Overview of the Problems Redistricting Board is Facing Before Voting Rights Act Consultant Arrives Tomorrow

This morning's session was spent looking at more experiments trying to get nine Native districts with sufficient population and Native percentages to be in compliance with the Voting Rights Act and to get pre-clearance from the Department of Justice.  Rather than recount the details of the short meeting (under 1 hour)  I should just give an overview of what they are grappling with.


Meanwhile they've  begun the afternoon session and you can listen in here. 
[Update 3:25pm - They just ended this afternoon's meeting, but you can use this link to hear the voting rights expert, Lisa Handley, tomorrow at 10am.  This should be one of the more interesting meetings.]

I decided I'd try the online version for the afternoon, so I could get some things done at home and enjoy the beautiful weather.


The key requirement that has dominated the board so far has been RETROGRESSION.  The Voting Rights Act allows no RETROGRESSION. That means, in Alaska's case, that Native Alaskans can not lose the degree of representation they have in the legislature. In translation, that means they must keep the same ability to elect the candidates of their choice.

In the last redistricting there were 9 "Native" districts. However, the population has moved. Southeast lost enough people to lose a whole district. In some cases Natives have moved to urban areas and it's almost impossible to carve the urban areas up in a way that counts those Natives for a Native district.

So, they've been doing a lot of mapping experiments to try to create 9 Native districts given the population shifts. It's been hard. They've run against other requirements - like Senate districts have to be made up of two contiguous House districts.

Double Click to Enlarge Considerably

When I got there this morning, Taylor Bickford was working on a map. This one looks like he’s broken some of the early taboos the board has used from the beginning - like keeping the North Slope Borough pretty much the same.  It hadn’t lost any population after the new census data came out, so it looked like an easy district to leave whole, but there have been two big problems trying to prevent retrogression.  (You can see that here the old North Slope Borough is redrawn to go down along the Canadian border to Valdez, taking on much of the old District 6.  But it looks like it might be smaller than the old District 6.)

HD = House District
VAP = Voting Age Population

The Voting Rights Expert, Lisa Handley, who will be at the board meeting tomorrow (Tuesday), has given percentages needed to have acceptable Native districts.  So they are creating these maps and looking at the numbers.  You can see:

HD 40  has 51.24% Native VAP (voting age population)
HD 39 has 38.43% Native VAP - that is probably enough for a Native 'influence' area while HD 40 should qualify as a Native 'effective' area.  The three below are Senate Districts (SD).  SD A, for instance has 46.55% Native VAP and combines House Districts 36 and 7.  (Not sure why 36 isn't listed as a Native district.  One of these must have enough Native population to make the combined Senate district qualify.)

If you are REALLY paying attention, you'll have noticed this is only eight, not nine Native districts.  They have already created a district in Southeast that they think will count as the ninth. Or maybe they are counting 36.  I don't think 7 - which has Kodiak - has enough Native percentage to qualify. 

This is the computer game they are playing - trying to get these numbers right.  And they also have to get the total population for each district within a few percent of 17,755 people.

The problems they've been having are these:

1. The Native population is essentially ‘packed’ in a few districts with very high native population (one up in the 80 percent range.)  
2. The group of Northwest Native districts don't have enough population to get to the 17,750 population needed for a district, thus they need some of the excess population from Fairbanks (@8000 or half a district) or Matsu.
3. But Fairbanks and Matsu both say they don't want their population spread out beyond their borough.  Matsu might be able to get five districts almost completely in the borough, but Fairbanks, as I mentioned, has 8000 excess people that will have to go in non-Fairbanks district(s).

Additionally,

• Native groups want to keep ethnic groups - Yupik, Inupiat, etc. - together in their own groups because they have more closely related interests and this is assumed to help preserve cultural heritage.  Though some testified that mixing ethnic groups might be necessary to prevent retrogression.
• At the various public hearings, different areas have argued that certain neighborhoods or villages or towns should or should not be in the same district and the board is trying to take these into consideration.

All these issues make the board's task even harder.   And there's more. . .

Left Over Problems

• This still leaves some problems like putting 8000 excess suburban Fairbanks people into a district that is basically roadless villages.   Clearly that would not create socio-economically cohesive (a state requirement) districts. 
• And, of course, the Democrats are concerned that the 4-1 Republican board will try to pad the Republican majority in the state House and break the 10-10 tie in the Senate.  While all the board members deny any intention of this, and some seem genuinely neutral in their mapping, this is redistricting.  The assumption is (nationally) that whoever is in charge of redistricting is going to draw lines that advantage their own party's chances of gaining in the next election.  To be fair, Republicans were paired in the Southeast maps we've seen so far.  But there are only two Democrats in the seven house and senate districts there. 
  Most Democrats are in Anchorage and Fairbanks where the population is denser and it's easier to move lines around - because there is enough population to draw all sorts of configurations.  So, if the board spends enough time on the rural districts - as they did for the draft plan they put out April 14 - then they'll have to rush Anchorage and Fairbanks privately, and what they do in public will be hard to follow.  My sense is that the board is divided on this.  Bob Brody proposed doing the urban areas now at the same time they do the Native districts, but was voted down 4-1.  I think the staff would also like to get Anchorage and Fairbanks drafts with details out before the board adopts them.  We'll see.   

