Potential Flaws in the Mayoral Power to Veto Amendments Opinion

I'd intended to post this earlier this morning and kept changing the post time because I wanted to get it right.

It accidentally got posted before it was ready and so I pulled it, because the post itself had some flaws in it.  Actually, there are probably a lot of flaws in my posts, but these were flaws I was aware of and I'm working out the kinks. 

Sorry.  I'll try to get it up by tomorrow.

Attorney to Mayor: You Have Power To Veto Amendments

At the Assembly meeting Tuesday night, Mayor Sullivan vetoed an amendment to a proposed ordinance that had just passed.  I wrote about it with amazement and questioned, particularly, how that fit with separation of powers between the legislative and executive branches.  The attorney at the meeting representing the mayor said there was an interpretation finding the mayor had this power.  The assembly's attorney thought he did not, and also mentioned separation problems and the need for a written statement explaining the veto.  The Municipal Clerk had also mentioned the written memo requirement in the Charter. 

Yesterday I called the mayor's office and was forwarded to Legal.  This morning Legal called back and asked for more information about what I was looking for.  Soon they called back and said they couldn't find anything from Municipal Attorney Wheeler to Mayor Sullivan on the veto.

But, they had a 2006 memo from  earlier Municipal Attorney Boness to Mayor Mark Begich on veto power.  It's a 28 page memo.  I've embedded the full document further down in this post.  But as you can see from the synopsis at the beginning of the memo, Attorney Boness clearly believed that the mayor has the power to do exactly what Mayor Sullivan did on Tuesday night.

Memo Synopsis

"QUESTION: You have requested I provide you with a general discussion of the veto authority of the mayor, and to specifically address whether you may veto a motion approved by the Assembly which amends a proposed ordinance.    If you have the authority to veto a motion, you have asked me to indicate when the veto must be presented to the Assembly.

BRIEF ANSWER:    Subject to the following Background and Discussion, my Brief Answer is the mayor has broad general veto power. The mayor may veto an amendment to a proposed ordinance. The timing of the veto is dependent upon the goal to be achieved by the amendment. Assuming your goal is to prevent an amendment from becoming part of the ordinance under consideration but not to prevent the ordinance itself from being further considered by the Assembly, the veto should be made immediately after the Assembly votes to approve the amendment and before the Assembly considers the proposed ordinance."

The memo cites earlier memos interpreting the Charter Commission's intent when it gave the Municipality the 'strong mayor' form of government that the Greater Anchorage Area Borough had.  (The Borough merged with the City of Anchorage to become the Municipality of Anchorage in 1975.)

The Municipal Charter, Section 5.02 c says:

The mayor has the veto power. The mayor also has line item veto power. The mayor may, by veto, strike or reduce items in a budget or appropriation measure. The veto must be exercised and submitted to the assembly with a written explanation within seven days of passage of the ordinance affected. The assembly, by two-thirds majority vote of the total membership, may override a veto any time within 21 days after its exercise.

Anchorage Mayor Veto Power Opinion - Boness 06-011



I've tried to find other examples of executives being able to veto an amendment before the main motion was even passed.  The closest I came to was this 2008 discussion of Illinois' "amendatory veto" from Eric Zorn in the Chicago Tribune:

You have questions about Gov. Rod Blagojevich's big surprise last week. And I have answers.
Q: Is the proposal to make public transportation free for senior citizens a separate bill suddenly submitted to the legislature?
A: No. Without warning, Blagojevich simply tacked it onto the transit-bailout bill that lawmakers sent to his desk Thursday. Then he sent that bill back to the General Assembly saying, in effect, I'm vetoing your plan unless you also approve my idea.
Q: What makes him think he can do that?
A: A passage in Article IV of the Illinois Constitution of 1970 allows a governor to make "specific recommendations for change" to any piece of legislation, then send it back to be OK'd. The informal name for this is an amendatory veto.
Q: Can the legislators reject such changes and pass a bill in its previous form?
A: They can. But they need a  three-fifths vote in both houses to do so. To accept the changes, however, they need only a majority vote.
Q: Do all U.S. governors hold such a mighty club?

