Before the meeting I got a bit of video with Board Member Robert Brodie. I'll post it now during the break.
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Public Hearing - Redistricting Board - Live Blogging from Anchorage
It's 12:30pm and all the Board members are now here and the seats in the audience have a few more people,
Meeting being called to order.
Small agenda of board business now.
Roll Call.
All board members present.
Approval of agenda
Torgerson: Palmer meeting will be changed to Wasilla because room wasn't available in Palmer.
Approved.
Time adjustment in Kotzebue - to accommodate flight schedule - start at 1pm and adjourn at 6pm. Approved.
Adding Cold Bay and Nome to Post-Plan public hearing schedule. Approved.
12:35 Going into public hearing portion.
Ron Rivas - I live in District 20 - probably grown since last change, but still remains socially integrated area. It should remain unchanged to keep equal and just representation. I've read how in other states gerrymandering has taken place. I'm sure in our Great STate, such a thing wouldn't happen, however this gerrymandering process, enables areas to be adjusted so that incumbents have to run against each other. Which wouldn't benefit its citizenry. Citizens of each district should be vigilant so that thru redistricting process, incumbents shouldn't have to run against each other and thus weakening legislative power. Redistricting important to keep population balanced, but not gerrymandering to strengthen one party or another
Bruce Schulte - south anchorage along the marsh, eastern boundary a little rambling - encourage the board to clean up those boundaries, put northern boundary to Campbell Creek and extent eastern boundary perhaps to Seward Highway. Neighbors in dispar
Randy Ruedrich - Alaskans for Fair Redistricting - Overpoints on Redistricting about what happened ten years ago.
1. World changes rapidly. Were brought into US seemed like partisan Demo state, by 2000 more Republicans and now about 56,000 more Republicans. We expect a fair map to show changed results.
2. Federal Voting Rights Act - AK only state in union where this restraint applies. Important we retain AK Native voiting right. That's why I testified last time about getting Alaska Natives in prisons counted in their home areas. Will have important impact on voting counts for rural areas. Need plan based on solid record from your hearings.
3. HAve plan less likelihood to be litigated. If we have ... map. Delayed process confuses everything.
4. Prior gentleman talked about gerrymandering. If you want to look at worst case - 2001 plan had 21 republicans paired and no Democrats paired. We need to do a better job of drawing a fair and equitable plan. Also shouldn't fit communities. ER deliberately split after litigation. No remedy from Supreme Court. Your responsibility to prevent splitting communities. South Anchorage also split - narrowest part one row of houses. Everything else put in District 31. Community dissected. If not for one house, wouldn't have been contiguous. District 28 looks more rational because of the marshlands. South end of 28 Joe Green, north end Lesil McGuire. That redistricting made one of them extra. In ER, same problem. Most of district on military bases. ER split after the trial, board again found a way to pair Randy Phillips with Con Bunde. Original plan to south end and linked it to Valdez. Still links Homer and Seward. Still not idea. Most people have heartfelt reasons for comments.
Torgerson: Randy on 31st we'll be accepting plans. So bring one in and we'll allow extra time to present them.
Jennifer Johnson - representing myself and on the Anchorage Assembly. Want to echo previous speakers about District 28 - could come up with better boundary. 32 when I ran for office, even tho there's a lot of similar issues between ER and Hillside, ER considers itself as a community. Inappropriate to have Dis. 32 in ER. Dst. 32 has increased substantially, probably mostly in ER. (Eagle River)
Judy E? - Resident of District 32. Have lived in ER for years. Main concern is that its very difficult for 32 to be repped by one person. Goes all the way to ER, Hillside, Girdwood, Hope, Alaska. Very different neighborhoods. ER see themselves as community within themselves. We don't go to same community council meetings. Feel like represented by someone they don't even know. Hillside has some common issues with ER. Encompasses a lot of park and vacant land, but people live there.
Hal Gazaway - in Anchorage since 1974 - lived all over Anchorage, now in Muldoon since 1998. Each neighborhoods has unique characteristics and unique needs. I would ask that Muldoon be kept in tact. Assembly is split so that North Muldoon is with ER and he didn't even know he represented us. Muldoon and ER have very different needs.
Ask Muldoon be kept in tact.
Seems like there's a break now.
Torgerson: We'll recess and reconvene as people show up. We'll be here until seven.
This is pretty rough, but live so I'll post now and then start again.
Meeting being called to order.
Small agenda of board business now.
Roll Call.
All board members present.
Approval of agenda
Torgerson: Palmer meeting will be changed to Wasilla because room wasn't available in Palmer.
Approved.
Time adjustment in Kotzebue - to accommodate flight schedule - start at 1pm and adjourn at 6pm. Approved.
Adding Cold Bay and Nome to Post-Plan public hearing schedule. Approved.
12:35 Going into public hearing portion.
