Alaska Redistricting for the Masses Part 2: The Board Process

• Part 1 looked at Why We Have Redistricting?  Part 1 will help with understanding some of the legal requirements the board had to balance and key terms needed to understand the process and the court case.
• Here in Part 2 I'm going to briefly go over what the board did.
• Part 3 will look at the trial, which ended today. 

Part 2:  The Alaska Redistricting Board

The Board Members are appointed by different officials.  The governor appoints two members, the Speaker of the House appoints one, and the Senate President appoints one.  The last member is appointed by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.  The first three positions above are held by Republicans and their appointees are all Republicans.  The Supreme Court Chief Justice appointed a Democrat.  The board consists of three white males, one white female, and one Native female.  Four Republicans and one Democrat. Two are former legislators, two are realtors, and one is the CEO of a Native Corporation.  They come from Kenai, Kodiak, Kotzebue, Fairbanks, and Juneau.  (That’s right, no one from Anchorage.)  Here's a list of the members with pictures and brief bios.

All the board members were appointed by September 2010 and met in December and also went to training on redistricting, the Voting Rights Act (VRA), and how to use the redistricting software.
Board staff was hired, offices secured, furniture, computers were secured.

The Census Data were received on March 13, 2011 and they had their first public meeting in Anchorage on March 15.  The state constitution requires they have a draft plan ready in 30 days and a final plan ready in 90 days from receiving the census data.

There were three key outside groups that also submitted plans.  Alaskans for Fair Redistricting (AFFR) was mainly union and native groups.  Alaskans for Fair and Equitable Redistricting (AFFER) was basically the Alaska Republican Party, some native groups (Calista), and other unnamed funders.  The Rights Coalition was the Democratic party and some other groups.

After the 2001 Plan, AFFR successfully sued and got significant changes in the plan.

All the Board meetings were open to the public.  There was a website, Facebook and Twitter pages, There was a very ambitious public hearing project which had the board traveling all over the state, mostly in teams of two members.

The Voting Rights Act expert, Dr. Lisa Handley was hired on April 9 and met with the board twice by telephone and once in person.  Her main job was to advise the board about the benchmark the Department of Justice would hold them to (That’s the 3-2-1 plus 3 senate mentioned in Part 1) based on the 2002 districts and the racial voting patterns of elections in the last ten years.  She also advised them on the percentage of Natives that would be needed in the new districts to meet the VRA requirements on the new plan.

The board set up a strategy to first do the districts in Southeast Alaska, because they were going from five house districts to four and they had one Native house district and one Native Senate district in the benchmark (2002) plan.  Because of the loss of population and because they are mostly separate from the rest of the state, they were going to be difficult.  Next they wanted to do the rest of the Native districts to be sure they would meet the benchmark requirements.  That left the urban areas for last.  One Board member, Robert Brodie from Kodiak, voiced concern about there not being enough time to do redistricting for over 70% of the population at the end.

PeggyAnn McConnochie took the lead for Southeast and that process was very open.  McConnochie and Marie Green were the leads for the Native districts and that process was also pretty open.  Board member Holm worked on Fairbanks, pretty much by himself and was approved without a lot of discussion by the Board.  Most people were not familiar with Fairbanks or the implications of the maps drawn.  Matsu was, in my recollection done mostly by staff.  Chair Torgerson worked on various maps.  Bob Brodie also worked on various areas, as I recall, doing work on Matsu, Anchorage and Eagle River, Kenai in particular.  He [Brodie] was the one member who regularly challenged the Chair's approach to all this.  [A reader emailed me that I had these last two sentences mixed up and it was misleading.  Fixed now.]

The plan got done in time for the June 14 deadline.  The VRA expert got a draft plan around that time and a final report explaining to the DOJ why she thought it met the requirements of the VRA in August.  The plan was sent with lots of documentation to the Department of Justice.  Board staff and two members - Torgerson and Green - went to DC to meet with DOJ officials during this time and notice of preclearance arrived in October.

