Kodiak is here now.
Torgerson: Teleconference bridgeline had some problems from overloading. We’ll disconnect video, it will be on internet - go to site and click on legislative.tv on front page.
[High volume] Good test for our equipment here.

John Torgerson - recognize board members won’t be able to go to all the meetings, but as much as we can on the pre-plan hearings. Post plan hearings, need to divide board into teams of three teams of two with attorneys being other team. Divide the state up and have the pre-plan meetings with at least two. But sometimes run into weather issues. I’d love go to all the meetings, but know probably impossible. Members have day jobs you have to pay attention to.

First issue:
C. Pre-plan hearing sites. Timeline yesterday morning 9:45 got Census data, so we must be complete April 14 at 9:45. A little quicker getting the data than I hoped. But I understand they were afraid of govt. shutdown if resolution didn’t pass Congress, but it did. Last ten days 4th April- 14th like board to consider being here all that time. We’ll do a lot drawings as a board. Consider public comments, where we want to draw the lines. then ten days. Whether we work weekends up to the board.
Block out those ten days.

Open to general discussion: Time Conflicts?
I’ll start. I have to be on Kenai 21st and 24th hour each day, previously set up and can’t do anything about. If in hearings. I’d fly home and be back. Meetings from 12-1. Back by 2:30 or so.
Mr. Holms - April 2 I have open house at my store. Only day. Weekends are better not to be here.
PeggyAnn McConnochie McConnochie - I can move things around.
Mr. White - My time is your time
Mr. Brodie - couple of evening meetings in Kodiak, nothing big
Ms. Greene - probably 14th of April - Nana Board meeting. Meeting here in Anchorage.

Brodie and Greene

Suggestion to meet every afternoon about 2:30pm - in mornings do things on our own, meet with people, etc.
Brodie: Would we, say next week go to these communities and then meet after that?
John Torgerson: Throwing out global thoughts - have to post meetings five days out, so have to post in advance to meet the open meeting requirements. It says reasonable length of time. Not sure if really five days Maybe when leg goes into 24 hour rule. . . No joking.
they’d like to video conference a lot, it takes coordination. If we do five days,
22nd, first date, maybe the 21st, count Sundays.
I suggest we start on 22.
Brodie - you have meeting on 21, what if we meet in Kenai?
Torgerson - not going to Kenai.
Going as one board to first one [preplan], then in teams. We should go out as a board to major metropolitan areas. After were done with plan, the next 60 days we’ll go as teams. That was my thought. Objection to starting March 22?
PeggyAnn McConnochie OK

C. Pre-plan hearing sites
Anchorage, Bethel, Fairbanks, Juneau, Palmer, Kotzebue, Statewide teleconference
All day trips? Can we come in the morning and leave at night?
Greene: yes.

Brodie: Could do Anchorage and Palmer in one day.
Torgerson: Don’t intend to limit presentations to three minutes if groups come in to present plans.
Brodie: We’ll entertain plans?
Discussion about times
If people have plans, give us notice so we could schedule afternoon time to hear it.
Try to start at noon and end at 7pm
White: Do you really want to set an ending time. If it ends at 3pm, do we want to sit until 6pm?
John Torgerson: I don’t mind sitting there.
Holm: People don’t know. It may be hard to get there on time, we give them a definitive time. Opportunity to email us and tell us we can’t be there till 6.
John Torgerson: in perfect world like to have public hearing for plans at a certain time and just public comments at a different time. You need an actual start and stop time. 7 or 8 hours is a long time.
PeggyAnn McConnochie: set up agenda saying plans first, then five minute public comment. Say that longer commenters should register - as with 1st Alaskans - to let us know they want more time. Not saying it well. We want to hear them all, don’t want to chop them off.
12am start 7pm
Holm = 12pm
Brodie: Adjust for community and airplane schedule
March 22:
Torgerson: Anyone have additional locations for preplan hearings
PeggyAnn McConnochie: I’d suggest Ketchikan.
White: Aluetians?
John Torgerson: No Dutch Harbor? We should add it.
Objections to adding Ketchikan? OK, added.
Anhorage and Fairbanks and Palmer easy to set.
Suggestions for
March 22: Anchorage
enough time for interested parties to come up with plans?
[Audience shaking heads no]
OK, Anchorage March 22.
March 23: Palmer
March 24 not available.
March 25 Friday - Fairbanks on ??
Can we get to Kotz from Fairbanks?
Greene: one flight a day - hour. Three flights out of Anchorage?
Can’t do Fairbanks - Kotz - Anchorage
PeggyAnn McConnochie: Since we added Ketchikan and Juneau then
John Torgerson: why is 28th circled? Sewards Day. State Holiday but not Federal.
Juneau on 25
Ketchikan on 26
Sunday day off
March 28 Fairbanks
March 29 Kotzebue
Greene - we should reverse that because of airline schedule, ok that will work
March 30 Bethel
March 31 Statewide teleconference
White: good to have a break for time to put materials together and to analyze
John Torgerson: If we have 3 people in office is that violation? [of public meetings law]
White: If working in the office but not meeting, not a problem.
John Torgerson: three day weekend, back on 4th.
Motion to adopt our proposed pre-plan hearings
Anchora 22 12pm- 7pm for all unless areas where we can’t
Brodie - in Saturday we ould adjust it in Ketchikan
Palmer 23
Juen 24
Ketch 25
Faribanks 29
Kotz 30
Statewide March 31
Passed.