Ron Rivas - I live in District 20 - probably grown since last change, but still remains socially integrated area. It should remain unchanged to keep equal and just representation. I've read how in other states gerrymandering has taken place. I'm sure in our Great STate, such a thing wouldn't happen, however this gerrymandering process, enables areas to be adjusted so that incumbents have to run against each other. Which wouldn't benefit its citizenry. Citizens of each district should be vigilant so that thru redistricting process, incumbents shouldn't have to run against each other and thus weakening legislative power. Redistricting important to keep population balanced, but not gerrymandering to strengthen one party or another
Bruce Schulte - south anchorage along the marsh, eastern boundary a little rambling - encourage the board to clean up those boundaries, put northern boundary to Campbell Creek and extent eastern boundary perhaps to Seward Highway. Neighbors in dispar
Randy Ruedrich - Alaskans for Fair Redistricting - Overpoints on Redistricting about what happened ten years ago.
1. World changes rapidly. Were brought into US seemed like partisan Demo state, by 2000 more Republicans and now about 56,000 more Republicans. We expect a fair map to show changed results.
2. Federal Voting Rights Act - AK only state in union where this restraint applies. Important we retain AK Native voiting right. That's why I testified last time about getting Alaska Natives in prisons counted in their home areas. Will have important impact on voting counts for rural areas. Need plan based on solid record from your hearings.
3. HAve plan less likelihood to be litigated. If we have ... map. Delayed process confuses everything.
4. Prior gentleman talked about gerrymandering. If you want to look at worst case - 2001 plan had 21 republicans paired and no Democrats paired. We need to do a better job of drawing a fair and equitable plan. Also shouldn't fit communities. ER deliberately split after litigation. No remedy from Supreme Court. Your responsibility to prevent splitting communities. South Anchorage also split - narrowest part one row of houses. Everything else put in District 31. Community dissected. If not for one house, wouldn't have been contiguous. District 28 looks more rational because of the marshlands. South end of 28 Joe Green, north end Lesil McGuire. That redistricting made one of them extra. In ER, same problem. Most of district on military bases. ER split after the trial, board again found a way to pair Randy Phillips with Con Bunde. Original plan to south end and linked it to Valdez. Still links Homer and Seward. Still not idea. Most people have heartfelt reasons for comments.
Torgerson: Randy on 31st we'll be accepting plans. So bring one in and we'll allow extra time to present them.
Jennifer Johnson - representing myself and on the Anchorage Assembly. Want to echo previous speakers about District 28 - could come up with better boundary. 32 when I ran for office, even tho there's a lot of similar issues between ER and Hillside, ER considers itself as a community. Inappropriate to have Dis. 32 in ER. Dst. 32 has increased substantially, probably mostly in ER. (Eagle River)
Judy E? - Resident of District 32. Have lived in ER for years. Main concern is that its very difficult for 32 to be repped by one person. Goes all the way to ER, Hillside, Girdwood, Hope, Alaska. Very different neighborhoods. ER see themselves as community within themselves. We don't go to same community council meetings. Feel like represented by someone they don't even know. Hillside has some common issues with ER. Encompasses a lot of park and vacant land, but people live there.
Hal Gazaway - in Anchorage since 1974 - lived all over Anchorage, now in Muldoon since 1998. Each neighborhoods has unique characteristics and unique needs. I would ask that Muldoon be kept in tact. Assembly is split so that North Muldoon is with ER and he didn't even know he represented us. Muldoon and ER have very different needs.
Ask Muldoon be kept in tact.
Seems like there's a break now.
Torgerson: We'll recess and reconvene as people show up. We'll be here until seven.
This is pretty rough, but live so I'll post now and then start again.
Not Much Happening at Redistricting Public Hearing
It's 12:20 pm at the Legislative Information Office for the Alaska Redistricting Board public hearings and just a few people are here. Things haven't started yet. So if you are in downtown Anchorage, walk over to 716 W. 4th Avenue Room 220, and stick your head in.
Anchorage Public Hearing Today - Harrison Suggests it Can't Be Fair Anyway
I know - I sound like a broken record.
The first Alaska Redistricting Board public hearing is today (Tuesday) in Anchorage from noon to 7pm at the:
Anchorage Legislative Information Office Building
716 West Fourth Avenue Room 220
You (anybody, not just Alaskans) can also listen in from your computer:
Audio streamed via http://alaskale
Wednesday they'll be in Wasilla
Noon to 7pm
Wasilla City Hall City
Council Chambers
290 East Herning
Meanwhile a reader pointed out an article by former executive director of the Alaska Redistricting Board, Gordon S Harrison, in the Alaska Law Review several years ago. It goes to the question I asked yesterday - can the Board be fair?
The first Alaska Redistricting Board public hearing is today (Tuesday) in Anchorage from noon to 7pm at the:
Anchorage Legislative Information Office Building
716 West Fourth Avenue Room 220
You (anybody, not just Alaskans) can also listen in from your computer:
Audio streamed via http://alaskale
Wednesday they'll be in Wasilla
Noon to 7pm
Wasilla City Hall City
Council Chambers
290 East Herning
Meanwhile a reader pointed out an article by former executive director of the Alaska Redistricting Board, Gordon S Harrison, in the Alaska Law Review several years ago. It goes to the question I asked yesterday - can the Board be fair?