The board recessed at 10:47am and scheduled a 2pm meeting which you can listen to here. (They should be meeting until about 4 or 5 pm Anchorage time today.)
[Update 3:25pm - They just ended this afternoon's meeting, but you can use this link to hear the voting rights expert, Lisa Handley, tomorrow at 10am.  This should be one of the more interesting meetings.]

Meanwhile it's the first almost warm sunny day in Anchorage as you can see as I rode home after this morning's session.

Tuesday  (tomorrow) is a big day for the board.  Voting Rights Act consultant Lisa Handley will be in town to give her sense of how close the board has come to the nine Native districts needed to avoid retrogression.  She'll also give her view on whether any of the privately submitted plans met the goal.  (She's already said she thought so, but board attorney wondered if they had used the right data to calculate their Native VAP - voting age population.)

I thought I saw an eye doctor on an Alaskan island, but it turned out to be an optical Aleutian

This came in an email from faraway friend whose first language is not English. He sent it to me because of the Alaskan reference. As a practicing punster (I try to suppress it here,) I'm impressed by the elegance of the puns on this list. They aren't groaners where one has to twist one's ears to make the sounds match, and one's face contracts around the nose at the flatness of the humor.  Well, you may not agree.  And some (maybe all) are not new.  These match words with unexpectedly similar sounds or double meanings with some cleverness. Here are some of the ones he sent:

1. A will is a dead giveaway.
2. Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a mango.
3. A backward poet writes inverse.
4. When a clock is hungry it goes back four seconds.
5. You are stuck with your debt if you can't budge it.
6. A calendar's days are numbered.
7. The short fortune-teller who escaped from prison: a small medium at large.
8. When you've seen one shopping center you've seen a mall.
9. If you jump off a Paris bridge, you are in Seine.
10. When she saw her first strands of gray hair, she thought she'd dye.
11. A rubber band pistol was confiscated from algebra class because it was a weapon of math disruption.
12. No matter how much you push the envelope, it'll still be stationery.
13. A dog gave birth to puppies near the road and was cited for littering.
14. Two silk worms had a race. They ended up in a tie.
15. I wondered why the baseball kept getting bigger. Then it hit me.
16. A small boy swallowed some coins and was taken to a hospital. When his grandmother telephoned to ask how he was, a nurse said, 'No change yet.'

I tried to whittle the list to ten, but figured different ones would tickle different people, so I'm hoping some of you will tell me know your favorites (or least favorites) in the comments. 

You could even use the judging scale used at the O. Henry Pun-Off World Championship  held this past weekend in Austin, Texas.

You will be given a set of cards numbered one through ten.  A "ONE" should be used only for a complete flop (or an obvious non-pun) and a "TEN" should be reserved for a performance better than you ever expected.  (The audience response is helpful here too!)  The most important thing here is that your judging style remains consistant throughout the event. By expanding our panel to 6 judges we are attempting to level the field some. The highest and lowest score from each vote is discounted which leaves each contestant with a possible high score of only 40.  

There were different contests including punniest of show. Some of the rules for that included:

2. PUNNIEST OF SHOW: Each entered contestant will be allowed to present a pun on stage. Puns may be presented in any format (e.g., visual, musical, stand-up routine, etc.), and will be scored on a scale of one (1) to ten (10) by a panel of judges. A contestant's score will be determined by adding the judges' scores together. If a judge displays a score higher than 10 or lower than 1, that score will be lowered or raised to the nearest allowable score (i.e., an 11 becomes a 10, a 0 becomes a 1, etc.). Contestants will be judged on content, originality, and general effect of the presentation, including judges' interpretation of audience response. Contestants may use notes or scripts, but should keep in mind that the judges may take this into consideration when determining their score.  (if you want to know the rest of the rules and the other puntests click here.)

The 1995 winner, John Pollack, on NPR last week talking about his new book, Just for Pun said:

"The power of a pun comes from two things," he says. "One is its ambiguity, and second is: that it enables you to pack more meaning, or more layers of meaning, into fewer words. And so if you're trying to convey complex ideas, puns can be really powerful tools to do that."

I agree.  I don't think they are the lowest form of humor as some say.  It's just that there are some really bad punsters who bring puns down so low.  I also think that good punsters are just wired to hear literally - thus hearing the two or meanings of a single (or very similar) sound(s). 

"Solpa adjust maadi"

In Thailand it was "Jai yen yen" (ใจเย็นๆ) - keep a cool heart.  In Bangalore, Karnataka, India, Eagle River resident and Ohio Wesleyan student, Becky Smith, is being told to "please adjust a little." 