A: No. Illinois is one of seven states where the governor has amendatory veto powers, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Q: Whose idea was that?
A: "It was mine, I'm almost embarrassed to say," said former  state Comptroller Dawn Clark Netsch, now a Northwestern University law professor. She was a delegate to the 1969-70 Constitutional Convention and wrote the proposal that advanced the amendatory veto.
Q: What was she thinking?
A: That it was an efficient way for the governor and part-time legislators to tweak bills as needed and speed them along. "A governor can use the power with discretion and in appropriate circumstances and not abuse it," Netsch said, and then she laughed merrily.
Q: What's so funny?
A: History has been unkind to this optimistic notion, as Netsch came to realize. Illinois governors have been making mischief with amendatory vetoes since 1971, when Richard  Ogilvie totally rewrote three bills and sent them back to the legislature.
Q: Did he get away with it?
A: No. The Illinois Supreme Court ruled in 1972 that "the substitution of complete new bills ... is not authorized by the constitution." In the most recent related case, in 1980, the state high court added the view that amendatory vetoes can't "change the fundamental purpose of the legislation, nor make substantial or expansive changes in the legislation."

If readers know of other jurisdictions where the executive can veto legislation in the middle of the legislative process rather than after legislation is passed, please comment below or send me an email.

Regarding Tuesday night, the mayor did have an opinion saying he had the power to veto amendments.  The opinion wasn't from his own attorney, but from now Sen. Begich's attorney.  An opinion is an opinion.  It's not law until it is challenged in court and upheld. 

I find the logic and documentation used to link this power through the charter to the powers of the Greater Anchorage Area Borough's powers persuasive.  Though I would like to hear some attorneys' comments, especially how it relates to the separation of powers between the legislature and the executive. 

I called  now Sen. Begich's office to ask whether then Mayor Begich had ever used this form of veto.  While they couldn't recall it and were pretty sure he hadn't, they said they didn't have access to the records to check.  Municipal Clerk Barbara Gruenstein checked the records and said that Mayor Begich had only vetoed one ordinance.  He never used the power to veto an amendment which his attorney said in this memo he had. 

By the way, the Clerk said the Mayor did write out an explanation of his veto at the meeting. 

Such a Beautiful Day

Riding home this afternoon on 36th.  The air's warm/cool factor perfect.  Blue sky, white fluff on the edges. 36th closed westbound at Lake Otis, not much traffic.

It would be nice to shut down 36th to cars altogether. :)  Oh, maybe we could make it one-way and give cars a lane.

UPDATE 9:30pm:  From the June 26, 2011 NYTimes article Dallas (in comments) links:

Cities including Vienna to Munich and Copenhagen have closed vast swaths of streets to car traffic. Barcelona and Paris have had car lanes eroded by popular bike-sharing programs. Drivers in London and Stockholm pay hefty congestion charges just for entering the heart of the city. And over the past two years, dozens of German cities have joined a national network of “environmental zones” where only cars with low carbon dioxide emissions may enter.

Anchorage Mayor Tries To Veto Amendment To Proposal During Assembly Meeting

[Follow up post Thursday June 30 with attorney's memo.]

I haven't been to an Assembly meeting for a long time.  But I went because I know something about boards and commissions and I wanted to see what they were going to do with the ordinance on boards and commissions.  I'll write more on the ordinance they passed adding back sunset provisions for many boards and commissions in another post soon.

What really caught my attention was the mayor's attempt to veto an amendment to a proposal right after the amendment, but not the ordinance, was passed.  As I've said, I haven't been to an Assembly meeting for a while and I've never attended them regularly.

But it seems to me pretty clear that there is supposed to be a separation of powers.  The Assembly does the legislation, then the mayor needs to implement them or veto them, but only AFTER they pass. To veto an amendment in the middle of the Assembly debate seems  totally bizarre.