Rest of pre plan 30 days - board members own schedules, can be in he office and work on the plan, won’t be official board meetings. April 4th, to 14th we’re here in the office to set plans.
Afternoon meetings- might be open ended.
White: Don’t have to adjourn the meeting, could have one meeting and recess and come back in. Last year board did that. What happens? I’d probably notice them.
John Torgerson: start time is important.
PeggyAnn McConnochie McConnochie: I’d like the public to know start times. Rolling recess not good.
John Torgerson: times they met and recessed and came back the next day. I’d suggest 4th to the 8th we set time at 2pm til 5pm.
Brodie: What are we doing from 8-2?
John Torgerson: DRawing plans on the computer, work in teams of two to work on plans. Could be for an hour.
Brodie: How will it work if not all five here.
John Torgerson: assume that spend time as individuals so you hae thoughts.

Video discussion how to work;
PeggyAnn McConnochie - I’d like morning and then in the afternoon, opportunities to work as meeting. Extending it to 6pm is reasonable to allow working people to come.
John Torgerson: Open to Public Comment every day. Probably won’t be a work product.
PeggyAnn McConnochie: Not necessarily open to public, but allow the to hear our thinking. We’ll have heard a lot of people around the state.
John Torgerson: If we get a lot of people at 6, we could state.
Brodie: I wouldn’t necessrily preculde call in period from public?
John Torgerson: Beginning?
Brodie: or the end.
John Torgerson: How do I select the people for those 15 minutes?
Marie Green: Don’t we want to have meet time available for the public? We start on the 22nd. Realistically, how much time, how prepared will the public be? I’m sure people will share their thoughts. Making time for public at these board meetings, welcome them to share. How can we make it so the public, we’ll be hearing from them, even during our board meetings.
John Torgerson: I hear the concerns. At some point we have to cut the umbilical cord and the board needs to do it’s work. Then we’ll have 60 post plan days to hear from people. Then you end up with public comment that may or may not be germaine to this board, but I’m thinking it has to be restricted or we won’t have time to do our work? First three or five to sign up? I don’t know. Talking out loud. Could take day toward the end for another teleconference. Defeating post plan time.
PeggyAnn McConnochie: I ee what you mean. Trying to get my mind around this. Concentrate on preplan hearings. Then we have to put up our plan. As much public observance of that as possible. It would be difficult if people were commenting on minutia at last minute for us to deal with rather than waiting for the pre-plan meeting.
John Torgerson: If we move a community into a new district, we’d have 400 people show up and wouldn’t get things done for weeks. Plenty to call us. Email us. We can answer those emails in the morning.
Is Sat. April 9 a day - it appears we should be working on that day too. Question: Do we want to work over the weekend 9th and 10th?
PeggyAnn McConnochie: we should.
Holm: I may have some problem
Keep to 2pm on weekends too. Mr. White, can we cancel if we need to?
Mr. White: There will be a lot of issues coming to a head then. How are we going to deal with this? There will be issues you need to discuss that will help you all as you put together the plan. Mr. Brodie, I know you said you didn’t contemplate a staff plan, but I don’t see how tht hurts to have another plan you can compare against.
Brodie, Green: sure
John Torgerson: I’m not quite there yet. Will staff have time to ‘be staff’ and to make their own plan. Where’s the priority? If I want these guys to do something for me, do they drop their plan?
White: You are the priority for the plan. But we have resources. Given scrutiny we’re going to get from the DOJ, the more plans we have looked at the better.
John Torgerson: Talking about completely plans, or work I’ve done on the computer? I’m guessing each of us willhave run through this 500 times, or are you saying we need to have five plans?
White: No, we’re talking about the same things. As long as you’ve looked at these alternatives.
John Torgerson: I don’t object to staff plan, but I need to think about it. We’re thinking of hiring another staff member - they’ve been doing some interviews. Three it people who can assist the bord. Maybe with that extra person we’ll have time.

