Board Talks to Voting Rights Consultant Lisa Handley Calling from Afghanistan

This morning the board finally got to talk to the Voting Rights Act consultant, Lisa Handley, whose proposal they selected to analyze their plan before sending it for pre-clearance from the Department of Justice.  Handley is currently in Afghanistan.  I put some of the audio onto a video tape so you can get a sense of this consultant.  She literally wrote the book, or at least one book, on Voting Rights, which was published in 1992, and she was the 2001 Board's consultant as well.

For those with a technical bent, here are some notes on what Dr. Handley told  the NCSL National Redistricting Seminar on Measuring Minority Vote Dilution.






The audio covers some technical file information, the how to count Native who identify was multiracial where staff attorney White is able to get the consultant up to speed.  I edited the audio where board staff was hard to hear and to shorten it a bit. 





Here are my notes from the rest of the conversation.

[USUAL WARNING:  This was typed on the fly at the meeting and I'm putting it up with only rudimentary proof reading.  It doesn't capture everything and could be inaccurate.  The Board should have the audio up on their website soon.]

Redistricting  Board - April 11, 2011

Talking via phone to Consultant Lisa Handley who called from Afghanistan. 

Discussion fairly technical about the kind of data she needs to do her analysis. 

I came in a bit late and then recorded about 8 minutes.  Then I edited out some of it because the audio quality was terrible (worse than some parts I left - sorry, this is documentation, not art.)  Then I just started typing with the recording going as well.

Handley:  If one is white and one minority - count as a minority
If more than two, wonder what we do then.  DoJ may have given us some guidelines in recent weeks.  A lot of people will be captured by this.

Mike White:  in February 9th - will do their retrogression analysis
1.  Native and Native + white
2.  Native and Native + all

Required because of footnote in - Georgia v. Ashcroft  - SC said if you only have one race at issue, you should do what people self identify. 

OK, that answers that question. 

Something slightly different - I’m talking a data base for analysis of racial block voting analysis. 

In Chicago, much more complicated because different minority groups.  But here it’s much less complicated. 

Mike White:  35% number.  Board would like to know how you arrived at 35%

C:  I don’t know it will be 35% this time.  I think you are asking, what % of Natives needed to elect a Native.  Differential in minoirty and white turnout, how much white crossover vote can we expect for Native candidate.
Ten years ago, we found enough white cross-over, a 35% district might cut it.  aaysls has to be redone.  Might not be 35% this time round. 

White:  Could be higher or lower.

C:  That’s right. 

Actually, this turnaround, not only magic 35%, but since you’ve had minority candidates running statewide, so we can look at that data as well. 

Eric:  You want a column of total # of Cauc and column for Native - this would be anyone who checks the Native box on Census.

Handley:  Yes.  Some who marked just Native, but also Native and white, Hispanic, black. 

Eric:  Someone who marked all six races?

Handley:  That’s my understanding. 

Torgerson:  relating to 35% how might voting age population affect that?

Handley:  35% offers Native an opportunity to elect a candidate of choice.  Relates to turnout rates of whites and minorities, cohesion of Natives, how much white support for Natives?  35%

White:  Last time based on total population and not 35% voting age population.

Handley:  REALLY??!!!  If it says total rather than voting, that’s what it is.

White:  Assuming that you considered voting age in determining 35%.  S

Handley:  Since we focused on total population, the voting age is in there.  Did I do that for both?

Torg:  Can I talk to you about timeline?  We’ll be drawing final plan sometime in the second week of May.  When do you think we’ll have your analysis.  Not trying to nail you down, but get a general idea.

Handley:  Given your tight time line.  Probably not sufficient for section V submission, but for drawing purposes, why don’t I analysis just those districts that involve native candidates.
Then the 3 statewide Native candidates.
Then maybe 15 races. 

Somthing like that would take a couple of weeks to analysis.  Given that the data base is ready when I get back, I can start immediately.

Torg:  That would fit in our timeline.

Handley:  Another measure - the disaggregted results of minoirity candidates ????

White:  Lisa can provide us with a working number, but that wouldn’t be the pre-clearance analysis.

Handley:  But then I would do more races.  But first shot would be all races including minority candidates. 

Torg:  I realize you’ll have to do final analysis

Handley:  Do you have election results in the data base you’re using to draw the districts.

Eric:  NO
Handley:  It might be useful to show ??? that are minority preferred to include in your data base.  I’ll begin my analysis with those districts.

McConnochie:  We’re using 35% to make a minority district.  I realize we need to also look at voting age.  Possible to give us a number of voting age for us?

Handley:  Not necessarily the number we’ll use this time.  That’s only part of it.  The DOJ is going to do another analsysis.  If you have a district that are sitting at 50% that are vastly underpopulated.  You’ll say, I couldn’t draw this at 50%  I drew it at 35%.  If you CAN draw it above 35% but only do 35% you could be in trouble.

McConnochie:  The other way.  Areas that lost a lot of population and trying to get it to and above 35%.

Handley:  Looking at districts as currently composed. And you have some minority that is really underpopulated right?

White:  We have one that was minority-majority but is now 2% underpopulated and trying to move it around

Handley:  You can do that DOJ doesn’t insist these are the same districts, but the same number of districts. 