There were 30 days after the plan was  completed for anyone to challenge it in Court.  The City of Petersburg, the City of Fairbanks, and two people (Riley and Dearborn)  from Ester/Goldstream filed three separate suits.  It was determined the trial would be in Fairbanks.  Eventually, Petersburg and Fairbanks dropped out but the Ester/Goldstream suit stayed and that was the challenge before Judge McConahy.

I’ll end here for now and try to do an overview of what happened in the court case soon. That's harder because I had to listen in by phone and it just happened and I'm still processing what went on.  But this and Part 1 are probably good background for understanding what happened in the Fairbanks courtroom.

Redistricting Trial is Over

The Board's attorney Michael White has completed his closing argument, there were complimentary words by the judge at the end for all involved, discussion of housekeeping items, which I only partially grasped, and it's over. 

White's closing seemed more efficient than Walleri's in terms of content per word.  There was a bit of cliche court room hyperbole ("not a shred of evidence" is one example) but overall, it was more fact based, and more focused on a list of specific points.  I wasn't sure about much of his argument - I simply don't know enough to judge.  Right now I'm too fried, not to mention behind on other things I have to do, to write more on this now.

The judge did say he would like to get the decision out by the first Monday in February.  Mr. White requested a Friday because of the expedited time line and the Board's need to give 48 hours notice of a meeting.  The first Monday is Feb. 7, the first Friday is the 4th.  He also said there is no time for motions of reconsideration and made mentions of appeals and the Supreme Court. 


I have absolutely no idea how the judge is likely to rule.  I need to go through the two closing arguments again and try to make sense of them.  But even then, there are too many issues of law that I don't know or understand to be able to figure out how the judge might rule. 

Redistricting Court Challenge: Plaintiff's Rambling Closing Statement

At one point in this trial, the plaintiff's attorney said he was not very articulate.  He's right.  His closing argument wandered all over the place.  He covered a number of valid points but also seemed to throw in a lot of irrelevant material.  I'd almost call his comments on using race as a proxy for politics a rant.  There are valid issues in there, but he had a really hard time honing in on them.  Will the judge be put off by the all the unnecessary and even off point material, or will he just ignore that and focus on what was on point?   They are getting back at 11:30 so I don't have much more to say now.  I'll try to pull out the key points of both closing arguments later. 

You can call in and listen to the Board's closing argument - it starts at 11:30.

Conference Number:  866-231-8327 (Limited to the first 150 participants) 

Conference Code:  9074529311#

I am so glad this is almost over.  

Redistricting Court Challenge: Judge Not Happy Getting Map First Day of Trial

I got on the phone line at 8:31 and the judge was talking.  It sounded like he wasn't happy about the plaintiffs showing up on the first day of court with a plan the defense hadn't seen yet.  He was letting the plaintiff's lawyer, Michael Walleri, know that he wasn't pleased but he would let him proceed. 

Walleri argued that the defense is claiming they produced a plan that couldn't help violating the Alaska Constitution because it had to meet the Voting Rights Act.  Therefore it is important to show that such a plan could be drawn.  At one point the Judge said something about that train having left the station.

Leonard Lawson was the key witness.  He testified about the standards he'd used drawing the maps for the Rights Coalition were based on the best information they could get about the standards.  First he relied on court documents from the 2002 redistricting.  Then what was said in the redistricting process that was wrong.  He never knew about the changed nomenclature and standards of 5 effective house districts (and 3 effective Senate seats) until December 2011.  Thus he could try to make a map that worked until then.  And that was why none of the third party maps turned in met the standard.  But that it could be done and that's why he made this map late December/early January.

He also testified that the reason they hadn't turned in shape files or that they used total native population instead of Voting Age Population (VAP) was that there was no guidance saying what was needed.  Once he learned what was needed he complied.

They are on a half hour break now - till 10:15 trying to work out with the clerk what evidence they agree on.  I think that's what the Judge said.  He also said something about scheduling closing arguments and there may be two more witnesses called. 

Below are my notes.  I'll put a page break here so they don't take so much room.  Hit Read More to see the detailed notes if your browser even reads the page break coding. (mine doesn't.)