IV. CONCLUSION
In the recent redistricting cycle in Alaska, the newly created Alaska Redistricting Board did not function as a bipartisan redistricting commission. There is no reason to expect it to do so in the future. Thus, the new Board is no improvement over the method of gubernatorial redistricting that it replaced. By both methods, one party may partition the state into election districts of its choice, constrained only by constitutional standards that are by no means a complete barrier to gerrymandering.
Partisan gerrymandering insults the democratic values of fair and equal representation for all citizens. Harm to the public interest from partisan gerrymanders can be avoided by giving both major parties a role in the redistricting process. Bipartisan participation can be accomplished by assigning the task to the legislature and requiring a supermajority vote to pass a redistricting bill. Public commissions such as the Alaska Redistricting Board are ill-suited to the rough-and-tumble politics of redistricting. Conflicts over redistricting are best resolved in the legislature.
A legislatively drawn redistricting plan will be self-serving, to be sure, but it should reasonably reflect the relative electoral strength of the two major parties. This outcome may not be an [*pg 79] ideal one, but it is an improvement over a redistricting plan that gives a disproportionately large electoral advantage to the major party. A bipartisan redistricting plan is the best that can be hoped for in the real political world.
Monday, March 21, 2011
I Finally Figure It Out: Senate Redistricting Data Hidden, Not Missing
[Guide to all the redistricting posts at the Alaska Redistricting Board tab above or here.]
Where's the Senate Data?
The Alaska Redistricting Board announced they had received the Census Data needed for redistricting last Tuesday. On their site they posted a list of Alaska House Districts with data from 2002 and 2010 and how much each district now deviated from the ideal (where every district would have exactly the same population) of 17,755 people.
But I kept waiting for the Senate data. Eventually, I figured it out. Each Senate seat is composed of two House seats. So, the House data is ALSO the Senate data. But you have to know that and then create the Senate data using the House data. So that's what I've done in these two charts. I'm also assuming that the ideal Senate seat is double the ideal House seat. (There are 20 Senate seats and 40 House seats.)
So I've made two charts.
CHART 1: Shows the House districts AND their corresponding Senate districts. For example: Senate District A is made up of House Districts 1 and 2. B is made up of 3 and 4 and so on. It starts with House district 1 through 40 and Senate districts A through T. The Senate districts are marked with blue (Democratic) or red (Republican) and placed after their House districts. (Controls to enlarge the charts are at the bottom of each chart.)
WARNING - I'm a fallible human being trying to use modern technology to come up with these numbers. So, use with caution and double check the numbers if you use them for something important. If you notice errors, leave a comment and/or email me.
Redistricting House & Senate Districts
[If you're wondering about the entries in the "2010 % Deviation" column for the Senate seats, you're reading this much more carefully than anyone else. I used a formula to get the percent, but couldn't figure how to make them read as percent. So I stuck the percent for Senate districts more clearly in the next column.]
CHART 2: Shows just the Senate districts. I've started with the district that has most the people higher than the ideal district size (35,510) and goes down to the closest to the ideal, then goes to the districts below the ideal ending with the district with the most people lower than the ideal size.
Redistricting Senate By Deviation
I haven't figured out what it all means, though I've put a few observations into the second chart. But I figure I should get this out there so others might be able to start making sense of it.
Remember: Tuesday Public Hearing in Anchorage already. Wednesday in Wasilla. Then to Juneau, Ketchikan, Fairbanks, Kotzebue, Bethel, and finally a statewide teleconference based in Anchorage on March 31. The detailed schedule from the board is here.
Where's the Senate Data?
The Alaska Redistricting Board announced they had received the Census Data needed for redistricting last Tuesday. On their site they posted a list of Alaska House Districts with data from 2002 and 2010 and how much each district now deviated from the ideal (where every district would have exactly the same population) of 17,755 people.
But I kept waiting for the Senate data. Eventually, I figured it out. Each Senate seat is composed of two House seats. So, the House data is ALSO the Senate data. But you have to know that and then create the Senate data using the House data. So that's what I've done in these two charts. I'm also assuming that the ideal Senate seat is double the ideal House seat. (There are 20 Senate seats and 40 House seats.)
So I've made two charts.
CHART 1: Shows the House districts AND their corresponding Senate districts. For example: Senate District A is made up of House Districts 1 and 2. B is made up of 3 and 4 and so on. It starts with House district 1 through 40 and Senate districts A through T. The Senate districts are marked with blue (Democratic) or red (Republican) and placed after their House districts. (Controls to enlarge the charts are at the bottom of each chart.)
WARNING - I'm a fallible human being trying to use modern technology to come up with these numbers. So, use with caution and double check the numbers if you use them for something important. If you notice errors, leave a comment and/or email me.
Redistricting House & Senate Districts
[If you're wondering about the entries in the "2010 % Deviation" column for the Senate seats, you're reading this much more carefully than anyone else. I used a formula to get the percent, but couldn't figure how to make them read as percent. So I stuck the percent for Senate districts more clearly in the next column.]