White:  We have some that are minority-majority and they will remain majority, but reduced because of out migration.

Handley:  DOJ will look at the data, if they see the numbers went down.  If they see you just couldn’t do it, they’ll be fine. 

Torg:  When are you going to be back from Afghanistan?

Handley:  April 24 - Easter Sunday. 

Torg:  Well have you up, sometime in Mid-May. 

Handley:  who is compliling the data base - Eric - email me on my aol account, better luck that g-mail account here. 
11:45am
Hang up.

McConnochie - very important that we buy the map, so when they redraw important not to redraw - it will be helpful to them to understand our minority districts.  They could come up with other districts but destroy what we’ve tried to do.

White:  Some of the other ones - not 40 - part of the justification to DOJ.

Torgerson:  Memo from City Manager of Cordova.  The board may have adopted Valdez plan that includes Cordova, based on my comments that we were ok with going with Valdez, well, we aren’t. 
So, if any member of the board wishes to bring this issue back up, then a motion would be in order to revise this. 

Brody:  I would lean toward leaving it the way it is until we can visit Cordova until we can tell them what our options were.  See if they prefer other options.  Message is vague.

Torg:  I didn’t wnat any accusations that the board adopted this based on interpretation of what I said in error.    OK, that will stand as adopted.
We’’ll recess then technically to call of chair, but probably at 2.

Brody:  Could we do this at 2pm? 

Torg:  Not sure we’ll be ready.   When would you be ready McConnochie?  You aren’t going to have lunch then?

McConnochie:  Apparently not. 

Torg:  We’ll recess until 2pm
11:54am

Here's the first page of the Table of Contents of the book Handley coauthored on Voting Equality.  You can read some of it online here.

Redstricting Board Update

The Board met from 2pm until 6pm today.  They went over Kenai, Matsu, Southeast, and Anchorage.  Sorry this is taking so long to post, but I have a bunch of things that have been neglected that I had to see to.  Like getting tickets to go to my daughter's graduation in June.

Before today they approved of rural districts - locking in nine Native districts - then Fairbanks yesterday, as well as Valdez district.  Today they approved a

• Kenai plan put together by Board Member Brody
• Matsu plan put together by staffer Jim Ellis
• Southeast map, which gets a Native-influence district that will connect to District 5 (which I assume means they can have two contiguous House seats that make up a Native Senate seat and they don't have to join Ketchikan and Kodiak like they talked about the other day. 

I'll try to do another posts with video so you can see the tediousness of this process.  In the meantime, here are my rough notes from the meeting:

[Usual Warnings Apply:  These are rough notes and not necessarily accurate. There are missing words and sentences and probably some mistakes, but it will give you a sense of the meeting.]




Open at 2:03pm
All members present except Jim Holm who went  back to Fairbanks yesterday.
Staff here too. 

Going to do: 

Brody:  Kodiak and Kenai:  Kodiak takes most of downtown Homer. 
McConnochie:  You can’t take all of Homer? 
Brody:  Then the numbers don’t work.
Kept most of these other districts with a couple of changes.
Kodiak takes western side of the borough - Seldovia, Halibut Cove, to the outskirts of Homer, I think outstide city limits. 

Leaving 33 untouched, but had to go a little futher into Anchorage - to Girdwood again. 

McConnochie:  What’s on the eastern side.  W

Bordy:  Whittier going with 34, N. part of Kenai Peninsula. 
Torgerson:  Seward went with Homer?
Brody: yes
Torgerson:  Sort of what is existing. 
Brody:  This one [I think this was a second Kenai option] was a radical change.  Split Kenai and Soldotna.  Kenai going up to Girdwood.  By giving . . . 33 had to come down more into 35 which moved up into this area. ???  Skips Homer but goes to Seward. 
McConnochie:  Mr. Chair how do you feel about Kenai and Soldotna being split?  I don’t think it’s a problem.
Torgerson:  (who is from there)  It’s not necessarily a problem, but … Glacier Road, leaves out quite a few.  But splitting the towns, I like the idea of both together, when they did that in 1992, but like all the rest of our plans, whatever works.  That’s the problem area - Primrose South, all the way to the Exit Glacier area. 
Looks like you have Sterling in three different districts.  But, a lot of neighborhoods around the state split.  Used the Kenai River, so  . . .

[They’re looking at the maps and talking about ways to make adustments - hard to track since they’re referring to changes they are making in the maps and I can’t keep up with all that.  Even video is tedious for that, but gets it better.]

They just imposed the Katchemak City limits on the map to see if they’ve split it. 

They’re trying to get the counts of the different districts as close to 17,755 as possible and as even as possible.  Should they take people on Seward Highway south of Tern Lake with Homer instead of Seward to make the numbers better? 

Torgerson:  They are fishing towns, a little more commercial out of Seward, but also tourist.
McConnochie:  Halibut Cove makes sense with Homer.  You could get 36 down some other way.
Torgerson:  This something we want to adopt today or hold off until tomorrow?  I think a little shifting back and forth - the only place , well there could be a lot , I’m not sure what that boundary off 33 to the right. [Photo]
Brody:  That was there from the last districts. 
Torgerson:  And we’re splitting subdivisions all over. 
What are the red lines? 
Eric:  Census districts. 