Alaska Redistricting for the Masses - Part 1

The Redistricting Board trial going on in Fairbanks now.  I blogged the process last March - June.  The court is going over a lot of arcane details.  I've been tyring to figure out how to blog about it so it makes sense to people.

So I'm going to attempt here to do three blog posts.

• Part 1:  An overview of why we have redistricting and what the rules are.  
• Part 2: An overview of what the Alaska Redistricting Board did. 
• Part 3: Making sense of what is going on in the courtroom in Fairbanks as I listen each day by phone.  

First, let me thank the board, and I suspect particularly Taylor Bickford, for making the trial accessible by phone.  I don’t know if other trials have been available that way in Alaska to the public before, but this has been great.  (It’s also taking up a lot of my time!)  Thank you. 

I guess the biggest challenge is to see the whole puzzle instead of getting caught up in the individual pieces, and this trial has had a lot of very detailed technical pieces revolving around how to determine whether districts meet the Voting Rights Act (VRA) standards. 

So, let me start with this post which gives an overview why we have redistricting.


Part 1:  Background of Why Alaska is Redistricting


Census Year

Every ten years the Census is taken to determine how many representatives each state should have in Congress.  Then states have to reallign the districts so that all districts have nearly the same number of people to insure one vote for each person.

States also revise their state legislative districts.  Since Alaska only has one Congressional representative, the whole state is the district, so no redistricting has to be done on that level. 

But this year’s census has shown a loss of population in rural Southeast Alaska and in the far western areas and growth in urban areas of Anchorage, Matsu, Fairbanks, and Kenai.  So the districts set up after the 2000 Census are no longer equal in population and new districts must be drawn.

This was anticipated and rural legislators got a Constitutional Amendment passed in the 2010 legislative session that would have enlarged the legislature by 4 house seats and 2 senate seats. This would have made the current process easier and added new seats in the fastest growing areas rather than taking seats from the rural areas. But it was voted down by the public in November 2010.




Voting Rights Act (VRA)

The 1964 Voting Rights Act, as amended, makes sure that minorities are not discriminated against when it comes to voting.  Particularly in the South, there were obstacles to Black voters participating.  There was intimidation, there were poll taxes, and voting tests.  And districts were drawn to minimize the ability of Black citizens to elect candidates of their choice.  The Voting Rights Act (VRA) was passed to correct these problems.

States with a history of racial voter discrimination (about 16 in total, mostly in the South) are required to have their redistricting plans precleared by the Department of Justice to make sure they meet VRA requirements.  Alaska is one of those states because of past court cases which found that the State’s districts discriminated againt Alaska Natives. 

Retrogression

The key factor required by the VRA is that the state’s new districts may not be retrogressive.  I understand that, broadly, to mean, the ability of Alaska Natives to elect the candidates of their choice may not be diminished.  Specifically, the Department of Justice checks that Alaska has the same number of “Native Effective” Districts after the 2011 (we didn’t get the 2010 census data until March 13, 2011) redistricting as it had after the 2002 redistricting.  A Native Effective district is one in which Alaska Natives are able to elect the candidate of their choice. 

After the 2002 redistricting Alaska had, what Dr. Lisa Handley, the Board's Voting Rights Act expert,  called three effective Native, two equal opportunity, and one influence state house districts plus three effective state senate districts, for a total of nine Native effective districts.  (Be warned, that part of the current trial is about the nomenclature used for these different districts which has changed a few times since this process began in March and seems to be changing in the courtroom even.) 

Other Key Federal Requirements

In addition to meeting the Voting Rights Act (VRA) requirements, the redistricting plan also had to meet other standards - some federal and some state. 

One person, One vote
A critical federal (and state I believe) requirement is the one person, one vote standard.  That means the districts must have as close as possible the same number of people. After the 2010 census that meant that the 40 Alaska state house districts should ideally have 17,755 people each.  It doesn’t have to be exact, but there can’t be more than 10% deviance from the most to the least populated district.  In urban areas it should be closer to 1% because they are more densely populated and it’s easier to do.

No Gerrymandering
No political or racial gerrymandering is allowed.