CHART 2: Shows just the Senate districts. I've started with the district that has most the people higher than the ideal district size (35,510) and goes down to the closest to the ideal, then goes to the districts below the ideal ending with the district with the most people lower than the ideal size.
Redistricting Senate By Deviation
I haven't figured out what it all means, though I've put a few observations into the second chart. But I figure I should get this out there so others might be able to start making sense of it.
Remember: Tuesday Public Hearing in Anchorage already. Wednesday in Wasilla. Then to Juneau, Ketchikan, Fairbanks, Kotzebue, Bethel, and finally a statewide teleconference based in Anchorage on March 31. The detailed schedule from the board is here.
Q: A rare side effect of some PD medications is: A: Offensive body odor B: Sex or gambling addiction C: Flatulence
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| Peter, playing, at AIFF 2010 at showing of his animated film Oblivion 1964 |
Peter was a political cartoonist for the Anchorage Daily News and he applies his cartoonist ironic whimsy to look at his Parkinson's as an adventure (generally not pleasant) and I think his blog is one of the best in Alaska.
You can get the answer to the question and a bunch more at his blog. And see how learning can be fun. He has a much, much lighter touch than I have here and gets us to think about this disease differently than I've ever seen.
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Too Nice to Stay Inside - Anchorage Spring/Breakup
Walked the bike path at UAA. Such a beautiful day. Here's the south fork of Chester Creek south of the foot bridge on the trail.
And here's the north side.
And here's what I hope is a temporary lake on the way back home.
Speaking of weather, L sent me a link to what looks like a new weather website that gives way more information than I probably need. But I'll need to spend some time here to figure it out. Weatherspark.com
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| Double click to enlarge - or go directly to the Weatherspark link above |
I Love Ted Herlinger's Guts
The exhibit is called Phase II. The artist is Ted Herlinger.
They're made of reed, pork gut, and elk sinew.
One more.
I was there in Out North's gallery during intermission of The Brits and their Telly, which continues next week. While there were a lot of interesting shorts - they are supposed to be the best British tv commercials - I remember being more enchanted by past Telly shows. I was trying to figure out why. I remember them as quirkier and I think for more local British products. There were too many McDonald's and other multinational ads. I think another issue for me was that what used to be high on originality is now more focused on high production values.They were technically better, but too many were more like apprenticeship work for Hollywood. All that talent and money to sell junk food is depressing. But there were a bunch still reflected the Brits and their Telly that I remember. Out North has a video with two of the good ones on their website. Watch for Duckzilla, for the picnic in the field, and the British Airways ads were good. So were the ads for non-profits. The anti-smoking and HIV prevention ads didn't beat around the bush. And I was upset with Bob Dylan for selling out until I saw what it was for.
An Out North heads up: Bridgman Packer will be in Anchorage April 28 and 29. We saw them at Alaska Dance Theater about three years ago. Probably the most superlative post on this blog ever. This time they will be in the Discovery Theater - but still an Out North event. Scott says they'll be performing a piece commissioned by Out North which won them a Guggenheim Fellowship. My breathless gushing last time wasn't misplaced. They're so good, I think even a blind person would feel it in the room. If you read this and don't go to see them, it's not my fault.
Saturday, March 19, 2011
"Republicans must exploit this advantage without mercy." Can Redistricting Board Be Fair?
For many politicians, the decennial census provides an opportunity for parties in control of a State governorship and legislature to tip the political scales even further in their favor. An example of that thinking comes from a post at the Charleston Tea Party blog:
Four of Alaska's Redistricting Board's five members were appointed by Republicans. The fifth member was appointed by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court whose political affiliation isn't clear, but is presumed to be left of the others.
Two of the five are former Republican legislators. One, Jim Holm, lost his seat in 2006 to Democrat Scott Kawasaki. Is there motivation on his part to realign the Fairbanks districts to make them more friendly to Republican candidates?
Clearly, the representatives of the Democratic Party who attended the Redistricting Board's meeting Wednesday had this background in mind. Their comments pushed the issues of fairness, transparency, and warned against private conversations with politicians and gerrymandering.
Deborah Williams, The Executive Director of the Alaska Democratic Party said: [this, like other comments below, are from my notes at the meeting, definitely not verbatim, but close]:
Geric Jordan, the Mayor of Sitka, and another Democrat, via audio conference, wanted to know whether individuals would be able to speak to board members one on one.
Response: Yes, but open meeting law means no more than two members can meet without it being an official meeting.
Jake Metcalf, the redistricting coordinator for the Alaska Democrats, said things like:
Is this going to be a fair and honest redistricting devoid of political considerations? I think, given the political mood of the country, this is a fair question. I don't know the answer, but I can offer some signs I saw at the meeting and since.
Rejection of 'protecting incumbency' as a redistricting criterion
I've posted about the redistricting criteria in a previous post. The discussion here focused on whether the board should even consider incumbency - would they intentionally or accidentally draw the lines to exclude an incumbent from his base? Would they put two incumbents in the same district? If they don't know an incumbent's address, might this happen? Attorney Michael White said that if they were even going to consider this in their decisions, they need to make it a criterion. But that given the Department of Justice oversight to make sure there was no retrogression ["drawing a district in a manner that worsens minority voting strength"] they would probably have to consider, as I understood it, Native incumbents.