….
McConnochie:  I move to adopt this plan.
Brody:  Second.  I can pull this back out of Anchorage about 100.
Torgerson:  Remember we heard a lot of testimony from ER folks in 32.  I don’t want to spend a lot of time on that when we know we’ll have a lot of adjustments coming out of Anchorage.  Marie, you alright with that? 
Brody:  400 people there you could spread through those 3 districts. 
Torgerson:  Can we have a motion to adopt?  What do we call this?  I guess Kodiak, Seward District (Kenai/Soldotna).  Any more discussion?  All in favor?
Unanimous (Greene, McConnochie, Brody, Torgerson, Holm absent)

Torgerson: Next we’re going to discuss Matsu and Anchorage districts.  First, as I was working with staff the other day, pretty apparent we set northern boundaries for ER and S. boundary for Matsu:  Peters Creek is the natural boundary which is what we’re using already.  Also keeping in mind the memo from the Lt. Governor not to take patches of the military bases to get numbers. 

Matsu, then move through Anchorage.  Recess
2:53pm  ten minute recess.

At break, Brody went to Rudy Ruedrich (head of Republican Party) and asked if that was ok.  Ruedrich squinted, pointed out the room, and walked out.  Deborah Williams (Executive Director of Democratic Party) asked something like, “You’re getting approval?”  Then Brody said, I’ll talk to anyone and began talking to Deborah.  Ruderich is back and in Brody’s face.  You [video of discussion between Ruedrich, Brody, and Peggy Wilcox from AFFR here taking notes.  Haven't looked at it yet, not sure about the audio.]

3:02 Back

Taylor Bickford (Staff):  Similar to what we did with rural districts.  Set northern and southern boundaries.  After the drill yesterday looked at what was created and most of the interior Anchorage districts were fine, but there were problems at either end. 
If we set the northern boundaries.

Down to Indian or Girdwood.  Kenai and Matsu would have to affect District 12.  Since we ruled out the Canadian border for that, we had to go back to the boundaries.
No really natural boundaries to ER and so we looked at Peters Creek and worked north and south from that boundary.  Now boxing in a simpler puzzle in the middle where the numbers work out.  Trying to keep this area together as close as possible and the deviations as low as possible.  District 20  = +.07 deviation, D 21 = (similar to current 17)= neg. . 62 and

Lt. Gov Treadwell said it’s best to have districts that are majority military and take little pockets into non-military, then they are forced to put polling places off base.  If they can do it without impacting deviations at all.  This jagged line is the boundary.  The AFFR plan took the downtown and took 3000 people on base.  That looked problematic, it divided the base in half.  Created issue of off-base and on-base population, problems taking 50% of the
AFFRE plan did a better job of leaving the base in a traditional block.  The way this was drawn, you don’t have those issues.  about 6,000 at Elmendorf, which leaves you about 11,000 short.  Some advantages of having it over here - North Muldoon.  Going to video.
[UPDATE Tuesday April 12:  It turns out the Lt. Governor's letter must have come up on Friday when I wasn't there and was first distributed then.]

Brody isn’t ready to leave the Bases as two separate bases.  The staff added some of the military to ER and took a bit of Anchorage with Elmendorf.  I have a bit of that on video. 

[First Bickford seemed to be saying, because of the Lt. Gov’s memo, they should leave the bases as a whole district and said that AFFR split the bases in half and that wasn’t good.  But then it seemed to me that Elmendorf was split form Fr. Rich and half of Ft Rich went to ER in his plan.  I need to ask him.]

Brody:  I don’t buy that yet, but I see what you mean.  I guess I’m dense.
McConnochie:  Why don’t you do this?  Mark boundary for Ft. Rich.  That district is too large.  Break it up into 2 is unwieldy. 
Brody:  You have almost?? District 17 in one.  And then this part of ER needs 8000.  We may come back to that - in Kodiak we have the Coast Guard base.  Inconvenient for those people.
Torgerson:  I agree with Bob.  There are a lot of ways to make it work.  I think we need to do what Taylor’s talking about if we take out Ft. Rich.
That doesn’t mean we can’t look at different options..  We’d have a repeat of 32 which everyone in ER hates.  [Everyone?  Or at least the ten or so who testified]
Bickford:  There’s no other way.  If you take this out of 20, there’s no other way.  [Drives me crazy when someone says, “There’s no other way.”  Really he’s saying, “I couldn’t find another way.”]

Brody:  By setting this, we’re setting he boundaries for the Matsu. I would move that we set the n. boundary of Anchorage along Peters Creek for preliminary purposes.  And accept 21 as presented and work out the others.  [He was just opposing it and now he’s making the motion to adopt it!]

Torgerson:  Any other discussion on the motion? 

Quick look at Matsu and then. . . Jim you can lead us through. 

Ellis:  A couple of these I didn’t do with the N. boundary at Peters Creek, I did one that way, and it doesn’t make substantial changes to the northern boundary.