Assembly members quickly responded.  I wasn't planning on posting about the meeting and hadn't brought my computer or even a note pad.  But someone said something about line item veto being reserved for budget items.  Municipal Clerk Barbara Gruenstein said that a veto had to be accompanied by a written explanation.  Assembly chair Ossiander asked an administration attorney and a person I assume is the assembly attorney.  The administration's attorney said she thought it was ok.  The other attorney said she thought it wasn't, and agreed that a written statement explaining the veto had to accompany it.

Someone added, perhaps it was the mayor, that the Municipal attorney had written an opinion that the mayor could line item anything.  But that memo didn't show up and the Municipal Attorney didn't explain it while I was there.

Then Assembly member Trombley argued that since the item to be vetoed would affect the budget, it could be considered a line-item budget veto.  Member Flynn said something to the effect of, "Nice try, but no way."

For me the issue is separation of powers.  The mayor was, in my opinion, interfering in the Assembly process.  He can say he plans to veto it, but he can't just stand up at the Assembly meeting and veto things on the spot, even before the ordinance is passed, even if he writes a note explaining why. (Who knows what all attorneys can do to twist the process, but it just feels unseemly for the mayor not to wait for the process to play out, before he plays his authorized role.)

And if there was an opinion written by the Municipal attorney on an issue of such significance, why wouldn't it be shared with the Assembly in advance, instead of dropping it in like a bomb, perhaps to see if he could get away with it?  I think the answer is worth another post - a discussion on how seriously divided the Assembly has become.  Divided so that they are toeing the ideological line on practically every minor amendment.  Even when it wouldn't matter particularly.  So divided that both sides seem to assume the worst about the whatever the other side proposes.

UPDATE June 29 11:30 pm:  Let's see if I can make this work. The Muni video of the Assembly meetings has a way to embed specific parts of the video, but I'm leery. These should be:
a. The mayor vetoing the amendment. (if it works, I'll put up b)
b. A bit later when they get clarification

a) didn't capture the part it was supposed to get. I'll try b.  This one is closer to the part I was trying to get, but still misses it.  I'll leave it for now, for anyone who wants to see how Assembly members talk to each other.  Meanwhile I'll try again to get the right clips.
[Friday July 1: I've deleted the video clip because and can't turn off the autostart and having the video automatically go on is just plain annoying.]

[AUTOSTART DISABLE HELP NEEDED: Anyone know how to change the html to disable the autostart? Autostart and play are both set to false. What else is in there that needs to be changed?]

I'm having trouble loading up the video again. Meanwhile, my Firefox access to Blogspot gets me a "Bad Request Error 400" message - I'm using Safari now. Did that come from the Muni video link? It started after I was using it.

But I did learn from the video I wasn't able to upload that the second attorney, Julia Tucker does work for the Assembly and she did raise the issue of separation of powers.

You can go to the Muni site yourself and load up the video.
The motion gets passed and the mayor says he vetoes it @ 1:24:00 - 1:25:26
Then they do other things while waiting for a clarification of the Mayor's basis for being able to veto.
Then they get the clarifications from the Mayor's attorney and the Assembly's attorney @ 1:30:50-1:34:00.

Mayor Doesn't Need Citizens Advising Him - Whacking Boards and Commissions

[Warning:  I'm afraid some snark has slipped into this.  My wife isn't here to check this over before tonight's meeting.]

The Dan Sullivan administration has a proposal before the Assembly tonight to put sunset clauses on many boards and commissions and to abolish a few.  These aren't "let's review these every now and then to be sure they're still needed" sunset clauses.  Some would end this October.  Some next October.  Some in 2013. 

Sunset clauses are a good thing.  Agencies as well as boards and commissions should be reviewed periodically to be sure they still are needed.  But the mayor's limits means people appointed to a board could sometimes have longer terms than the board.   This seems less like oversight than an attempt to kill off as many boards as possible.  A whole list of boards are scheduled to be whacked UNLESS otherwise renewed.   This looks like an attempt at wholesale board and commission slaughter. 

It would be nice to see the study the mayor's office did and the criteria they used to determine which boards to keep and which to whack.  And to know the people they consulted for history and context.  Surely, they have such a study before making a wholesale attack on citizen participation.  His father did a pretty extensive study through the Anchorage Urban Observatory back in the late 1970s to determine how well the different boards and commissions functioned. 