She writes in her new blog, Hindustan Hamara (begun May 3, 2011 with three posts now):

Part of Bangalore from the air Nov. 2006

Everything in India takes a few extra steps. After a few days at my service apartment, I finally was informed that I had no hot water because there was a boiler that also needed to be turned on. While I'm used to generally just finding a hotel within my price range, here finding a place to stay involved several days of phone calls (thank God for my friend and his dad who took care of that for me) and negotiations to agree on the rate for a two month stay. And that was all before we decided that air conditioning really was necessary for an Alaskan to live in Bangalore. Which brings us to the first lesson of India: "Solpa adjust maadi." In Kannada, the language predominately spoken in Karnataka, this roughly translates to "Please adjust a little, sir."

Becky's just begun as an intern  

at Sanghamitra Rural Financial Services (SRFS), a non-profit microfinance institute aiming to raise clients out of poverty by offering microloans and other financial services. I will also be conducting independent research on the profit structures of microfinance firms and its effect on the social and income impacts it has on its clients.

You can follow Becky's summer internship at her blog.  I would note that her proud father is Anchorage's Deputy Police Chief, Steve Smith. 

Do you know where Bangalore is in India?  How many seconds will it take you to find on the map?

Adapted from worldsecurity.org map

I'm assuming that most of you know where India is on the world map. Hint: Bangalore is in Southern India.

Early Blossoms at Anchorage Botanical Garden

There was a plant sale at the arboretum today so we thought we'd stop by to see what was available.  There were also a few early blooms.

Brassicaceae Arabis  caucasica "Snow Cap" - Rockcress

Arboretums have little signs with the names of the flowers.  So convenient!

But you have to remember to take a picture of the name too.  I know this is a primula.

Primulaceae Primula allionii "Linda Page"

Forget-me-not

Thiaspi stylosum

Not everything was blooming.  In fact most things were just starting to poke out of the ground.  This is the one of the big beds in the back.  You can see it has a ways to go.













If you live in Anchorage, and you have kids, this looks like a great way to get them aware of and maybe even interested in plants and gardening. 

LA Times Reports New Zealand Has Calm Rapture

This all could be laughed off as an item from News of the Weird, except a significant number of people have been listening to Camping, and some of them actually vote in elections. From the LA Times:

As New Zealand and other areas in the Pacific Ocean passed the May 21, 6 p.m. local time unscathed, despite predictions by Harold Camping that the hour would signal the beginning of the end of the world, many seemed to breathe a public sigh of relief -- some tongue-in-cheek and others more seriously -- on Twitter and other social media forums.

Although it was not the first time Oakland-based Camping, 89, forecast the apocalypse, this date marked the most attention-grabbing of his doomsday predictions. The unprecedented publicity was spurred by a worldwide $100-million campaign of caravans and billboards, financed by the sale and swap of TV and radio stations.

Meanwhile the New Zealand Harold doesn't seem to have anything on the topic. Thank you New Zealand for not paying attention at all.

I got to the meeting a couple minutes late. (You can dock my pay.)

[Back to running meeting notes, so recognize that this captures a lot, but not all of what was said.  You get the gist but not all the exact words.  But you can listen to audio for a lot of the meetings as you'll see below and the transcripts will eventually be posted.]

2:10pm Director Report:

• Web conferencing of Board meetings - I missed this part, but later they used GoTo Meeting so that a board member who was not in Anchorage could show his maps.
• Transcripts - staff change adds a little time to get the transcripts done. they are being done by a several different contractors.  Some we aren't sure where they are. They aren't up yet, but the audio is.
• audio for public hearings through May 5 (though some are missing)
• audio for board meetings through April 14.
• Four groups signed up to present new plans to the Board which will reflect the changes in the percentage required to meet the Voting Rights Act:  Rights, AFFR, Calista, AFFER
• Reading File Update - material added that were received since late Friday (I have pictures of the table of contents and I'm trying to figure out the easiest way to post these.)

Jim Ellis:  May 6 on getting added, close to printing and putting them together.  Most items added have been emailed to you.

Software requests - Chair asked staff to load all the private plans to computers, I assume that the rest of you want that too.  Desktop, laptop?  Other software plans, let us know end of day today, because we'll be here working tomorrow.

Torgeson:  Questions?

Discussion of final plans.  Taylor, you are ready for more, right?  Eric, you want to walk us through

Eric Sandberg:  I have almost ready.

Torgeson:  Not going off line, take a recess, but the recorder is still going on so Taylor can talk to the remote folks.
Jim, two minutes to click the button and broadcast the screen.

Holm - I'm here!!!

Eric:  Going over his new map of rural areas and going through the totals.
District 1 - Kodiak, Port Graham, and to boost Native % went up to Lower Kuskokwim
And combined with Aleutians (HD2)  33.9% Senate
3 and 4 - 3 is Bethel to Hooper Bay and Scammon Bay

Don't Panic Yet - this is just trying things out

4 - Yukon River up to Tanana River to McGrath and outskirts of Fairbanks - Salcha, Pleasant Valley, Fox...  Possible Native influence district
Combined 50+% Native Senate District
5.  East-west huge district  plus 6 North Slope

Bickford - you could add 1000 Native folks to 2 from 3 and maybe get better numbers.  [gets to 34.91]
Then you could take 1 into 4 a bit.
Eric:  4 is right at 35%, but certainly I think you could bump the pairings a bit.