You could make rational arguments to connect Pt. McKenzie with big lake area or Knik Fairview [Video walking through the districts he’s set up.]

Torgerson:  I think Pt. McK should go with Knik-Fairview.  How would you move Palmer into 14? 
Ellis:  You take this chunk here into Palmer and move this part of 13 further south.
Torgerson:  You had a tradeoff between Fishhook or Lazy Mountain and Butte?  [A: Yes.]  Do you have the other option too? 
3:37pm
Looking at the alternate with Palmer and Lazy Mt and Butte. 

3:56 - Brody is now showing his plan for Southeast.  It’s a good thing I’m not on the board because I’m getting glassy eyed.  But that doesn’t mean the board members aren’t glassy eyed as well. 

There’s more map moving in and out.  I can’t tell how this compares to what they looked at the other day.  Though now they have a Native-Influence district that comes over the mountains to touch the rest of Alaska so they could connect that way for a contiguous Senate seat. 

There was only one staff member in the room now.  Brody was at the computer, and Seth watching from the audience.  I’m going to see what I can find out about the Lt. Governor’s communication. 

They said they’d get me a copy. 
McConnochie is now going over her plan for SE, with Seth working the computer. 
McConnocie:  SE is a complete conundrum.  Tried to reduce the deviations.  The Native district is 1.9%.  Rather than going to Valley in Juneau, I went to ???

Brody:  They’re virtually the same, just small differences. 
McConnochie:  I got 36.7% in the Native district. 

McConnochie's SE Plan that was approved

Greene:  Neither splits Sitka?
McConnochie:  No, Sitka is too small a town.  [But Saxman is split from Ketchikan - I understand why, because it helps with the numbers for the Native District. Later, Brody and Ruedrich explained to me that you really can’t tell that Saxman is any different from downtown Ketchikan and they are 95% economically integrated, but that Saxman maintains its identity fiercely.]]

Brody:  Can you justify taking a little piece like Saxman?
White:  They have in the past. 
Torgerson:  We could adopt it and let staff hook things up. ???
Brody:  It’s pretty much the same as mine.  It looks good. 
White:  Haines and Skagway with Juneau?  Yes.  Can’t come down the other side? 
McConnochie:  Juneau, Ketchikan, and Sitka.  Largest cities.  Other ones around there are majority white.  You need significant sized communities, but then you destroy the Native percentages. 
Brody:  Splitting Sitka is the only way to avoid pitting incumbents.
McConnochie:  Splitting Sitka destroys the Native percentage. 
Miller:  There are reps from Wrangell and Ketchikan.  Not Sitka.  And Senators from Sitka and Angoon.  ???  
Brody:  Pairing reps in Ketch and Wrangell.  There’s an in town Juneau seat.  Pairing Thomas and Munoz.  District 2 would be an open seat. (2 is the Native district.)
McConnochie:  I’m not prejudiced.  I think this is the hardest district to do.  Making a native district is very, very difficult.  I did.  I personally feel the small towns shouldn’t be split. 
Brody:  You want a motion to adopt? 
Torgerson:  Are you ready?
MC:  If people see something that I have missed, there is a lot of latitude to change.  I’m more than willing to have.
Brody:  On the maps say McConnochie ….???
Torgerson:  Ok, this map and staff can make adjustments so we can pair this with D 5.
Pass 4-1, Holm is absent. 

l-r,:   Oliver Leavitt, Randy Ruedrich, Eric Sandberg

4:15pm Break to 4:30pm
4:40 Back on. 
Brody working the computer looking at Anchorage. 
Looking at Post Road and Hollywood Drive.  (I’ve got the letter from Lt. Gov.  Basically it says that when a precinct is both on and off base, the voting place has to be off base because people can’t come on base thru the security to vote..  [Turns out this was passed out Friday - the day I wasn’t here.]) 
They’re trying to figure what is base and what isn’t. 

5:15pm  - 
Brody:  We’re picking up all those who aren’t in ER, not on the Base, and not in Matsu. 
D 19 now has 2000 too many people. 
Now we’ve taken all the ER people who used to be associated - way down here - and hooked them in with
Look at 71, how it snakes in there.  [I think he meant 17]
There must be a road here that has a lot of people on it, huh?  [I think he’s going up ER Road.]  Now taken those people I was referencing and turned them into ???.  Before we wrapped the ???  this way.
Torgerson:  Not many people mostly territory. 
Brody:  These are the ER suburbs that now will be hooked to Anchorage.
Bickford:  Actually works pretty well.
Brody:  Ok, that brings us to town.  20 and 21. 
Torgerson:  We should probably start with 26 or 27 on the water and move in.  We’re going to have a crash somewhere.  Deviations now about 1500 between districts. 

Airport area.  Yesterday we moved these guys over here - made it downtown. 
Torgerson:  We’re forcing the population to the east. You’ll have another district there. 

[There goes Bootlegger’s Cove.  It was with south of Westchester Lagoon and now it’s downtown.]

Brody:  I have 1400 people too many. 
26 is under.  Should we take this for 26?
Torgerson:  23 looks like. 
[Taking west of the RR I think from 25 and putting them into 26.  Or that could be Minnesota, not sure. 