Media were there for the first hour or so

PeggyAnn McConnochie: This is a pretty good program. Can’t we just ask the computer to do different things? I’d be curious what it would come out with.
Bickford: I think it’s technically possible.
John Torgerson: I was told that. Not sure it can figure out retrogression.
Bickford: Software more built for urban areas. Popping out a plan for rural Alaska hard.
John Torgerson: Time for meetings? 8 or 9 - 11, 12, 13 8am start times.
Preplan schedule:
I will say what is there:
Not meeting April 1, 2, 3 - board members private time to work on own plans
April 4-10 daily meetings starting at 2pm until adjourn. Board members in offices doing own work in moring.
April 11-13 - 8am meetings. Passed.
Good discussion, what we needed to do.

[I'm experimenting here with the Break function that allows those who want to see the rest to go for it without this taking up any more room.  Let's see if it works.]

Alaska Redistricting - House Winners and Losers

The first post on redistricting is here.

The ideal size for an Alaska House District, according to the Census data, is 17,755  (the 2010 state population divided by 40 districts.)

The Biggest Losers - districts significantly below the 17,755 mark.

District 5 - Southeast District that includes Haines and wanders south to the Canadian border, surrounding Districts 1, 2, 3, and 4, currently held by Rep. Bill Thomas Jr., has the lowest population - 13,846 - 22% below the ideal size of 17,755.

District 6 - the large interior district north of Fairbanks held by new Rep. Alan Dick is 19% below the ideal size of 17,755 at 14,235.

District 1 - Ketchikan seat held by Rep. Kyle Johansen is 19% below the ideal at 14,333.

District 36 -Kodiak seat held by Rep. Alan Austermann is below by 17% at 14,570.

District 2 - Petersberg seat held by Rep. Peggy Wilson is below by 17% at 14,651.

District 12   - the large seat that stretches from around Chickaloon to Valdez held by new Rep. Eric Feige is 16% below the target at  14,811.

The Biggest Winners - districts significantly above the 17,755 target.

District 15 - Wasilla seat held by Rep. Mark Neuman is  46% above the ideal at 25,974.

District 14 - another Wasilla seat, this one held by Rep. Wes Keller is 33% above at 23,682.

District 13 - neighboring Palmer seat held by Rep. Carl Gatto is 32% above at 23,507.

District 11 -  Fairbanks seat held by Rep. Tammie Wilson is  22% above at  21,692,

District 16 - Chugiak seat held by Rep. Bill Stoltz is above the target of 17,755 by 21% at 21,559.

District 7 -Fairbanks seat held by new Rep. Bob Miller 18% above the ideal at 20,982.


Closest to 17,755

District  31    - Rep. Bob Lynn's seat is 11 (.06%) people below the ideal size at 17,744.

Here's a table I put together combining the Census data that came out yesterday and information on the seats themselves. 
Redistricting House


To accommodate the need for more districts in areas where the population has grown, some districts where the population has declined will have to split up.   I would expect the Redistricting Board to try to change the borders of districts so that some Democratic legislators are no longer in their old districts.  In some cases they may redraw the lines so that two existing legislators are now in the same district and would have to compete against each other in the next election.

We'll see where this goes.  I haven't seen any data for the Senate yet.

UPDATE 9:20am:  Here's a map showing the larger districts. You can enlarge it using the magnifying glass in the bottom frame.