Torg:  What was your other major approach?
Eric:  Tried to keep old 6 together, but it pushes up against the Coast line and gets non-contiguous Senate pairings.
Torg:  It looks like that one could use a bit more work, but it's close isn't it?
4 -2  House - effective/influence
3- 0  Senate -

Tried to bump Natives in Kodiak by going east, but doesn't work without going to SE.

A few other plans, but nothing better than this.

Torgeson:  Load up PeggyAnn's and Marie's?

PeggyAnn McConnochie - this is absolutely not ready to go.  I came in early to try once more on SE.  Try to put Skagway and Haines into District 2, doing that I leave more population in the Valley of Juneau, and at least one whole district in Juneau.  D3 only in Juneau.  Then where can I pick up White population for SE - Valley, Gustavus, then Elfin Cove and Pelican, and Tenakee Springs - but this makes it really ugly, with four crossings.
Torg:  Have we talked about that - crossing districts?
White:  No, depends on why - if to make voting rights act numbers, might be more defensible.
I think the board needs to hire some savants who can just see through all the numbers and population types and find the right patterns.

PeggyAnn McConnochie:  Good news - PofWales almost in one district.  But down here, I think unacceptable, population around this Bay, and I put with Ketchikan, but they consider themselves with Craig.  Warning VAP is only 32.6%
Marie and I spent a lot of time working on Rural districts again.  We spent, what?  An hour, two?  Tanana Chiefs spoke to us all in Fairbanks.  We prioritized TC and tried to get those six different groupings and not split the groupings.
4 stayed the same - Our 39 - one TC grouping - Ft. Yukon, Venetie, Beaver, Wiseman.  This in one area undivided.  From hear all the way over to this area - at Bering Straits, Doyon, didn't want Fairbanks, took just a little because we needed to get the population up.   Didn't want to take much of Fairbanks.  Looked at 6 - another TC group that we wanted to leave whole.  Dry Creek, Tanacross, Dot Lake Village.
The video gives you a sense of what this process is like. And I think you can sense that McConnochie is really trying to do this right. It's just hard.



Other side of Fairbanks, take a look - Calista.  This is basically Calista - Eric copied us LOL - we needed to shed population out of this area.  Large population - Wade Hampton - these two areas have the rest of TC chiefs.  The groupings can be separated, but each group needs to be the same.  Next down to 37.  Deviation of 2.34%.
Take this whole thing as new 36.  Down, 15,000 (did she mean 1500) people.  Tried to keep Calista whole, tried our best.  Kwethluk, Eek, Goodnews Bay, tried to keep together.  But just way too many people.  They are now in 37.  We aren't done, not happy.  Interesting to see what Eric has done - he doesn't really know the places the way Marie does.  We're not done, by a mile.  Helpful - protecting TC areas, Calista, and
Marie Greene - 39 goes back east.
PAM (PeggyAnn McConnochie)- We don't necessarily like it going from west to east.  Trying to keep people out who don't belong - people in suburbs of Fairbanks don't belong in Native district and vice versa.
TB (Taylor Bickford)- Where did you want to go for the 15,000?  Matsu
PAM - We can't with our deviations go into 38-40.
TB - Can either go to Matsu, Denali, or Fairbanks.  One of those has to happen.
PAM - Trying our best to not add those areas.  It isolates the problem.
White:  Left over 36?  15,000 under.  Impossible to make that an effective district.
TB:  Helpful to start doing it this way - shows the tradeoffs down the road.
PAM:  Trying to go from the optimum - what everyone tells us.  I want to tell these people that we tried our best, but there are too many people in that district.  Eric went the same way we did.  It good know there is another possibility, we just need to get 36 filled out.  But can't take them from
Torg:  I'm seeing a theme - East-West - Big 37.  Bob, do you have something to present?
TB:  I think I just hand control over to you.  See what happens.
Torg:  Good experiment.

Using GoTo Meeting - Computer Conferencing Software
Brody:  SE - got D2 to   Got up to 38.9
TB:  Go back to - Arc Map 10
Brody - [We all were given a blue spread sheet of all 40 districts, I can't find the numbers he's talking about]  I took most of Marie and PeggyAnn's map - they were under in most districts.
I made D3 a little large, D4 here in the middle.  But it put 2 way under.  To get 2 up, I went around the corner and got these and tha put the Native count to 39 and the total VAP to 35.  That's pretty much all what PeggyAnn and Marie have done.
PAM - Tanana Chiefs gave us a letter with villages they want together - Looks like you split up Tok out, Dot Lake in, No matter what we draw, there will be a couple on the edges.  Able to get VAP to 35 which would make this a solid influence district.
Holm:  What kind of Sen Pairing?
Brody:  Just the four in SE.  Resigned to having to find pairings elsewhere.  I have Kodiak taking Cordova, but Tatitlik in SE.
TB - Bob, I think that's total minority VAge - I think we need just Total Native.
Total Native 39, total VAP 35.
PAM - OUt of curiousity, if you could take all the Tanana Chiefs villages out?
Brody:  I don't know.  I was trying to get close to your deviation.  It will drop the VAP.  They are smaller villages, but 80% native.  Just a question how effective we want to make the SE districts.
PAM - Also trying to keep those TC villages together there.
Torg:  Wrangell is with Ketch and Petersburg with Juneau?  Split P of Wales?
Greene:  Haines and Skagway in 2?
Brody:  Same as you guys.  That's it for me.
2:55pm
TB:  Any more presentations?  I'm going to cut them off then.