26 is now a backwards L from Westchester Lagoon to south of International.  He’s moving stuff out to 27 I think.  Now 26 is all east of Minnesota.  Taking out chunks near Westchester Lagoon. ]

Brody:  26 and 27 are pretty good.    24 is over and 25 is under. 

[He’s going block by block to get the numbers. working.  Ruedrich is watching closely.  The AFFR and Democratic reps have gone home, but the Bush Caucus rep is still here.]

McConnochie:  You’re taking out trailer park.  You should keep them all in the same districts.  (He’s at Bragaw)  Give it back to 20.  See where it says 66.  Can’t remember the boundaries are.
Miller:  Penland Park, Northway Drive, and Airport are the boundaries.   Across from Northway Mall. 

Brody:  93 over.  We could give back both of them. 

[There has been no discussion of incumbents as they move district boundaries in the Central  Anchorage districts.  As he moves things in and out, the districts are morphing.  The numbers right now aren’t even close to 17,755 each. 
23= 19,332;  25 = 14,851,  26- 17,629, 27= 17, 689;  28 = 18,473, 29=18,022  30=25,845, 31= 17,744. 

It would be interesting to see what the numbers were before he started all this.  [Just a few mouse clicks makes a big difference - check these photos as he tries to balance 30 and 32. 










So now he has most of the districts close, except for 30 which has 6,600 extra.  And 32 which is under 5,500.  But 31 seems to be in between them.  And 30 and 32 are the same color.  I don’t know if there is a better way to do this, but this is really trial and error.  Or at least it looks that way. 

Now 30 is 7,000 over.  They moved the map back and 32 is also to the east of 30 and the color is a slightly different green.  32 goes down Turnagain Arm.  No, that’s 34 now.  There are some strange pockets, but they look like they’re in Chugach State Park so there won’t be people living there.  He’s adjusting those. 

Hmmm, never thought I’d be doing play-by-play for map making. ]

Anchorage Districts at 6pm

6:00pm 

Now the numbers are
26= 17829
27= 17,869
28=17715
28=17793
30=17,683
31=17,700
32=18,493

Though they change as I type.

They’re adjourning.

Torgerson:  We’ll meet tomorrow at 11.  Our voting rights expert will be on the phone from Afghanistan.  Then we’ll probably adjourn until probably 2pm.  We’ll have a full board.
Adjourn at 6:05

Brody and Ruedrich are looking at the maps and talking. 

Philosopher Denys Turner on the Difference Between an Atheist and a Negative Theologian

The commercials on KSKA (I know they call them sponsor messages or some other euphemism, but they are still commercials) announced that a famous philosopher would talk on "The Unknowability of God."

When Denys Turner came to the mic Friday evening in the packed room at UAA's library, he apologized. He'd prepared for a talk to maybe ten philosophers, not to a large crowd with lots of non-philosophers. And so he was going to read his paper which, he warned, would be a bit more dry than people might be expecting from the topic title.













Fortunately, the sound of the words rolling off his Irish tongue were a music all of its own, even if you didn't keep up with the lyrics. Basically, he was arguing that his adopted field - theology - was finally catching up with the rest of the academic disciplines (and some of their own medieval practitioners) in recognizing that some thing were simply unknowable, indeterminate.

This was the opening of the UAA Philosophy Department's 6th Annual Undergraduate Philosophy Conference.

One of the issues that arose was the inadequacy of human language to talk about these topics.  I wondered whether it wasn't also the inadequacy of the human brain.  After all, dogs probably just don't have the mental capacity to a lot of things humans can do.  I'm guessing humans haven't evolved enough to grasp some of these things. 




In the video Turner is responding to a question: "How is a negative theologian different from an atheist?"



Fortunately, I didn't say anything snarky about the speaker to my wife during the talk, because it turned out that the woman we squeezed in behind in the packed room was Turner's wife with whom we had an enjoyable chat after the talk.

And one comment about the room. UAA's library addition has rounded corners and leans out toward the world. I've been to a number of talks and meetings in this room (Library 307) and I think its slightly amphitheater shape adds greatly to any talk in the room. For me, round rooms are wonderful spaces. This room isn't round, but it is at least rounded.

Snow Leaving Bike Trails

I decided to use an alternate route because I knew that after the pond there was still very messy snow on the trail.  (There is no permanent lake anywhere near, just snow melt finding its way to Chester Creek.)

Draft Plan - Rural Areas, Valdez, and Fairbanks Approved

[UPDATE: 10pm added maps and board meeting schedule for rest of the week]

Here's a summary, I'll add more to this to fill it out (Maps) and catchup from what I missed yesterday.

Summary:
1.  Adopted Board Plan 1-2 for rural areas.
2.  Adopted Valdez from Board Plan 1-2.
3.  Adopted Holm plan for Fairbanks.
4.  Played a bit with Matsu and Anchorage,
So far, the strategy has been to put together the rural districts first in order to get nine Native districts and then move into the urban areas which theoretically should be easier because there are more people in a compact area and they are reasonably ‘socio-economically integrated.’ 
5.  Memo from Taylor Bickford about Anchorage

So, the question is, will the board become more political as it carves up Fairbanks and Anchorage?  Fairbanks got adopted today based on Holm’s plan.  There was no discussion about incumbents.  Well, there was a question about whether any one knew how this affected incumbents.  Torgerson said all he knew was that Coghill lives in North Pole.  But I find it hard to believe that Holm, who was a Fairbanks legislator until he was defeated in 2006, has no idea where the incumbents live.  He didn’t say anything one way or the other.  I’ll have to check with people from Fairbanks to see what they think these proposed districts will do. 