So I don't know if this is good or bad. If they wanted to draw the lines to weaken their opponents' political base, they could check the addresses outside the meetings and in the meetings never talk about it. But if the Board did cut Democratic incumbents out, or put two Democratic incumbents together, presumably in the Post-Plan phase people would bring it up and they would have to talk about protection of incumbents.
I guess we'll see what this means when the draft plan is done April 14.
Transparency and Openness
The board sounded like it was committed to transparency and openness.
Positive indicators:
This didn't feel like a group that knew each other well and were a team ready to go get the Democrats. Robert Brodie - who came two hours late due to fog in Kodiak - seemed like someone used to being in charge and talked a fair amount given he kept saying he was new to this and trying to figure it out. He was surprised the staff would come up with plans to present and he suggested doing Anchorage and Palmer in one day. But later he pushed for there to be a second Anchorage opportunity at the end as the site for the Statewide Teleconference. He argued for Anchorage's larger population needing more time to present.
There seemed to a clear Myers-Briggs type difference between him and Torgerson. Torgerson proposed that in the last ten days, people should work on their own or in pairs, or meet with the public and then the Board would come together every afternoon about 2:30 for public meetings. Brodie didn't understand what people would do all morning. Torgerson saying he needed time on his own to think things through, sounded like a Myers-Briggs introvert needing alone time. Brodie sounded more like an extrovert, wondering what people would do all morning by themselves, wanting to spend more time in meetings, and thinking by talking. (A wild guess there.)
McConnochie, a recent replacement, seemed well prepared and eager to get going. She's spent time mastering the computer program and seemed to look forward to playing with it. I thought this comment was interesting, but I'm not sure how to interpret it:
You can get a sense of the group dynamics in this video I took before my sound card got full.
Other Indicators
Chair John Torgerson
Torgerson did most of the talking. He seemed like a practical, goal oriented chair, but open to others' suggestions. He just didn't want them to talk them to death. When the attorney suggested not having closing times for the public meetings - in case the meeting ended early - Torgerson said he was willing to sit around in case people showed up late. He seemed a little miffed that people would think the Board is politically motivated. Though I though his frustration with Dave Metheny - who complained people couldn't get information from the Board fast enough - was justified.
But given the national publicity on the Republican opportunity to gain during this apportionment period - as evidenced in the opening quote above - I'd like someone who would acknowledge the concerns more directly and not seem to take it personally.
He seemed to have done his homework and knew what the rules were. I couldn't tell if he was going to be true to his word or whether he was an accomplished politician who knew how to say the right things at the right time.
The Crunch of Time
There are 30 days starting last Tuesday for the Board to come up with a redistricting draft plan. They are spending Tuesday and Wednesday in Anchorage and Wasilla public hearings from noon to 7 pm. Then the travel to Juneau and Ketchikan for public hearings Thursday and Friday. Then the next Tuesday is Fairbanks, Wednesday is Kotzebue, Thursday is Bethel. Friday March 31 is back in Anchorage for a Statewide Teleconference. They are all scheduled for seven hours.
Then they have ten days to play with their software and come up with plans that redistribute the state population into districts that are as close as possible to 17,755 each. For each of those days they will have afternoon public meetings - the only times the more than two board members can talk together - each of those days as they settle on their draft plan. Those will be the days where it is important to see what they do and how they do it.
I don't know how much time ordinary people will have to prepare for these first meetings. I don't know how much time the Board members will have to think with all those hearings and the travel.
Then there are 60 more days - til June 14 they said - to make changes in the draft plan. The traveling schedule for that period is even more hectic, but it won't be as a full board.
Watching What they Do as Opposed to What They Say
They spoke well about openness, about getting everything up on the website.
But the website has almost nothing on it. Sure, there are links to documents, but they are complicated documents that could use a little online explanation so you know which PDF files to open.
There's nothing that explains the overall process and the lingo.
There's almost no media coverage - no announcements in the Daily News of the Tuesday hearing yet. So, when are people supposed to learn about the public hearings and when are they supposed to get up to speed so they can just figure out what their concerns are, let alone document them and articulate them?
Is this by design - yes, we'll have lots of hearings and spend our $1 million plus budget to show that we went all over the state to hear people's opinions - is it incompetence, or is it lack of enough staff, or is it just starting and all this will happen eventually? But they are going to be traveling next week, so I don't see when they'll have time to get the website and other publicity going during the Pre-Plan stage. We'll see.
Department of Justice and Voting Rights Act
One other key factor is that not only are the Democrats ready to sue if they feel they aren't treated fairly, Alaska as one of 16 states on the Department of Justice Voting Rights Act watch list. Whatever the Board decides, must be approved by the DOJ as I understand it.
Meanwhile, Anchorage folks, there's a seven hour hearing beginning at noon at the Legislative Information Office on Tuesday. Drop in and see what is going on. Look at the maps. Ask about whether there will be public computers available that have the software that allows you to test out different plans.