Alaska Leg Districts Map

Iditarod Winner Is In - Next Event Redistricting The Legislature

The Iditarod winners have crossed the finish line in Nome today. Kotzebue's John Baker, an Alaska Native, won in record time. He was followed by Ramey Smyth of Willow and later Hans Gatt.

The next big race in Alaska begins as the Alaska Redistricting Board received the Official US Census Data today. While this race won't get the widespread attention of the Iditarod, it is arguably of far more consequence to Alaskans and the nation.

 
The Objective:
 
To create House and Senate Districts that are roughly equal in population and meet legal prohibitions against discrimination.  Alaska is one of 16 states monitored under the Federal Voting Rights Act.

Section 5 is a special provision of the statute (42 U.S.C. 1973c) that requires state and local governments in certain parts of the country to get federal approval (known as"preclearance") before implementing any changes they want to make in their voting procedures: anything from moving a polling place to changing district lines in the county. [emphasis added]

In Alaska's case, we are in this category because of violations of voting rights for Alaska Natives.  And the districts that would lose votes are in the rural areas with larger Alaska Native populations.  So, any changes in those districts will get special federal scrutiny to be sure that Alaska Native voting rights are not diminished.

Last spring I wrote about this while covering a proposed Constitutional Amendment that would have increased the number of representatives in Alaska.  There are a lot more details about the parameters of redistricting there.



The Time:

The State Constitution gives the Board 30 days to submit the redistricting plan after they receive the Census data, which came March 15, 2011.  But, as in the past, there are sure to be challenges to whatever they come up with.

Within thirty days after the official reporting of the decennial census of the United States or thirty days after being duly appointed, whichever occurs last, the board shall adopt one or more proposed redistricting plans. The board shall hold public hearings on the proposed plan, or, if no single proposed plan is agreed on, on all plans proposed by the board. No later than ninety days after the board has been appointed and the official reporting of the decennial census of the United States, the board shall adopt a final redistricting plan and issue a proclamation of redistricting. The final plan shall set out boundaries of house and senate districts and shall be effective for the election of members of the legislature until after the official reporting of the next decennial census of the United States. (b) Adoption of a final redistricting plan shall require the affirmative votes of three members of the Redistricting Board. [Amended 1998]

The Players:

The State Senate President got to appoint one member and he chose:
Robert B. Brodie, a real estate broker from Kodiak.

Photo from AKRepublicans

Speaker of the House appointed nursery owner and former Republican state rep from Fairbanks, Jim Holm.  Democrat Scott Kawasaki defeated him in 2006.  An old legislative page says he was born July 15, 1945 in Glendale, California and that he graduated from Lathrop High School in 1963 and attended the University of Alaska Fairbanks from 1964 - 1990.

Photo from Nana Website

Chief Justice  of the Alaska Supreme Court chose Marie Kasannaaluk Greene, Kotzebue, and President and CEO of the NANA Regional Corporation.  Maybe Baker can give her some winning advice. 

Photo: ACH Consulting

The Governor got to make two appointments.  PeggyAnn McConnochie of Juneau, is a real estate broker and President of ACH  Consulting, where it appears that she teaches seminars in real estate and does personal coaching to people in the real estate business.

From 1998 Election Guide

The governor's second appointment was former State Senator from the Kenai Peninsula, John C. Torgerson.  Torgeson was born October 21, 1947 in Iowa City, Iowa and got his GED through the US Army High School in 1966.  (There's a lot more easily accessible information on former legislators.)  His occupation is listed as Retail Business Owner/Operator.  You can see all his government and association affiliations (at least older ones) here.



There are a lot of other interested parties, but the Board officially makes the decisions.  If you pay attention to Alaskan politics, you might have already figured out that this event is pretty well greased.  The State Senate President, the State House Chair, and the Governor are all Republicans.  State Supreme Court Justices aren't identified by party, but my sense of Chief Justice John Carpenetti is that he's somewhat to the left of the other four.  But it means Republicans chose at least four of the five board members.


What are the Rules?