At least with Brodie doing Anchorage, there’s no indication that he has any idea of how what he’s doing affects the existing incumbents.  Doesn’t mean that he hasn’t checked, but, for example, as he played around with District 24 - my district - moving blocks of people into 23 which needed more people,  he came close to Berta Gardner’s neighborhood, I don’t think he had any idea where she lives. 

double click to enlarge

The meeting went from 2pm and Chair Torgerson said he wanted it to end at 6pm.  I left a few minutes before that.  Member Jim Holm left even earlier to catch a plane to Fairbanks.

Also, note that Kay Brown, who's been attending all the meetings for AFFR (Alaskans for Fair Redistricting) has been blogging on their site.  She understands all this much better than I do.   AFFR is a group made up of AFL-CIO and Native groups and a few others.  You can see who all on their site.

Click to Enlarge

 Board Option 1 v. 2 was approved today, with these caveats.  Basically, what was approved were the rural districts - excluding Southeast, Valdez, Kenai, Matsu, Fairbanks, and Anchorage.

Later, they approved the Valdez district on this map as opposed to the one proposed by Valdez.  They needed to do that to get enough Native districts and, as I understood it, to have District 5 contiguous with a Southeast Native district to be established. 
And later they also adopted the Fairbanks map above. 

The board is meeting tomorrow

Sunday, April 10th
Time: 2:00 p.m.
Location: 411 W. 4th Avenue, Suite 302, Anchorage, AK 99501

Here's the schedule for the rest of the week:

Monday, April 11th
Time: 11:00 a.m.
Location: 411 W. 4th Avenue, Suite 302, Anchorage, AK 99501

Tuesday, April 12th
Time: 11:00 a.m.
Location: 411 W. 4th Avenue, Suite 302, Anchorage, AK 99501

Here's the schedule for the rest of the week:

Wednesday, April 13th
Time: 11:00 a.m.
Location: 411 W. 4th Avenue, Suite 302, Anchorage, AK 99501

Thursday, April 14th
Time: 11:00 a.m.
Location: 411 W. 4th Avenue, Suite 302, Anchorage, AK 99501

Each meeting may involve periodic recesses to a time certain and the Board may also consider administrative and legal matters at the daily Board meetings. Discussions of legal matters may require executive sessions.

Tomás Gets Third Place in World Press Cartoon Humor Award

On the English language page of the World Press Cartoon website, it says 'gag' cartoons, but in the Portuguese it says "Humor."  I think they should have used the same word in English.  These are humorous, but they aren't 'gags.'  Here's his third prize winning cartoon. Tomás gave me permission to post it here when it was officially announced.   It's called HARD CHILDHOOD/Infancia difícil

The Grand Prize Winner was Australian Rowe and his cartoon entitled "WikiLeaks and Uncle Sam."  You can see all the award winners and their cartoons here.

World Press Cartoon Awards and Alaska Press Club Honor Blogger Friends**

As I write, a lot of cartoonists and people interested in cartoonists are gathered in Sintra, Portugal for the World Press Cartoon Awards ceremony.   Spanish cartoonist Tomás Serrano is there.*  He hiked the Harding Icefield trail at Exit Glacier last summer and then left a comment on my blog post of that hike.  And so we got together when he came through Anchorage.  He's a really gifted cartoonist and has two children's books and he's up for an award.  I have a link to his website on the right - Waldo Walkiria.  

The World Press Cartoon website says the prizes will be announced today.  And it's already tomorrow in Portugal.  They had too good a time to post the winners on their website. 

Also, last week, after my blogging class, I saw that the Alaska Press Club had its annual conference in the same building at UAA.  I got their schedule and saw they had awards too last week.

Two Alaska cartoonists (and bloggers) - Peter Dunlap-Shohl and Jamie Smith won prizes.  (I like Peter's stuff so much I have links to both his blogs here on the right - Frozen Grin and Off and On:  The Alaska Parkinson's Blog., which won Best Commentary Blog from the Alaska Press Club.   I thought I had Jamie's Ink & Snow linked here but I didn't, so I added it.) 

(Jeanne Devon at Mudflats got second in that category and the Alaska Dispatch's Jamie Woodham's blog The Concerned got third.)





Jamie Smith got best Editorial Cartoon (Large print Small print) for his work at the Fairbanks News Miner.

You can get a pdf with all of the Alaska Press Awards here.


Congratulations to Tomás*, Peter, and Jamie, as well as Jeanne and Scott.

* I know Tomás won something, because he emailed me several weeks ago that he was invited to the award ceremony.  He has to of his cartoons submitted and at the time he didn't know which had won or what it had won.  They're both neat and I'll post them when the word comes in. 