Why have these bodies?

Boards and Commissions have two main statutory functions:

1.   Give advice to officials about particular programs.
2.   Make decisions about about specific issues, such as zoning variances or ethical violations.

During the Knowles administration, after another study, the ordinance was changed to make the titles reflect the function.  Boards made decisions and Commissions gave advice.  This no longer seems to have been followed consistently. 


There are a number of benefits such boards and commissions serve.

1.  Many perspectives weigh in.  They allow an easy and inexpensive way to have a variety of voices heard on issues.  Members add valuable perspectives that Muni employees might never consider otherwise, or not until they've implemented a program that causes serious complaints.

2.  Board Members educated on policy.  It's a way to get everyday citizens to be much more aware of what is happening in Muni departments, communicate that to their constituents, and bring back valuable feedback.

3.  Problems avoided in the planning stage rather than implementation stage.

4.  Other beneficial side-effects

• The more information people have on an issue, the more they are able to understand the complexities and tradeoffs necessary in most programs.  
• Having people of diverse backgrounds - politically, economically, socially, ethnically - sitting together on a regular basis to hear about a program their interested in, means that they have time
•  to get to know and respect each other,
• understand the interests affected by the programs, and 
• when issues arise, they are much better equipped to find solutions that meet the needs of more than one interest group.  
• They can also reassure their constituency that the 'other guys' aren't out to screw them over.  Or, if they are, they can alert them early.  

Good public officials, who believe in serving the whole community, encourage a wide variety of citizen input, because they recognize that the community is made up of lots of different types of people. 

The Mayor doesn't simply represent one political ideology.  The mayor represents everyone.  Boards and commissions are a good way to get that wide spectrum of Anchorage interests participating in mutually supportive environments to iron out wrinkles in the early stages, rather than in combative, expensive, divisive win/lose battles. 

People who come into office determined to change things to suit their ideology or other guiding principles tend to have little patience for public participation.  It's messy and takes longer to make decisions.  And they may not get their way.  But if you can't get people to buy in, the battles will continue and things will get uglier. 


The original proposal called for sunset clauses:

A.  All boards and commissions established under this title, except for those mandated by the Charter or state law, or where specifically set forth in the board or commission enabling ordinance below, shall terminate by operation of law every three years from the date set forth therein unless affirmatively continued by the Assembly by ordinance.
 

B.  All new boards and commissions shall sunset within three (3) years of creation and shall be subject to the provisions of this section.

C.    Prior to continuation or reestablishment of any board or
commission, the Assembly shall hold a public hearing.

But the latest proposal - apparently from Assembly members Ossiander and Piper - whacks C.  The Assembly apparently wouldn't have to hold a hearing before the board vanishes into the sunset.  I'm guessing that's what this means, not sure.

Another sign that this is an attempt to whack the boards?  They have very specific, one time dates for termination.  They aren't to be reviewed, say, every five or ten years.  No, there's a specific death date.  And then what?  After that date, will a new date be added?  Will the ordinance be changed for each board every two or three years until they finally get rid of the commission? 

The Library Advisory Board's death penalty is set for  October 14, 2012.
The Health and Human Services Advisory board's is also October 14, 2012.
(Both of these were originally scheduled to go on the block in 2011)


The Mt. View Community Recreation Center Advisory Commission - ZAP - October 14, 2011.  After that, we don't need community folks helping out. 


Transit Advisory Board?  October 2012.  Since all the Mayor's staff ride the bus to work, they don't need others to tell them how to do things. 

Senior Citizens Advisory Commission?  Also October 2012.  Does the mayor know that us old folks vote?

Fortunately, the Sister Cities Commission is exempt from the Sunset clause.  Clearly this is more important that local public transportation and senior citizens.


Arts Advisory Commission?  October 2012 (moved up in the last draft from 2013) 


The Public Facilities Advisory Commission is simply whacked in the new ordinance.  No sunset here.  It's possible that some commissions don't have a continuing need.  I don't really know about this one.