The rest of you can go to your LIO offices and listen in. Or listen online through the Legislative website.
Matsu folks can go to their meeting at the Wasilla on Wednesday, again from noon to seven.
Fairbanks on Thursday.
My last post has the email from the Board with details and links about the public hearings.
In particular, the Republicans gained absolute control – that is, control of both state legislative bodies and the governorship – in Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania, among other states. These three states must surrender 4 House seats due to lost population. Likewise, Texas, Florida, Utah, South Carolina, Georgia and Arizona, who collectively gain 10 House seats – are all under Republican absolute control. This control should ensure Democrat [sic] losses and Republican gains (Note 1).
In other words, if Republicans have the guts to exercise their constitutional powers to the fullest, they can claim most of the reapportionment changes. Moreover, if they have the guts to also redraw the boundaries in various Democrat-held districts, many more Democrats can be evicted from Congress in the 2012 elections. You can bet the Democrats will do the same in the few districts they still control.
The point is this: Republicans have the overwhelming constitutional advantage. Republicans must exploit this advantage without mercy. This is the only way to stop the Democrats’ ruinous socialist agenda and reverse it.
The Tea Party Movement can play a critical role here. Activists should lobby their governor and their state legislatures. Demand that they exact the full price of reapportionment. Demand that they exact the full price of their newly gained redistricting powers. Nothing less is acceptable
Two of the five are former Republican legislators. One, Jim Holm, lost his seat in 2006 to Democrat Scott Kawasaki. Is there motivation on his part to realign the Fairbanks districts to make them more friendly to Republican candidates?
Clearly, the representatives of the Democratic Party who attended the Redistricting Board's meeting Wednesday had this background in mind. Their comments pushed the issues of fairness, transparency, and warned against private conversations with politicians and gerrymandering.
Deborah Williams, The Executive Director of the Alaska Democratic Party said: [this, like other comments below, are from my notes at the meeting, definitely not verbatim, but close]:
This Board has the technical ability to make our votes meaningful or not very meaningful. The ability to gerrymander, depriving people of meaningful voting. And also to draw lines to hurt political parties and by keeping current office holders out. I’m not hinting this board is going to do that.They did hear from a lot of Democrats who were clearly worried about lines being drawn to their disadvantage. But only one obvious Republican testified, but Republican Party Chair Rudy Ruedrich, spoke by phone as a private citizen, not representing the Republicans, and his issue was having prisoners counted in their home districts, not where they are incarcerated. (The Board didn't think the could get the necessary information to do that in a timely manner.) Why did the Republicans think they didn't need to be there? When the Democrats thought they did.
Our current districts in Anchorage and Fairbanks are compact and represent the communities well. There will have to be adjustments . . . But 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 Democrats today, We do care a lot. We really wish you the best.
Geric Jordan, the Mayor of Sitka, and another Democrat, via audio conference, wanted to know whether individuals would be able to speak to board members one on one.
Response: Yes, but open meeting law means no more than two members can meet without it being an official meeting.
Jake Metcalf, the redistricting coordinator for the Alaska Democrats, said things like:
- I know that you and the Board have one of democracy's most important tasks to complete in a fair manner.
- My advice is to avoid backdoor politics, the board has to follow open meetings law. . . open government, transparency especially important in this process.
- I’m wondering if the board individually or in groups of one or two have met with Mr. Ruedrich. [Chair of AK Republican Party.] If there have been conversations, 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.
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..Lupe Marroquin, who worked in the Anchorage division of elections and ran as a Democrat for State House last year asked:
What is the involvement of the Governor’s office in this process? Have you had any conversations with the Governor and if so what were the topics and how were they resolved and will the public continue to be advised?John Torgerson response:
This is a constitutionally created board, neither under the legislature nor the governor. We cannot be public officials. We have to be independent, to keep board as private citizens. Governor appointed two members - other than initial interview, I’ve had no conversations with the governor. Don’t intend to.So, by their presence and questions, the Democrats showed they are worried. And by their absence (except on the Board itself) the Republicans seem to be suggesting they aren't.
Is this going to be a fair and honest redistricting devoid of political considerations? I think, given the political mood of the country, this is a fair question. I don't know the answer, but I can offer some signs I saw at the meeting and since.
Rejection of 'protecting incumbency' as a redistricting criterion
I've posted about the redistricting criteria in a previous post. The discussion here focused on whether the board should even consider incumbency - would they intentionally or accidentally draw the lines to exclude an incumbent from his base? Would they put two incumbents in the same district? If they don't know an incumbent's address, might this happen? Attorney Michael White said that if they were even going to consider this in their decisions, they need to make it a criterion. But that given the Department of Justice oversight to make sure there was no retrogression ["drawing a district in a manner that worsens minority voting strength"] they would probably have to consider, as I understood it, Native incumbents.
So I don't know if this is good or bad. If they wanted to draw the lines to weaken their opponents' political base, they could check the addresses outside the meetings and in the meetings never talk about it. But if the Board did cut Democratic incumbents out, or put two Democratic incumbents together, presumably in the Post-Plan phase people would bring it up and they would have to talk about protection of incumbents.