** What's a Friend These Days?
In the age of Facebook, what is a friend?   I was hesitant to put 'friends' in the title.  I would say that a couple of the people named in the post qualify, others I like and/or respect a lot, but I just haven't spent much time with.   Jamie, for instance,  I've only exchanged emails with.  Scott, not even that.   Not exactly friends in the old definition, but probably in the FB sense. 

In case anyone is asking this question: 
Answer:  No, I didn't submit anything to the Alaska Press Club Awards.  I didn't even know they had a category for blogs until I saw the list. 

Have a good weekend!

Redistricting Nationwide - NY Times Overview

While I've been focused on Alaska's redistricting, the New York Times today reminds me that this is going on across the country.  In most other states, though, there are two levels of redistricting - for Congressional seats AND for State Legislative seats.  In Alaska, since we have only one US House district, there's nothing to draw - the whole state is the district. 


A couple of more inclusive examples from the Times redistricting article mentioned are:

In Florida, political leaders have set up MyDistrictBuilder, a Web site that will allow voters to propose new, nonbinding maps for the state’s districts. And in Virginia, teams of students from area colleges entered a contest to design new Congressional maps to be considered by a bipartisan advisory commission appointed by Gov. Bob McDonnell.

[The link was to download what I assume is the program, but since there was nothing else except one blue button on the page, and I have a some other things to do today, I didn't try it.]

I've been thinking throughout this process that there should be ways for people to go online and play, "Redraw Alaska's Districts."  Right now it's nearly impossible for someone without the software to be able to draw lines and keep track of all the data necessary - particularly the actual number of people in each district and the percentage of Alaskan Natives in each district. [This is important because of the US Voting Rights Act, see more discussion on this in this prior post.]

The article says that nationally Democrats seem to be ahead in raising money to analyze data and litigate plans they don't like.

Democrats, aided by a ruling last year by the Federal Election Commission [I'm sure the FCC didn't write rules that gave Democrats preference over Republicans] that declared redistricting work exempt from some election financing restrictions, have set up a trust fund for litigation growing out of the redistricting. The trust’s structure will allow Democrats to raise unlimited amounts of “soft” money without running afoul of finance restrictions put in place in 2002 by the McCain-Feingold law, election lawyers say.

The Democrats’ fund-raising is intended to provide “the best data, the best ability to analyze the data, and the best legal team we can,” said Representative Mike Thompson, a California Democrat leading the party’s redistricting efforts across the country.

A good question would be whether any of that is coming to Alaskan Democrats.  I'd guess not since no Congressional seats are affected here.  But the regulars at the Board meetings are people from Alaskans For Fair Redistricting (Unions and Native organizations), a staffer from the Bush Caucus, John Harris (former Republican House Speaker), and less regularly, Randy Ruedrich (though he was back yesterday when the attorney reported his findings on Ruedrich's suggestion to count prisoners in their original home districts instead of at prison locations. The attorney said legally they had to use official Census Data and such block data with characteristics details like race won't be available until June and even then won't identify home addresses.  And if the numbers actually mattered, they would come so late in the process that it would be hard to change everything so late in the process.  But he doesn't think they'll matter anyway.)  Ruedrich, the state Republican chair, has been associated with Alaskans for Fair and Equitable Redistricting  (AFFER - a title that is a bit confusing since it's so close to AFFR). 

AFFR discloses clearly at the end of their report all the organizations they are associated with - including the AFL-CIO which the Times article says is well organized for this.

The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, meanwhile, has set up the Foundation for the Future, a tax-exempt “527” group with a $750,000 budget to help demographers, mapmakers and other experts aid Democrats. The organization grew out of meetings the union had with top advisers to Nancy Pelosi, the House minority leader, and others.

You can see the AFFR report,  and the AFFER report along with the others that were submitted on the Redistricting Board's website - right column, first page.  The AFFER report does not say who all was involved the way the AFFR report does.  I should do a post on who all has submitted reports.  It's covered - though scattered over the day's posts on March 31 when they all presented their plans at public testimony.


OK, Alaska, in 2021, let's make sure there's a redistricting contest online so everyone can get involved in the process.  If computer gamers played a hand in this, it would make this fun.  It can't be any more complicated that a lot of computer games people play.  Plus this hidden process would then be out in the open for everyone to see and they would better understand all the factors that need to be balanced and how seriously politics were drawing districts. 

Can the Board Keep to Nine Native Districts? What is Contiguous?

I'm trying to figure out how to write about the Redistricting Board the last couple of days.  They are playing with the software trying to find ways to make maps that meet all the criteria.  I say 'playing' very consciously.  This is very much like a computer game.

The Goal:

Make 40 districts each with 17,755 people, give or take a percent or two.

Restrictions:

No Retrogression

That's what they've been struggling with the last two days.