Torgeson:  Brings us to adjournment.  Meeting Monday at 10am.  We'll have to have things to use a little earlier.  When you show it on the web, you don't have to send it out?  Right.
From now on meeting at 10am.
Adjourned.  2:57

Brainstorming Day at the Board - Brody's Proposal Shot Down

Notes on the Thursday, May 19, 2011 Alaska Redistricting Board meeting.

I got to the meeting about 20 minutes late - it turns out my wife's computer clock is about 30 minutes slow.  Eric Sandberg, the GIS expert on loan from the Department of Labor, was going over some Southeast maps.  Since I still didn't have my computer, (I got it after the meeting and so far so good)  I'll try to just highlight what I saw happening Thursday.  The next meeting is Friday beginning at 2pm at 411 W 4th Avenue Suite 302. An email announcement said the board would be live-streaming the meetings this week.  Check here. [I don't see it listed under 'scheduled' but maybe it will be there when it is live at 2pm.]

1.    Looking at maps to see if they could find a way to get to nine Native districts while trying to meet other goals such as:

• keep the deviations within reason
• respond to the feedback they’d gotten at public hearings such as for Southeast:
• Haines and Skagway didn’t want to be paired with Juneau    
• Wrangell and Saxman wanted to be with Ketchikan
• Prince of Wales Island didn’t want to be divided

One of Several Southeast Attempts

On Wednesday, PeggyAnn McConnochie and Marie Greene went over their attempts at Southeast and the Native Districts in North and West Alaska.  There was a lot of frustration voiced at how much trouble they had.  The only ways they could get the percentage of Native Voting Age Population up to 35% (the minimum the Voting Rights Act consultant seemed to be saying was necessary for Southeast) required them to go against the wishes of, say the Wrangell folks who said they should be in a district with Ketchikan, not Sitka.  The columns on the bottom of the screen of the Southeast map are:

• Total Persons, 
• Target (17,755 for all districts), 
• Deviation %, 
• Deviation # (how much above or below the target), 
• Percentage Native+White, 
• Percentage Native + All (those identifying on the census as Native and Native+White, then
• Native and Native plus any other ethnicity, 
• Percentage voting age Native and Native+White, 
• Percentage voting age Native and Native+All

All this plays an important role in getting pre-clearance from the US Department of Justice because Alaska is one of 16 states monitored under the US Voting Rights Act.  

My sense, listening to them was that they were trying really hard to get good numbers and also respect the wishes of the people who came to the public hearings.  They also talked openly about how the different groupings affected incumbents.  There are four Republican and one Democratic house members in SE and two Republican and one Democratic Senator.  In most of the attempts two Republican incumbents were paired in the House, and two Republican Senators were paired.  Incumbent Democrats were not paired. 

Today, Eric Sandberg showed some other attempts to carve out a Native district in Southeast.  Then Taylor Bickford showed some, what they called "creative" maps of the rest of the Native districts.  They acknowledged they were going against the wishes they heard at the public hearings but they were trying to see if they could pull out nine Native districts. 

This is the map with the big green turtle in the middle, well that's what I see.  As they said, these were experiments to see if they could come up with nine legitimate Native Effective or Native Influence districts. 

2.  Strategy for Finishing

Board member Bob Brody (who, along with member Jim Holm was at the media via phone Thursday) raised a strategy issue. He was concerned that the Board was spending too much time now on the Native districts. He acknowledged their importance in getting Voting Rights clearance, but he was concerned that the board was spending so much time on ten districts and in the end would only spend a very short amount of time on the other 30 districts. He felt that the board should be spending time now on Anchorage, Fairbanks, Kenai, and Matsu. As close to verbatim as I was able to write, "Looking at the schedule, we're putting a huge amount of time into 10 districts - then we'll have to slam bang into the other 30."

He proposed setting up four principles:

1. Draw five districts wholly in Matsu.
2. 16 house districts in Anchorage with surplus available for anywhere needed
3. 3 Kenai districts - with surplus for anywhere
4. 5 Fairbanks districts - with the half house seat surplus available as needed

John Torgerson immediately opposed this as did the other four on the grounds that this 'takes options off the table we might need."  Brody responded that "It paints us in a corner.  Ties our hands."   And until they got the Native districts settled, they wouldn't know how the urban areas would be affected.