The official goal is simply to create districts that have roughly equal populations. The Census report says the:

2010 ideal district size of 17,755 is determined by dividing the Census 2010 statewide population (710,231) by Alaska's 40 house districts (710,231/40 = 17,755)

So they are aiming to put together 40 districts with 17,755 people in each.  That, of course, isn't all that easy.  There are some rules for the districts.

The Alaska Constitution, Article 6, spells out requirements for house and senate districts.

[NOTE:  I like these boxes because they highlight key points for people, but they aren't accessible to the blind because they are images, but the technology they have can only read text.  For any blind readers, the text of this box is from Article 6, Section 6 of the Alaska Constitution.  Also, ignore the last bracketed information.  The box is from the post I did last year when the Legislature passed a Constitutional Amendment to increase the size of the House to 44.  But the Amendment was defeated in the August primary.]

And for the Senate:

What does 'integrated socio-economic area" mean?  The Brennan Center lists the language above from the Alaska Constitution along with language from 23 other states and says they are versions of the idea of "community of interest."

Several redistricting criteria — like following county or municipal lines, or drawing districts that are compact — are in some ways proxies for finding communities of common interest. These are groups of individuals who are likely to have similar legislative concerns, and who might therefore benefit from cohesive representation in the legislature.

 I'm not sure how this criterion can even be met in Anchorage where many different types of communities - ethnically, politically, economically, etc. - live side by side.   Maybe they are united in their urban view of the world.

You can go to all of Article VI of the Constitution with all the rules for the reapportionment.
[The Constitution calls it Reapportionment, but it's done by the Redistricting Board.]

Anyway, you can see this isn't going to be easy.


But there is one more catch.  Whichever party is in charge - and this time the Republicans have at least a four to one majority - will try to shape the districts so that as many of them as possible will elect representatives or senators from their party.  This tradition goes back a long way in the United States and is called gerrymandering.  Wikipedia tells us where the name comes from:

The word gerrymander (originally written Gerry-mander) was used for the first time in the Boston Gazette newspaper on March 26, 1812. The word was created in reaction to a redrawing of Massachusetts state senate election districts under the then governor Elbridge Gerry (pronounced /ˈɡɛri/; 1744–1814). In 1812, Governor Gerry signed a bill that redistricted Massachusetts to benefit his Democratic-Republican Party. When mapped, one of the contorted districts in the Boston area was said to resemble the shape of a salamander.

So, What Are The Numbers?

That comes in the next post on this.


What Are The Stakes?

We can assume that although Wikipedia says

Gerrymandering is a practice of political corruption that attempts to establish a political advantage for a particular party or group by manipulating geographic boundaries to create partisan, incumbent-protected, and neutral districts

we cam be sure this very partisan board (at least in numbers, I really don't know any of the players)  will do its best to add to the Republican majority in the House and attempt to break the 10-10 tie in the Senate.

There is also the looming loss of rural representatives.  Alaska already has the largest House district and Senate district in the U.S.  Traveling to meet constituents in these large, roadless districts is extremely expensive.  In contrast, some Anchorage legislators can walk across their districts in a couple of hours.  There is also concern by some that Alaska Natives will lose some of their representation in the legislature.  They do have the Federal government watching out on their behalf through the Voting Rights Act.


So, now that the Iditarod's top winners have crossed the finish line, it's now time to start focusing on the next great race:  REDISTRICTING.


How to Participate

The Alaska Redistricting Board website says they meet

Wednesday morning March 16, 10:30am – 12:30pm

411 W 4th Avenue Suite 302, Anchorage, AK 99501 (map)

The meeting will be open to the public. If you plan to attend and need special accommodations, please contact 907-269-7402.

 If you can't come, but can call in, here are the numbers:

Instructions for Teleconference Connection: Dial (907) 465-4648 or toll-free at (800) 478-4648. Ask the operator to connect you with the "Alaska Redistricting Board meeting." The operator will require each participant to state their name and indicate whether they intend to offer public comment or join the meeting as a listener only. Please call no later than 10:25 a.m.

They also have a Facebook page.

Beware the Ides of March

The Ides of March refers to the 15th of March.  Which is "today" in most parts of the world. Here in Alaska we still have a couple of hours to prepare. This was not a good day for Julius Ceaser and the warning to Beware the Ides of March was immortalized in William Shakespeare's play, Julius Caesar.