You get the idea. 

Assembly member Flynn has some amendments to offer.    And to require the Assembly be noticed at least 90 days before a board or commission is sunsetted.  He wants to eliminate the sunset clause for some of the commissions.  Specifically he wants to make the following permanent:

1. Urban Design Commission
2. Library Advisory Board
3. Parks and Rec Service Area Commission
4. Public Transit Commission
5. Heritage Land Bank

All the links come from the Assembly website.  The meeting is tonight at the Anchorage Assembly.

Walking Home - Takes the long way home

I just finished Lynn Schooler's Walking Home - in time for tonight's book club meeting.  It's not a book I would have picked and now that I've finished it, I'm trying to figure out my lack of satisfaction.  And should I evaluate Alaska related books differently from other books? 

Middle-aged Juneau outdoorsman, while building a house for himself and his new bride, decides to complete the last leg of a trek that would have him circumnavigate Mr. Fairweather.  There's already problems with the marriage.  Will leaving for a solo wilderness adventure save it?

As I tried, without much success due to the reflective library cover - to photograph the book, it seemed to me the book cover was a good metaphor for my dissatisfaction.

I looked at the photo, and reflected that Schooler is described as an 'award winning wildlife photographer" and though - "Ok, there are a lot of subtle and interesting parts to this photograph, and it reflects the darkness in this story, the coast, the clouds that provided lots of rain, but for a book cover, it's not really that striking.  Intellectually, it's a good photo for the book, but it doesn't quite work as a book cover."

And that's how I felt about the whole book.  There are a lot of interesting parts.  The interweaving of his present trip with the historical accounts of those who preceded Schooler to these parts.  The moving from what he sees as he walks the wilderness, and his discussions of the habits of the birds he's learned through experience and books.  Or plants, or boats, or weather.  And how members of his island community watched after each other.

"The Ulrichs and the Swansons all stood watching as the wave ripped the timber off the ridge above Gilbert Inlet to a height of 1,700 feet with a force that was later calculated as twenty-five million pounds per-square-foot, which was sufficient to instantly strip all the bark off the tumbling treetrunks and tear away their branches.  Then it rebounded to the eastern shore below Crillon Inlet, flaying the mountainside up to 500 feet above sea level;  it struck so hard that every tree, shrub, tuft of grass, and bit of vegetation was wiped away down to naked bedrock.  It was only after the wave lashed over 320-foot-high Cenotaph Island and tore a swatch through its middle that Ulrich came to his senses.  Seeing the wave rolling down the eastern shore toward them, he said, 'I began to move and I moved fast.'"(p. 81)

Interweaving different times and ideas is tricky business and for the most part it works, but we can see the edges where he moves from now to then, from specific to general.  Schooler was in Lituya Bay and recounting the records he'd found of the 1959 earthquake. 

Sonny (Howard Jr.) was eight and the boat with his dad Howard Ulrich Sr.  He'd be 60 or 61 today.  Juneau folks - does anyone know him?  In the book, they're described as 'from Pelican.' 

Generally, I liked the prose. 

"On a map it looked easy.  I could plant my thumb on Lituya Bay and cover the sixty miles to Dry Bay with an outstretched pinkie."

Some chapters are page turners - the 1958 earthquake and the Lituya Bay tidal wave, being stalked by an injured, hungry bear - others are merely interesting.

I'm sure a lot of folks will really like this book.  Ultimately, while it had interesting background on Alaska history and geography, I just didn't get any new insights.  The personal relationship that was woven into all the other threads was mundane.  There were no real insights into what happened.   If he had them, he didn't share them. 



 Oh yeah.  I didn't even notice, until I started this post, that the rest of the picture is on the back of the cover.  And with both parts it's a better photo.  But the cover is what people see.  And the contents, for me, were like the cover.  Not quite good enough on the whole, though with lots of good parts.

I'm not sorry I read it.  I noted in an earlier post I got to read some history of Mt. Fairweather as I saw it out my Seattle bound flight window. 