The current districts include NINE native districts.  Let me clarify.  There are 6 House districts that are either minority-majority or minority-influence districts (see this previous post for explanation) and three Senate districts.  These are:

House District	Incumbent	Senate District	Incumbent	Minority Majority*	Minority Influence*
5	Bill Thomas Jr. (R)	C	Albert Kookesh (D)	5?
6	Alan Dick (R)	C	Albert Kookesh (D)		6?
37	Bryce Edgmon (D)	S	Lyman Hoffman (D)	37 - S
38	Bob Herron (D)	S	Lyman Hoffman (D)	38 - S
39	Neal Foster (D)	T	Donny Olson (D)	39 -T
40	Reggie Joule (D)	T	Donny Olson (D)	40 -T

 *I'm not 100% sure about which districts are Minority-Majority and Minority-Influence.  I'll try to get that confirmed tomorrow. [TB, if you read this, please correct it in the comments.]

The question on the Board's mind - at least on Chair Torgerson's - was whether the Board could avoid any retrogression by creating nine Native majority or influence districts and still meet the state's requirements for compact, socially and economically integrated districts.  They had a plan with nice [nine]. but with a Senate seat made up of two non-contiguous House seats.

Because of Alaska's huge area, unique shape (narrow strips - SE between water and Canada, Aleutians, islands spread out 1200 miles across the ocean), and very sparse population, we already have some districts that are hardly compact.

So they were able to come up with a plan that had nine native districts, but in order to do that, they had to pair a House district in Ketchikan in the southeast with one in Kodiak to make a Native senate district.  So, the answer was yes.  You can see that explained in the first video. 



But, could the meaning of 'contiguous' be stretched to cover two house districts (one in Ketchikan and one in Kodiak) over a large expanse of ocean to make a Native senate seat? That's the question Torgerson asks attorney White in the second video.

Wednesday it appeared they were going to really try to get to nine Native districts. Thursday it wasn't so certain, though Eric, the GIS guy, had come up with another way to get nine Native districts, but still 'ugly.'  Yesterday it seemed like they were going to find a way to do get nine.  Today,  it looked liked they were ready to settle for eight Native districts. But it sounds like they'll go forward with a plan for nine and one for eight. 

One thing I noticed was that the staffers who'd worked hard to get at least a Native-influence district out of SE said, "It can't be done." I think a more accurate way of saying it would be, "We couldn't figure out a way to do it." I don't know if it can be done more elegantly than they did it (because they did do it, though, as they said, "it was ugly"). But I suspect people with real skill and more experience with the software could do seemingly impossible things. Afterall, 30 years ago, people never imagined that people could do the stunts we see in sports like extreme skiing. But the board only has about six days to get the draft plan done.

I'm going to miss the Friday meeting because I have the Ole! blogging class at the same time as the board meeting.  But they'll be meeting Saturday and Sunday at 2pm as well.  They have til Friday to get a draft plan, so no time off.  And those of you who can't get there because of work - well, you can see them in action.  In the Yellow mall on 4th Avenue - 411 W. 4th.  Suite 203.

What Constitutes a Native for Determining Native Percentage of a District?

The US Voting Rights Act has so far proven to be the major force guiding the Alaska Redistricting Board's efforts.  There's good reason for this.  Most of the  prior Alaska redistricting plans have been legally challenged and the courts have required changes.  Furthermore, because an earlier challenge showed racial discrimination against Alaska Natives, Alaska is one of 16 states monitored by the Justice Department under the Voting Rights Act.

Staff Attorney Michael White's guidelines for the board say the act requires "no unavoidable retrogression."  (On March 22, Fund for Native American Rights senior staff attorney Natalie Landreth testified that it should be "no retrogression" without the unavoidable.  Later, while White accepted one of Landreth's corrections, he did not accept this one. )

This means, as I understand it, that Native voting strength should not be less than at the last redistricting.   This is measured by how many districts are  'minority-majority' and 'minority-influence.'  Minority-majority districts would have 50% or more Alaska Native population (not necessarily voters).  Minority-influence districts have at least 35% Alaska Native population. 

One of the issues that came up in Tuesday's discussion was whether the plans submitted by various organizations counted Natives the same way the board is counting someone Native.  I thought I was hearing people say 'Native plus one."  But today I heard someone say "Native plus white."  Maybe they used both or maybe my kids are right about my hearing.

This makes a difference.  If a group is using a more lenient definition of Native, then they would count more people as Native than a stricter definition.  Thus they might define a district as Native-Influence because it had, using their numbers, 36% Alaska Natives.  But the way the board is counting, the district might only have 34% Alaska Natives.

But I didn't quite understand what those different ways of counting were.  So I asked Michael White if he could explain it on this video. 




As you can see from the video, the issue is that so far the DOJ has counted, in the past, people identified as Native and people identified as "Native and White."
But NOT other combinations, such as "Native and Black" or "Native and Asian."

At the Wednesday (April 6) meeting, I believe that White told the Board that his understanding was that the Board could only count "Native" and "Native and White" but he's still seeking further clarification. And Chair Torgerson told the staff to find out how the groups that submitted plans to the Board counted someone as a Native. If they used a different way, then the data have to be adjusted to match the way the Board counted them.

And a followup to the question I had about what categories were used prior to 2010 in the video, a February 9, 2011 New York Times article on mixed race says that before the 2000 Census people could mark 'multiracial'.  This raised a myriad of problems. 

"[T]he census in 2000 began allowing respondents to mark as many races as they wanted. . ."