SCENE II. A public place.
Flourish. Enter CAESAR; ANTONY, for the course; CALPURNIA, PORTIA, DECIUS BRUTUS, CICERO, BRUTUS, CASSIUS, and CASCA; a great crowd following, among them a Soothsayer
CAESAR
Calpurnia!
CASCA
Peace, ho! Caesar speaks.
CAESAR
Calpurnia!
CALPURNIA
Here, my lord.
CAESAR
Stand you directly in Antonius' way,
When he doth run his course. Antonius!
ANTONY
Caesar, my lord?
CAESAR
Forget not, in your speed, Antonius,
To touch Calpurnia; for our elders say,
The barren, touched in this holy chase,
Shake off their sterile curse.
ANTONY
I shall remember:
When Caesar says 'do this,' it is perform'd.
CAESAR
Set on; and leave no ceremony out.

Flourish
Soothsayer
Caesar!
CAESAR
Ha! who calls?
CASCA
Bid every noise be still: peace yet again!
CAESAR
Who is it in the press that calls on me?
I hear a tongue, shriller than all the music,
Cry 'Caesar!' Speak; Caesar is turn'd to hear.
Soothsayer

Beware the ides of March.

CAESAR
What man is that?
BRUTUS
A soothsayer bids you beware the ides of March.
CAESAR
Set him before me; let me see his face.
CASSIUS
Fellow, come from the throng; look upon Caesar.
CAESAR
What say'st thou to me now? speak once again.
Soothsayer

Beware the ides of March.

CAESAR
He is a dreamer; let us leave him: pass.
Sennet. Exeunt all except BRUTUS and CASSIUS [from online-literature.com]

Beware the Ides of March: (Here's a link to the 1953 movie scene - unfortunately I can't find this with an embed code that would allow me to post it here.)

Fotunately, we have these playful admirers of Julius Caesar to perform this scene for us:




Here's what happens when you don't listen to soothesayers who know what they're talking about (This IS from that 1953 movie):




And for Tomás and other Spanish speaking visitors, here's Marlon Brando as Antony giving the "Friends, Roman, Countryman" speech dubbed in Spanish after Caesar's assassination.



And to push this into the absurd, here's Colosseum playing "The Ides of March" in 1969.  It seems to have echoes of Procol Harum's A Whiter Shade of Pale.



Finally, this murder happened in 44 BC. So which anniversary is it now in 2011? (I know, easy. But I have people who get here googling: "If I were born in 1910, how old would I be today?"

"amount of people employed as an architect"

I keep collecting and posting (for example) interesting (or odd) google search terms that get people to this blog and I have a list to post before long. But this query is really a grammatical point too long to talk about in one of my google search posts.

Amount versus Number

"amount of people employed as an architect"

I'm not sure how aware I was of this misuse of 'amount' before I went to Thailand, but in Thailand I learned what the problem is. In Thai, you don't do something like add an 's' at the end of the word to indicate more than one. Instead you use a classifier. So, you say

• "man, two people,"  
• "car, four vehicles," or 
• "chair, two things-with-legs." 

Every noun has a classifier appropriate to that noun.  Usually a variety of things use the same classifier.  Tables, chairs, animals, are all in the class of things-with-legs.  But NOT people who have their own class. (Chinese has a similar way of making plurals.)

I realize that sounds totally weird to people used to adding an 's.' But we actually do the same thing in English for mass nouns. Some examples:

• I want five gallons of gas. (Not five gasses)
• Two cups of coffee please. (Though people say "two coffees," this is really short for "two cups of coffees" and not two beans or two pounds of coffee.)
• Three pounds of beef.
• We talk about dollars and cents, not monies.
• We can talk about three days of bliss, but not three blisses.

Count Nouns and Mass Nouns

The key is a distinction between 'count nouns' and 'mass nouns.' Like the term suggests, count nouns are things you can count - birds, books, noses, toes, bikes, songs.

Mass nouns are things that aren't individually separable: water, humanity, time, distance, rice, music, mail.  You have to use another word - a classifier - to indicate amounts of these things.  Some, like humanity, I can't think of any classifiers for, just vague descriptions like 'a lot of' (which, we can use for mass AND count nouns.)
 