I guess we'll see what this means when the draft plan is done April 14.
Transparency and Openness
The board sounded like it was committed to transparency and openness.
Positive indicators:
- There will be a lot of public meetings.
- All the documents submitted will be put on website for everyone to read.
- Some of the Pre-Plan public hearings will be teleconferenced statewide. (Anchorage (March 22), Fairbanks (March 28), Juneau (March 24), and Statewide (March 31). I'm guessing the decision to teleconference was related to access to technology.
- Torgerson asked about videotaping all the meetings, but seemed to be talked out of it when he learned it would require camera people.
- The discussion at the meeting emphasized openness
- when asked point blank about ex-parte contact Torgerson said that there hadn't been any.
- Torgerson pushed successfully for setting meeting times every afternoon during the last ten days, after the public hearings, when the Board would, in open meetings, discuss the various plan options. That nothing would be hidden.
- There will be a lot of public meetings, BUT it will be difficult for people to develop plans in time for the meetings
- there is a lot of information on their website, but there is little guidance how to use it
- there is computer software that allows people to plug in different criteria and it spits out a plan - but the clerk from Valdez said it cost them $1000. It may or may not be available on the website, which doesn't explain much yet. (I hope yet is the critical word and more will be up there, but at this point I suspect this blog has more, accessible information on redistricting than they have. I say that as a point of disappointment in what is available to help people understand things.)
- for those hearings not teleconferenced, it's not clear how long it will take for audio or transcripts to be available. They said transcription turnaround from the state sanctioned vendors would be 7-10 days. And then one has to read it.
- Notice for the public hearings didn't go up on their website until Saturday afternoon - they met and agreed on the locations and times on Wednesday. And the first public hearing is Tuesday. And I'm not sure where else information is posted. The First Alaskans Institute testified that they were getting the word out, but I don't see information on their website either.
- Publicity about the Board and its process for the next 30 Pre-Plan days and then the 60 Post-Plan days doesn't seem to exist.
- It appears no one from ADN was at the Wednesday meeting. There was one Anchorage Daily News piece I've seen on Census data and population changes that mentioned the Board.
- The television cameras stayed for the first hour of the six hour meeting. Here's what KTUU has posted about the meeting:
The board held its first major meeting Wednesday, after it got a preview of the data on Tuesday.
The board has about 30 days to publish a preliminary re-districting plan from the date it received the new census data.
Wednesday's meeting included a lot of housekeeping items, but also a time for public testimony, where the board heard concerns from Alaska residents on what these census numbers will mean politically when it comes to redistricting.
Redistricting can be best described as drawing political boundaries.
Every 10 years the state re-draws the State Legislature election districts. The goal is to reflect the changing population accurately so residents have a fair and equal share in the way they are governed.
“The redistricting clearly sets the boundaries for the new legislative district. It's really important,” said John Tongerson [sic], the chairman of the Alaska Redistricting Board. “It's really a mathematical equation. We have to get as close as we can to get an ideal 17,755 people per district.”
The board has until April 12 to come up with a preliminary plan.
This didn't feel like a group that knew each other well and were a team ready to go get the Democrats. Robert Brodie - who came two hours late due to fog in Kodiak - seemed like someone used to being in charge and talked a fair amount given he kept saying he was new to this and trying to figure it out. He was surprised the staff would come up with plans to present and he suggested doing Anchorage and Palmer in one day. But later he pushed for there to be a second Anchorage opportunity at the end as the site for the Statewide Teleconference. He argued for Anchorage's larger population needing more time to present.
There seemed to a clear Myers-Briggs type difference between him and Torgerson. Torgerson proposed that in the last ten days, people should work on their own or in pairs, or meet with the public and then the Board would come together every afternoon about 2:30 for public meetings. Brodie didn't understand what people would do all morning. Torgerson saying he needed time on his own to think things through, sounded like a Myers-Briggs introvert needing alone time. Brodie sounded more like an extrovert, wondering what people would do all morning by themselves, wanting to spend more time in meetings, and thinking by talking. (A wild guess there.)
McConnochie, a recent replacement, seemed well prepared and eager to get going. She's spent time mastering the computer program and seemed to look forward to playing with it. I thought this comment was interesting, but I'm not sure how to interpret it:
I’m naive enough that considering who is in the district and who might run against them is less important than socio-economic integration.Either she is really naive, or this was disingenuous. But I couldn't tell which.
You can get a sense of the group dynamics in this video I took before my sound card got full.
Other Indicators
Chair John Torgerson
Torgerson did most of the talking. He seemed like a practical, goal oriented chair, but open to others' suggestions. He just didn't want them to talk them to death. When the attorney suggested not having closing times for the public meetings - in case the meeting ended early - Torgerson said he was willing to sit around in case people showed up late. He seemed a little miffed that people would think the Board is politically motivated. Though I though his frustration with Dave Metheny - who complained people couldn't get information from the Board fast enough - was justified.