The Board’s attorney told me during the process that no redistricting plan since the VRA has been found to be in violation of the political gerrymandering prohibition.  And in court, the plaintiff’s attorney has raised the idea that he - the Board's attorney -  told the Board that they really didn’t need to worry about gerrymandering. 
 You can see the whole list of legal requirements that the Board posted on their website.


State Constitutional Requirements

There are three basic requirements:

• Compactness - districts should be as small and geographically tight as possible.  Because of Alaska’s large land mass and low population, this is a particular challenge in some rural areas.
• Contiguity - All parts of a district must be touching.  Water can count here, because we have lots of islands, but it has to make sense.
• Socioeconomic integrity - Ideally, residents of a district would have as much in common as possible so that a representative can more easily represent all their interests. 

It’s important to note that the Federal Constitution and laws must be met before the State Constitution and laws.  This was an issue for the Board, and is an issue before the court now.  The board’s plan meets the VRA standards and has received preclearance from the US Department of Justice.  But the judge in the current court proceedings has ruled that four districts do NOT meet one or more of the three State Constitutional requirements.  During the process, the Board’s legal counsel, Michael White, informed the board that if there was a conflict, they first had to meet the VRA requirments and the one person one vote requirement. A critical question before the court is whether the Board could have created a plan that met the VRA requirements AND met all the state constitutional requirements.  At this point, the burden is on the defense (the Board) to prove it could not.  Proving a negative is not easy.  How high a standard will the judge hold them to?

Importance of Redistricting

Redistricting will have a major impact on the State of Alaska.  It will determine how many members of each party will get elected to the legislature.  Currently the state senate has ten Republicans and ten Democrats and is run by a bi-partisan coalition of 16.  Four Republicans have not joined the coalition.  The state senate has held up Governor Sean Parnell's bill - HB 110 - that would lower the taxes on oil companies by $2 billion per year.  A change of one Democrat would allow for a Republican majority and a much greater likelihood that the bill would eventually pass.  This is a point the plaintiff's attorney has made in the trial because two Democratic Senators in Fairbanks have been redistricted into one Senate seat, meaning one of them will not return.  Meanwhile, adjacent to that Senate seat is an empty Senate seat.  It would have been very easy to leave the two Democrats in roughly their old districts.  The only other paired incumbents are in Southeast Alaska where they lost one house seat and one Senate seat.  This looks to many like gerrymandering.

Redistricting Court Challenge: Voting Rights Expert Handley

This is really hard to write about.  I didn't post more from Friday though I started to.  For now let me just say that Executive Director Taylor Bickford, under cross examination began to falter Friday.  I think that he was probably thinking too much.  My sense is that he's basically a good guy who was trying to do a good job under difficult conditions.  But the plaintiff's attorney, Mike Walleri wanted to remind the court that Bickford was a partisan Republican.  But Bickford wouldn't admit to anything that he thought might be used against him. It was like he was pausing and thinking, "What are the implications of this questions and my answer?" and then he would try to create a teflon answer.

He wasn't partisan, he just worked for Republicans.  It was just a job.  It had to be one party or the other, and just happened to be Republican.  Even when he worked as  the 2010 Republican Victory Director for State Republican Chair Randy Ruderich.  He wouldn't even acknowledge that he knew Anchorage Mayor Dan Sullivan was a Republican.  "I don't know that."

Given that most anyone in Anchorage who is at all politically aware knows that Sullivan is a Republican, when the Republican Victory Director claims not to know that, it raises questions about how honestly he's answering other questions.  You could hear that his normal calm, that was evident when he was being questioned by the Board's attorney, was gone.

But I had lots of other things to do this weekend so I didn't feel I was ready to write about the substantive results of the testimony.

This morning, I was surprised - and plaintiff attorney Walleri objected - when witness Lisa Handley wasn't going to be the first witness as scheduled.  Walleri learned last night that the Defense wanted to put Eric Sandberg on first.  He promised the judge that it would only take 30 minutes (it took 40) and then Eric wouldn't have to wait around for Handley's much longer testimony.  Eric was the GIS expert for the Board and his testimony was calm and forthcoming.