So, 'people' is a count noun.  We can count people.  There is one person, two people, three people, etc.  Amount is used for mass nouns:  amount of rice, amount of space, amount of depression, amount of money, amount of mail.  To indicate a specific amount we have to use a classifier:

• two sacks (or bowls or grains) of rice
• 1500 square feet of space
• several bouts of depression
• forty Euros
• in two hours 
• seven pieces of mail or five letters and two magazines.  

For count nouns, we don't usually say 'amount.'  We say

• The number of people employed as architects.
• The number of books in the library.  
• The number of bikes sold in May.  

All these things that can be counted and we can determine a number for them.  This isn't true of mass nouns.
For mass nouns, we ask, "How much?"  We want to know the amount.

• $5
• ten gallons 
• 21 lbs. in three months
• a pinch

We have some specific words for 'how much?' in certain situations:

• How far?  
• How long?  
• How high?

For count nouns, we ask "How many?"  We want to know the number.



So, if we say 'amount of people,' we're implying an amount of something that is not countable by itself, like rice or water or beef.  We use a classifier, some unit of measure for that noun.  It would be as if the person were asking about a mass of indistinguishable people:  How many busloads of people?  How many pounds of people?  How many acres of people?

I suspect the searcher was looking for a number.

This is not intended as a rant, but rather as a clarification.  I appreciate grammatical creativity. I'm less amused by grammatical laziness.   Grammar can sometimes seem unnecessarily complicated.  But the words and grammar have their own meanings embedded.  Sometimes they are redundant.  But when the speaker and the listener both understand the nuances of the grammar and use it correctly, the redundancy acts as a confirmation of the speaker's intent.  Meaning is more precise and there is less misunderstanding.

University of Alaska President Gamble to Review Religion at the Air Force Academy

Background:  Journalistic Guidelines

As the world is coming to grips with blogging and how it differs from traditional journalism, so too do I have to figure out what I'm doing and what my rules are.  I'd learned from journalists in the past, that if a source knows he's talking to a journalist, it's assumed that everything is 'on the record' unless the source says it is not BEFORE anything is said.  Here's what Norman Pearlstine says:

We should start virtually all interviews with the presumption that they are on the record. Inexperienced sources—usually ordinary people who unexpectedly find themselves the news—should clearly understand that you are a reporter and should not be surprised to find themselves quoted in your publication.
Journalists should not give the source more protection than is necessary. It is preferable to spell out the nature of the attribution in clear terms, instead of using vague and other terms that might be misunderstood. A primer:
· On the Record—The source can be named and identified by title, rank, job description, or other relevant information. Information can be used in direct quotation or indirect quotation. [It goes on to spell out 'Background,' 'Deep Background,' 'Not for Attribution,' and 'Off the Record.']

So, you are asking, what's this got to do with President Gamble and the Air Force Academy?  I'm just giving you context of why I haven't posted on this sooner. I still feel a strong obligation to be fair to the people I write about and that seems to be much stronger when I actually talk to them.  It's a bias I noticed when I started blogging seriously.  I'm probably guilty of what Pearlstine describes as giving  "the source more protection than is necessary."  And unlike traditional journalists, I don't have an editor demanding a story.  Just you readers and you are, for the most part, very undemanding.

Learning about the story

When I spoke to University of Alaska  President Gamble after the Faculty Senate meeting last February 4, I identified myself as a blogger.  He said something like, "You're not the blogger who wrote about the sexual harassment at the Air Force Academy, are you?"  I said I was.  He said he'd had nothing to do with that.  I pointed out that the first GAO report had come out in 1991 saying all three academies were having serious problems.  That he'd been the Commandant of the Air Force Academy from June 1993-November 1994, and the next GAO report - 1995 - said things were worse.  Since I hadn't had that information when I went to the public forum in Juneau last February, I posted about it so someone (like the Board of Regents) could ask then-candidate Gamble about his role.  I hadn't said he was directly involved, but raised questions about his management effectiveness if things had gotten worse during his watch.  He told (back to Feb 4 now) me he'd been there such a short time he really couldn't have had an effect, but that he learned after the fact and much later that he'd been cleared in an investigation and, in fact, the policies he'd implemented had been cited as model policies.  (I'd note that most Commandants are at the Air Force Academy for about two years so that would mean none of them have enough time to have an effect.  If people aren't in their positions long enough to have an impact, how does this square with the importance of accountability in the Air Force?)  I asked him to send me some documentation so I could add it to my original post.