Those for doing the Native districts first argued that given the need to be pre-cleared by the Department of Justice that there is no retrogression in Native representation means getting this part right is essential.  So, we need to get those numbers right, then we'll know what we have to take from the outskirts of the urban areas to do that.  Until that's done, it doesn't make sense to do the urban areas because that will mess up the Native district numbers.

Brody, on the other hand, said that we know we have 16 Anchorage districts plus 8,000 left over that could either go with Kenai or with Matsu however that was needed.  Fairbanks also has about 8000 leftover people. (They get this by dividing the Fairbanks area population by 17,755 which gives 5 districts with 8000 left over.)  Matsu has pretty much five districts even (if I understood this right) and Kenai has 3000 extra.  So, Brody was arguing, we know these numbers and can draw these urban areas now. 

Holm said, "I sort of want to agree and disagree."  He seemed to think that the urban areas wouldn't take much time.  [again, my notes are rough here]  "I think we have a pretty good idea of Anchorage folks . . . a few lines need to be redrawn.  Fairbanks the same, a little wrangling.  Bob, if you want to take on Matsu, that's a great area for you to take on." 

He also said at some point that there was really only one area of Fairbanks that it made sense to hold out to add to the rural districts - Ester and Goldstream.  I don't know the makeup of Goldstream, but they called Ester "the People's Republic of Ester" because it's considered so liberal.  So by identifying that as the part of Fairbanks to take out of the Fairbanks districts and put into one of the Native districts, takes a chunk of liberal votes out of the Fairbanks mix.  I don't know Fairbanks well enough, but I'm not sure why that is the only part of Fairbanks to offer to a rural district. 

The logic of doing the Native districts first is strong.  However, thinking about how they got to the draft plan does raise questions.  They did the Native districts first.  And the shaved off Ester and Goldstream and put them into a district that has many roadless villages.  With that already done, the Fairbanks map already had these districts excluded.  Jim Holm proposed a map he'd worked on and the board approved it with very little discussion.  Someone (I think Brody) asked how incumbents were impacted and Holm said he hadn't done an analysis. 

Then the 16 Anchorage areas were done in an two afternoons where it was very hard to follow the cutting and pasting of census blocs and near impossible to tell how incumbents were affected.  A detailed enough map to see that wasn't available until after the plan was approved. 

So Brody does have a point.  If one were to take a cynical view and assumed that the Republicans on the board would try to draw the lines to increase their power (a view that is voiced about redistricting all around the country) then the strategy they are taking could be the best way to do it. 

• The Native districts are predominantly Democratic - but because of the low population density and because of the Voting Rights Act - they really can't mess with them too much.  
• Southeast is predominantly Republican and lost a seat because of the population decline there.  So Republicans pretty much have to take a hit there.  Admittedly, they could try to put the Democrats into districts with other incumbents, but it would be difficult to pull off because they are in the most populated area - Juneau.  And the one House member and one Senate member would have to be paired against Republicans any way.  And might beat them. 
• Matsu is all Republican plus they gained population.  Whatever they do, these will be Republican seats.  So for Holm to tell Brody to try his hand at Matsu wouldn't affect the political balance at all.
• Fairbanks and Anchorage - the two most urban areas - have the most number of Democrats.  Because of the relatively high population density, there is lots of ability to draw lines to the advantage of one party or another.  

So, if the Native districts and Southeast are done first - as has happened - and most of the time is focused there, then we could find ourselves once again with Anchorage and Fairbanks - with more than half the state population - being drawn with the least amount of transparency.  The least transparency because there is little time left at the end (as was the case with the draft plan) and because the many districts and higher density makes it much harder to track what is happening even in the open.  So, without detailed maps being available at the end of the day for the public to study, the board could pass a plan that gerrymanders Anchorage and Fairbanks before the public even knew what happened. 

Now, this said, I would point out that board member Brody is one of the Republicans on the board.  But his words indicate some discomfort with how the process is going.  On Wednesday he was questioning the way plans were being developed outside of the meetings and then not looked at that carefully in the meetings.  Asking about why there would be four people working individually on Matsu,  [again, this is a very rough quote] "We have to work as a team.  We're doing the public's business, we ought to be able to do it in public."


NOTE:  I'm not saying this is happening or that it will happen.  There are some members of the board that I give the impression of being seriously interested in getting the numbers right and getting districts to fit as best as possible the natural communities out there.  There are others who seem more political.  It seems one role observers can play is to raise questions - even those we don't have the data to answer - so that people can at least be aware of the possibility, investigate it more.   

And speaking of observers - Monday saw Bill Mcallister of Channel 11 there with a camera person.  Lisa Demer of the ADN was there Monday and Tuesday.  ADN photographer Erik Hill was there Wednesday.  I didn't notice any members of the media there Thursday.  Other observers are representatives of the main groups that have presented their own plans - AFFR, the Rights Coalition, AFFER, and the Native Caucus.

Erik Hill with the camera - staffer Taylor Bickford and Board member Bob Brody

Ask, Help, Thanks - While Getting My Mac Fixed

I picked up my computer from the MacHaus about 9am yesterday.  He reset something and there was a $60+ charge.  But it worked.  Once I was home and on it for a short while, it suddenly shut down again.  And it was hot.  It restarted and I put an ice pack under it and it stayed on a while, but this wasn't going to work.