Torgerson: "What haven't you been able to get?"But overall, and even here, I felt his tone suggested impatience with questions about the Board being fair. He spoke as though the idea of Board gerrymandering or doing anything else fishy was ridiculous.
Metheny- "Census data, timelines of meeting, phone lines. We want to get our people plugged in."
Torgerson: We got the census data yesterday, it was on the web in two hours. How much faster should we do it?
Dave Metheny: That’s fine.
But given the national publicity on the Republican opportunity to gain during this apportionment period - as evidenced in the opening quote above - I'd like someone who would acknowledge the concerns more directly and not seem to take it personally.
He seemed to have done his homework and knew what the rules were. I couldn't tell if he was going to be true to his word or whether he was an accomplished politician who knew how to say the right things at the right time.
The Crunch of Time
There are 30 days starting last Tuesday for the Board to come up with a redistricting draft plan. They are spending Tuesday and Wednesday in Anchorage and Wasilla public hearings from noon to 7 pm. Then the travel to Juneau and Ketchikan for public hearings Thursday and Friday. Then the next Tuesday is Fairbanks, Wednesday is Kotzebue, Thursday is Bethel. Friday March 31 is back in Anchorage for a Statewide Teleconference. They are all scheduled for seven hours.
Then they have ten days to play with their software and come up with plans that redistribute the state population into districts that are as close as possible to 17,755 each. For each of those days they will have afternoon public meetings - the only times the more than two board members can talk together - each of those days as they settle on their draft plan. Those will be the days where it is important to see what they do and how they do it.
I don't know how much time ordinary people will have to prepare for these first meetings. I don't know how much time the Board members will have to think with all those hearings and the travel.
Then there are 60 more days - til June 14 they said - to make changes in the draft plan. The traveling schedule for that period is even more hectic, but it won't be as a full board.
Watching What they Do as Opposed to What They Say
They spoke well about openness, about getting everything up on the website.
But the website has almost nothing on it. Sure, there are links to documents, but they are complicated documents that could use a little online explanation so you know which PDF files to open.
There's nothing that explains the overall process and the lingo.
There's almost no media coverage - no announcements in the Daily News of the Tuesday hearing yet. So, when are people supposed to learn about the public hearings and when are they supposed to get up to speed so they can just figure out what their concerns are, let alone document them and articulate them?
Is this by design - yes, we'll have lots of hearings and spend our $1 million plus budget to show that we went all over the state to hear people's opinions - is it incompetence, or is it lack of enough staff, or is it just starting and all this will happen eventually? But they are going to be traveling next week, so I don't see when they'll have time to get the website and other publicity going during the Pre-Plan stage. We'll see.
Department of Justice and Voting Rights Act
One other key factor is that not only are the Democrats ready to sue if they feel they aren't treated fairly, Alaska as one of 16 states on the Department of Justice Voting Rights Act watch list. Whatever the Board decides, must be approved by the DOJ as I understand it.
Meanwhile, Anchorage folks, there's a seven hour hearing beginning at noon at the Legislative Information Office on Tuesday. Drop in and see what is going on. Look at the maps. Ask about whether there will be public computers available that have the software that allows you to test out different plans.
The rest of you can go to your LIO offices and listen in. Or listen online through the Legislative website.
Matsu folks can go to their meeting at the Wasilla on Wednesday, again from noon to seven.
Fairbanks on Thursday.
My last post has the email from the Board with details and links about the public hearings.
Friday, March 18, 2011
AK Redistricting Board Finally Gets Some Info Out - But Not Easy to Use
I signed up for the Alaska Redistricting Board email alerts. I'd suggest that anyone interested in this do the same. I got an email announcing the public hearings dated 5:35pm this afternoon. At the Board meeting Wednesday they said they needed to announce hearings five days in advance. Today is March 18 and the Anchorage hearing is only four days away. (I just looked at the Public Meetings Act and it says "reasonable" notice and says "reasonable" could be "three months or three days." Given this is not a regular meeting, I suspect this probably counts as close to four days and would be ok. But I wonder how many people know about these meetings - especially the Tuesday one in Anchorage.)
Oh yeah, the link to the full public hearing schedule in the middle of the email - I couldn't get it to work from the original email either.
This email doesn't give locations. You can get that information on their website in two places:
1. The homepage scroll down and on the right is Upcoming Events. Click on the location and a window pops up with more information.
2. On the Calendar - again, click on the event and a window pops up.
Also, I've updated my last post which listed the towns the meetings will be held and updated it with the actual buildings they will meet in. Except Kotzebue which hadn't been determined yet.
Here's the email:
Oh yeah, the link to the full public hearing schedule in the middle of the email - I couldn't get it to work from the original email either.
This email doesn't give locations. You can get that information on their website in two places:
1. The homepage scroll down and on the right is Upcoming Events. Click on the location and a window pops up with more information.
2. On the Calendar - again, click on the event and a window pops up.
Also, I've updated my last post which listed the towns the meetings will be held and updated it with the actual buildings they will meet in. Except Kotzebue which hadn't been determined yet.
Here's the email:
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