He also mentioned that he had been asked to do a review of how religion was being handled at the Air Force Academy in March. 



Now, about blogging ethics again.  I try to use publicly available information and point out where there are contradictions or missing information.  But I'm soft when it comes to my need to publish something fast rather than be (overly?) respectful of my sources.  So even though he knew he was talking to a blogger, I still asked if the Air Force Review was something I could post about.  He said that no one had said it wasn't, but asked if I'd hold off until he checked. I agreed.



He didn't get back to me on either issue.  I emailed him a couple weeks later and still didn't hear from him.  But I guess I should say something now since today I noticed a Huffington Post piece on the review of the Air Force Academy.  

Gamble said Friday he was assembling a team of five or six other members with expertise in law, religion, academics and other areas to conduct the review. He said it was too early to release the other members' names.

Gamble said his goal is to see whether various programs and provisions put in place since 2004, when religious intolerance became an issue, are working. . .

Gamble said he wasn't sure whether he would report his findings orally, in a written report or both. No date has been set for the team to visit the school, he said.

It's a bit vague. Just an oral report?  Is that serious?  And the scope of the study seems vague as well.

Mikey Weinstein, founder and president of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation and a vocal critic of the academy, criticized the scope of the review as it was outlined in the Air Force statement.

The problem at the school is not with any restriction on the free exercise of religion, but with unwanted proselytizing by fundamentalist Christians, a violation of the constitutional concept of the separation of church and state, he said.

Gamble said he had not ruled out looking at the separation issue. He said his review team is still getting organized and its scope hasn't been determined.
"We're going to take a blinders-off look, and nothing's off the table, but nothing's on the table, either," he said.  [Emphasis added.]

The proselytizing by evangelical Christians at the Air Force Academy became enough of a problem that the Air Force set up a task force to look into it in 2005.

Colorado Springs, where the Air Force Academy is located, has become an evangelical stronghold.  According to an NPR story,  Colorado Springs

has become a special place for evangelical Christians, like Ted Haggard, pastor of the 11,000-member New Life Church and president of the National Association of Evangelicals.

Another giant evangelical organization, Focus on the Family, is nearby.  Someone told me these organizations are across the highway from the Academy and google maps suggests it sits on the other side of the Ronald Reagan Highway, less than 2 miles from the Academy gate.  

A recent law suit against the Air Force concerning an evangelical luncheon speaker was  dismissed by the judge on the grounds the plaintiffs didn't have standing, but others are percolating, and 1977 Academy Honor Grad, Mikey Weinstein, through his position at the Military Religious Freedom Foundation  seems to be connected to a number of the lawsuits.

A USA Today piece posted at Militarytimes.com on March 10, 2006 described allegations in an earlier lawsuit and gives some background to the current 'review':

The 12-page court filing says guest speakers at conventions of Air Force recruiters in 2003 and 2005 told Burleigh and other recruiters that "they needed to accept Jesus Christ in order to perform their job duties" and "to use faith in Jesus Christ while recruiting."

"It's absolutely horrifying that the Air Force has been trying to force its recruiters to use the gospel of Jesus Christ as a recruiting tool," said Weinstein, who is Jewish. "There's no wall left between church and state in the Air Force."
Weinstein took on the military last year after a Pentagon task force cleared the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs of "overt religious discrimination" but noted insensitivity toward cadets of non-Christian faiths. Weinstein has a second son who is a cadet there.

Complaints of religious intolerance, conversion attempts and favoritism for "born again" Christian cadets had first surfaced in a 2004 campus survey and in criticism in a Yale Divinity School study of chaplain practices at the academy.
The controversy led the Air Force to issue four-page guidelines last August for "free exercise of religion" throughout the service. It also instituted religious sensitivity training for the academy's cadets and staff.

Members of Congress and some Christian groups objected that the guidelines were too restrictive. They said the rules violated constitutional guarantees of free exercise of religion and discriminated against evangelicals, who consider spreading their faith a requirement of Christianity.

It would interesting to know how much the Air Force will spend on this possibly oral review.