My Macbook is getting old for a Macbook - I bought it four years ago.  (OK, I think four years is a really short time for a good quality item to go bad, in general.  The computer people claim that in four years it will be out of date.  Generally it works fine, but I do need a lot more memory and speed with all the photos and videos I have.  But when I talk to the computer folks they act as if my Mac is well beyond the average life span.  But that's another post or five.)  I'm looking for a new one, but this shutting down is brand new and only began a few hours after I got it back with a new fan.  (The old one worked, but was getting really noisy.)

So I tried to call Ben, who sold it to me originally to get his thoughts.  He wasn't at work (at Best Buy, not the MacHaus - but Best Buy doesn't do actual repairs in town) but another Mac guy said that they shut down if they overheat.  Could they check if the new fan is working? (Remember, I'd already taken it in to MacHause twice.)  So that's why I was in the car and not on the bike.  Getting out to Dimond and then maybe to the MacHaus and then to the redistricting board meeting downtown wasn't going to happen if I was on the bike.

It turned out Best Buy's geek squad would have to charge $70 to open the computer and check the fan, so I went back to the MacHaus.  That's when I passed these guys with their cardboard signs.

If you click and enlarge you can read the sign - Ask, Help, Thanks

For folks outside of Anchorage, this may or may not be a familiar sight.  It has been in Anchorage.  But recently, our mayor has had this thing about the homeless and got the Assembly to pass a law that makes it  illegal to give beggars money in the street from your car and there's up to a $300 fine.  Are these real beggars or is this a police sting operation?  Just joking, but it did seem kind of in your face given the new law.  I didn't have time to stop to ask if business was down.  (Can you imagine a tourist in a rental car getting fined for giving $5 to a street beggar?  That will be interesting.  Let's hope the police just give a warning.)

I got to the MacHaus and while they acted like I was the problem, they did check out the fan.  Lo and behold, "it's seizing."  They ordered a new fan and it should be here today or tomorrow.  The tech guy was much nicer to me afterward and even agreed that I shouldn't have had to pay yesterday morning when I first got it back.  He did say what he did was for a different problem (the computer wasn't starting - just got to the white screen and the little icon twirling around), and I pointed out that had never happened until they 'fixed' the fan and the computer started heating up and shutting down.  Which also had never happened before.

With a new Apple store due to open in the Fifth Avenue Mall this summer, I expect there will be a shakedown of the other stores that sell and service Apple products.

I'm still on J's computer and I have a ton of things to post, and I'll try to get some up.  I also need to decide on a new computer.  Even fixed, I know it isn't going to be dependable for much longer.

Voting Rights Act and Planning the End Game

Tuesday's redistricting board meeting began at 10:08am. I'd already dropped my computer off at MacHaus after it stopped working after they put in a new fan. I'm trying not to whine here, but I miss my laptop, which is why this hasn't been posted sooner. But every change makes us see new opportunities right?

Tuesday's meeting had three main parts:

1. Discussing feedback from the round the state public hearings. I want to look at this in more detail, but I'd say that the board is a little behind the times when it comes to public hearings. Their public planning was pretty off-the-cuff - minimal notice as I've documented before, little or no education packets that would give participants an idea of the statewide requirements that caused them to do things that didn't seem to make sense to local areas - particularly the Voting Rights Act requirements that led them to pair Ketchikan and Kodiak. Locations were added because someone asked to be added, with no discussion of how that would benefit things. No consideration was given to using all the teleconferencing available today (ie skype, and the other internet video meeting programs) to deal with distant places. In Southeast they had between 3 and 33 people show up at meetings. While I'm sure people were glad to see that the board took time to send people to some remote towns, I never heard the board discuss the tradeoff's in time and money. I'm a strong believer in public participation, and I've seen it done professionally. This wasn't. And it's not clear how they are going to use the feedback. Some, clearly will be useful to make minor adjustments to improve socio-economic cohesiveness. In other cases, if two people testified they liked the Rights or AFFER plan better, is that a representative sample of the 17,755 people in a district and does it make sense to cite those two to justify use of one plan or the other? But they did say things today like, "Most people at the meeting thought . . ." as though it mattered in any statistically meaningful way.  Again, if it pointed out local conditions the board didn't know, it might be helpful, if it was just unsupported opinion, it's questionable.   [I realize that I've shifted into analysis here and have only given a little back up data. But this is something I do know a little about and I'll try to support my basic view better in another post. My sense is that the board more or less copied what was done in previous redistricting boards without really giving much thought to it. Say, in contrast to hiring an expert as they did with the Voting Rights Act information. I understand that they knew they had to get an expert for the VRA because they need pre-clearance from the DOJ and it's very complex. But doing participation right is also more complicated than posting a schedule on the State online public notice website and then showing up in towns around the state. And, they obviously did more than that because they had to arrange for rooms to meet in etc. But if you disagree with me, then show me the notice that was given to people and the information given them so they could prepare before the meetings with meaningful comments. From what I could tell, many people showed up because they were contacted, not by the board, but by one or more of the groups that prepared plans.]