I'll hold off until I hear what the other book club members say about the book.

Later:  The book club guys seemed to like the book better than I did.  They like his prose, the liked the history and nature accounts interwoven into the other tales.  They liked the sailing and tidal details and how he described them.  They didn't think much about the relationship thread and some felt it could have done without.  I know I have problems at times about not wanting to leave things out that are important to me, but not to the story I'm telling.  As the person telling the story about his trek in the wild, he probably felt it would have been dishonest to leave his dissolving relationship with his new wife out of the book.  But as good literature, he needed to either make that part of the book more insightful or leave it out. 

It's not a bad book by any means.  I never considered abandoning it.  But for me it didn't quite reach its potential. 

The Last Homeless in Anchorage

He saw me whip out my camera as I was waiting for the light to change and so he turned his sign around.

I imagine there will be some people who will focus on spelling here.  It's a legitimate point one could make, but spelling isn't the issue.  It's what happens to the homeless in Anchorage now that they've been rousted out of their camps and drivers have been warned they can be fined for giving money to 'signers' on corners near traffic.   Our why our wealthy nation

I called the number.  The man's name is Guy Nelson.  I recognize that homeless people is a broad label and that some people who have lived out in the camps in town have been a nuisance or worse to people living nearby.  When I asked how many homeless Guy thought were mentally ill and how many were homeless by choice he estimated 3,000 of the former and 2500 of the later.  And another 7000 who are homeless by circumstances - homeless being a broad category including coach surfers. 

• Since the Mayor has made it illegal to hand money to the homeless, and
• since Nelson has a phone, and
• since it's still legal to use your cell phone while driving in Alaska,
• perhaps Nelson can work out a way for people to give him money via their phones. 

I'm only half joking.  The mayor and police chief said this was a safety issue.  I don't think they are against people being charitable.  Just in unsafe places. 

Guy's basic point on the phone was that when you kick people out of the places they live, you need to help them learn to cope in the world.  He had ideas about alternative, cheap housing.  We made a time to meet this week.  I'll let you know what I find out.

The First Walt Parker Sustainable Community Award Winner

I forget that not everyone shared my luck.  I got to meet Walt Parker early, when I first got to Alaska.  He was active in the local American Society for Public Administration chapter.  It was only later that I found out he was active in a lot of organizations.  And that he's had a remarkable life.

A few examples:

• pilot in WW II China
• bush pilot Alaska
• trapper
• FAA employee
• amateur thespian
• city council member
• academic
• consultant all around the world on various topics
• chair of the Alaska oil spill commission
• member of the Arctic Council

And he's still getting new stamps in his passport and volunteering full time in his 80s.

He's a walking encyclopedia about, well, everything.  You mention any topic, any country, and Walt will explain it in detail and tell a tale of when he was there. 

Sunday night a bunch of community groups sponsored the night and the first Walt Parker Sustainable Community Award.  While the crowd would probably be seen as left of center, a BP employee was at our table, and the Lt. Governor, Mead Treadwell, spoke in high praise of Walt Parker.

Walt was asked to open the envelope and announce the winner.  You don't see Walt at a loss for words often.  But he was clearly surprised when he saw the name.  

New Eyes, New Images, New World

 We grow up being taught how to see the world.

 Some of us rebel and try to see it a little differently.

But constantly seeing anew gets tiring too and 

we settle into our own version of how to see.  

The people of the world aren't doing well.  

Some people see black, others see white.  

In either case we are locked into to seeing what we expect to see.  

Oil vs. solar.  Torture vs. Security.  Unnatural vs. Normal. 

But there is an infinite number of ways to see our world and to find ways to be prosperous, happy, and generous.  We just have to recover our childlike ability to see things freshly. 

These images are from my front yard.  Looking closely.   

The familiar becomes newly enchanting.  

What's there to discover in your yard? Or are you to busy to see?

We all need to look with new eyes at how we live and how we could live. 

It's not about winning.  It's about seeing.  Seeing a world we can all share.