2. Voting Rights Act discussion with their contracted consultant Lisa Handley by phone. I posted a lot of the basics Monday after the post-meeting discussion. I'm going to skip over the details of this for now - it's late and I have an early morning meeting. The key issues were:
1. the groundrules for what was needed to get approval from the DOJ had shifted a bit. The percent of Natives and which Natives (Voting Age Population -VAP - not total population), after Handley's analysis of voting patterns from 2002 to 2008 changes things a bit. When the board asked for firm numbers, the consultant said, it isn't that easy, and listed various factors that would change the basic percentage needed - such as whether whites added to a district had voted in a bloc with or against Native bloc preferred candidates. Member Holm got a bit testy at one point and said, basically, "Our job is to draw lines to meet benchmark numbers. When you don't give us a number, then we can't draw maps."
Despite the changes, she basically said that eight of the Minority effective or influence districts looked good and there was only a problem with one Senate district. And that some of the privately drawn plans seemed to have gotten nine good districts, so it could be done. Attorney White wasn't sure if those other plans had used total or voting age population.

In a discussion during the break, someone said that these numbers were coming really late - after the draft plan had already been done - because in previous redistricting exercises, the Legislature had done the administrative work for the board and they can do sole source bidding. But this time the Governor's office took over and they had to do competitive bidding which has a much longer time line to completion. That is something that needs more verification. My guess would be that competitive bidding is better for lots of reasons, but it just needed to be done soon enough to get the analysis done in time to be used in the draft plans.

3. Strategy to finish the plan by June 14.

Order of regions.  They seemed to agree that it was necessary to get the rural districts set first because they needed to meet the Voting Rights Act criteria.  The rural maps might or might not impact the urban areas, so they should wait until the rural areas were done.   Member Brody observed something like, "We spend 90% of our time on the rural areas, and 10% on the urban areas, where most of the population live."

Amount of deviation.  Some seemed to think that if the deviation in the urban areas weren't quite so tight (mostly under 1%) then it might be easier to get the VRA requirements met.

Group of pairs/individuals.  Deja vu time. The debate on whether pairs of members/staff should work on maps on their own in the mornings and then have the whole board discuss them in the afternoons was a big part of the discussion back in March on how to do the draft plan. The main advocate for everyone doing things together in the meetings was member Bob Brody. PeggyAnn McConnochie Tuesday was the main advocate for doing individual preparation before the meeting on the grounds that there simply isn't enough time, though this seemed to be preferred by most of the others too.

I think some of this is just personal style. Some people work better alone, others in groups. If I were on the board, I'd need time to study stuff on my own first. But someone else mentioned to me after the meeting that political manipulation can take place more easily out of public view.  This person also acknowledged that it's hard for more than two people to do this together.

I'd say if there were clear groundrules set up (and they discussed groundrules too) then individuals would have guidance on what they could and couldn't do on their own.  Particularly about whether they would or wouldn't pay attention to where incumbents live and if they'd try to draw lines to preserve incumbency. They agreed at an early meeting in March that this would not be a criterion, but when they publicly worked on Southeast for the draft plan, they did discuss how incumbents were affected.  They either claimed not to know the impact on incumbents (for Fairbanks) or just didn't mention it (for Anchorage.)  Did they have lists of incumbent addresses when they finished the Anchorage maps?  No one said.  Or did some people know this information and make changes with this in mind while others didn't know?  We don't know.  This DID NOT come up at the meeting.  But given that people have charged that gerrymandering was a big factor in the last two redistricting processes, it seems reasonable to raise these questions for this one.

Chair Torgerson adjourned the meeting just before 2pm until 10am Wednesday. (I'd brought a sandwich knowing the chair hasn't given many lunch breaks in the past.)  One of the spectators pointed out to staff after the meeting that public notice said the Wednesday meeting would begin at 2pm, so, I was told after the meeting by staff it won't start until 2pm.

I think the time crunch is going to hit the board hard soon.

I'd also mention that Lisa Demer of the ADN was there Monday and Tuesday, so look for a story there.  I don't see one up yet.

Computer Not Well

I got the computer at 5:20, then we went to the Bear Tooth to see Of God and Men. Long, slow, but interesting. French monks in Algeria whose health clinic has been serving the local community for a long time. Terrorists begin killing people. The monks have to decide whether to stay or leave.

Got home. Loaded the video. Did some editing, then tried to save it in Quicktime. The computer suddenly shut off and went black. Tried again. Same thing within five minutes. The third time I realized that the computer was hot. (They had replaced the fan, I wasn't expecting that.) I got and ice pack and put it under the metal rack I use for about 20 minutes until it cooled down. After that, it wouldn't even start. It began, but then was suspended in the white screen. Shut it down and then next time it did the shut down, black routine again. It's never shut down like that before.

I have a bad feeling about this.

I'm on J's computer now.