Fairbanks to Sue Over Redistricting Plan

According to a story in the Fairbanks Newsminer by Christopher Eshleman, the Northstar-Fairbanks Borough voted 8-1 at 3am on Friday to file suit against the Alaska Redistricting Board's plan.

The main concern in the piece seems to be House District 38:

Local government will sue the state over redistricting plans that some argue would inappropriately and illegally dilute Ester and Goldstream Valley residents’ voting power.

Proposed maps would, among other things, link much of northwest Fairbanks with a slice of the Bering Sea coastline — and include everything in between — in one of five sprawling House jurisdictions proposed by the Alaska Redistricting Board.

Click to make larger and clearer

 Sprawling districts is nothing new to Alaska.  The last redistricting plan included District 6 (covering much of the new District 39 but without going to the coast) which was the largest state house district in the US - and probably bigger than a number of states.  But given Alaska's huge size and tiny population, this is inevitable.

The above map is from the Redistricting Board Website.  You can see that House District 38 (the S is the Senate district - it's paired with the Bethel district 37) goes from the Fairbanks suburbs out to tiny off-the-road-system, honey-bucket-hauling villages like Wales.  It also, conveniently (if you're a Republican) gets a chunk of liberal Fairbanks voters and sticks them into a basically Native (and Democratic) district and out of the Fairbanks mix.

One can easily make the argument that this district is not socio-economically integrated as the state constitution requires.

But Board attorney Michael White has told the board that the Federal Voting Rights Act (VRA) trumps the state constitution and that they needed the Fairbanks voters to get 38 big enough  (all districts have to be as close as possible to 17,755 people) and that they had to keep nine Native districts or they would be in violation of the Voting Rights Act.  They'll argue that they couldn't do this without taking a chunk of Fairbanks voters.  And due to the complicated balancing system used to determine 'Native Districts' taking Democrats would require a lower percentage of Natives.  [It's complicated. Here's a post that goes into these issues in detail.]

This map shows how Fairbanks was divided into house (numbers) and senate districts (letters.)  House Districts 1 and 4  and then 3 and 5 could have been paired for Senate seats.  Then 2 and 6 could have been paired and no incumbents would have been paired.  The board did not make saving incumbents one of their principles (though they discussed it.)  In some cases pairing incumbents is inevitable as it was in Southeast where one house district was lost due to population loss.  But otherwise incumbents shouldn't be paired. At least that was my conclusion after testimony in a public hearing where the person said, "If my rep is fired, it should be by the voters and not by the board."

My understanding is that other groups such as Alaskans for Fair Representation and the Rights Groups (the Democratic Party) were able to get nine Native districts without pairing urban dwellers with villagers who ride four wheelers to the pond out of town to get drinking water in buckets. 

Another issue I didn't see raised in the article is related to political gerrymandering, which is illegal, but hard to prove.  The plan brought to and approved by the board by board member Jim Holm of Fairbanks, pairs two Fairbanks Democratic Senators in a single district and then leaves a third open district.  It is hard to believe that the two Democratic Senators couldn't have had their House districts paired so that each would have been in his own district.  And it's hard to imagine that this wasn't done intentionally.  Mind you, I can't get inside the heads of the board members so I don't know their intentions.  But I do know that a lot of Republicans would like to end the 10-10 split in the state senate and regain the majority for the Republicans.  Pitting the two Fairbanks Democrats bumps off one right there, all that is needed to regain the senate.  There is an infinite number of ways that these lines can be drawn, and I just can't imagine that they couldn't find a way to make reasonable maps that would have kept both Democratic senators if they had wanted to.

But I didn't see anything about that in the Fairbanks Newsminer article.


The fact that a law suit is going to be filed doesn't mean much by itself.  This has happened in nearly all (possibly all) the prior redistricting processes.  Someone is bound to be miffed by how the districts end up.  But the basic questions the courts will ask, as I understand this, are:
1.  Does it violate the law?
2.  Was it possible to do it differently so it wouldn't violate the law?

If any of the plans submitted by interested groups were able to do meet all the standards without violating the law, then the Board wasn't, the court will take a dim view of the Board's plan.