Then Dr.  Handley came on.  I really haven't had time to go over my notes, but here are a few things that come to mind.

One issue already raised, was that the terminology used when she advised the board - majority districts, equal opportunity districts and influence districts - had changed after the board completed the their plan.  And there were also questions, because of this, whether the third party plans could have had the right number of districts because they were working on wrong assumptions about what the benchmark was because of the nomenclature.  Were they required to have 4 effective (majority) districts and 2 Equal Opportunity and 1 influence, as Handley had said earlier, or were they required to have 5 Effective districts?

Much of the discussion was on the terms and what they meant and why they changed and when she found out and how she found out.  She also was using a term I didn't recall from the meetings last spring - Protected districts.  Was I missing something?

Toward the end of the morning, Walleri asked about this term and said it hadn't been in her report or deposition.  It seems it comes out of the Texas redistricting case that she's working on and goes to court next week in DC.

There was also a long hypothetical about a district where the minority was unable to elect the candidate of their choice in the primary, but could in the general.  Would this be an effective district?  Handley gave lots of caveats and I don't recall ever said yes or no.  But when the hypothetical became the proclamation district 38, and Goldstream and Ester were named as white Democratic districts with the highest primary turnout in the state and some of the Native districts with low primary turnout, I think she said this would still be effective, because they would get the candidate of their choice in the general, but I'm not sure.   I was waiting for Walleri to ask, "If they got a suburban Fairbanks candidate elected in the primary instead of a Native area candidate (this is an 'effective native district")  would it still be effective, even if a non-native was elected.

So what has been established is that Handley had used terminology lingering from the 2000 redistricting that allowed for a continuum of highly to less effective districts and now DOJ has said (it's not clear whether the person who told Handley this can be seen as speaking for the DOJ on this) a district is either effective or not.  Though Handley said that within the "Yes - Effective" side, there was room for a continuum.

All this matters because it gets to whether the argument of the defense - that there were no third party plans that met the benchmark of 5 effective house districts and 3 senate districts, thus the Board couldn't be expected to both meet the VRA benchmark standard AND meet the Alaska Constitutional requirements for compactness and contiguity, etc. as well  - because if the third parties weren't trying to meet the 5 house benchmark number because they were told 5-2-1 (effective-equal opportunity-influence), then it's not a fair comparison.  Sorry I should revise that, except it's almost 1:30 and the court is coming back into session.  This is just to give people some idea of what's happening.

I would also mention that Handley is also having trouble remembering some things.  It seems to me if you are being paid to be an expert witness, you really ought to have your calendar with you so you can check the dates of when you did things.  But what do I know?

This is going up without much correction because I don't have time.  So you are getting currency but sacrificing detailed accuracy and style checking. 

Darrell Dennis - Tales of an Urban Indian

Gramma Susie was broad humor with a bite.  In the Gramma Susie costume, Sharon Shorty could play the classic role of the king's fool and say things that normally wouldn't be tolerated.

Darrell Dennis' humor was there to cover the pain.  First the universal pains of growing up and becoming a man.  Second, the additional pain of growing up as a member of an outsider group - in this case as a North American Indian.  Darrell's a charming, good looking man whose very presence on stage is in sharp contrast to the gritty story he tells of alcohol, sex, and drugs.  The stories he tells are powerful and his performance magnifies their power.  And the humor makes it possible to stay and listen. 

I'm really glad friends got us out to see these two pieces at the Alaska Native Heritage Center Saturday night.  I've already posted about Shorty.  Now I offer you a short video to give you a sense of Darrell's performance.  And yes, I did get his permission to post this too, though I did say it would be maybe 30 seconds, and it came out to 2 minutes. 

Raven Clan's Gramma Susie Makes For Non-Stop Laughter

Gramma Susie with 'grandson' Caleb

I wanted to put some catchy line in the title, but it was the performance of Sharon Shorty as Gramma Susie, not just the words, that had the audience laughing so hard last night at the Alaska Native Heritage Center.

Her act was part of an eight day "alerNative Theatre Festival."

There was a second, one actor play - Tales of an Urban Indian - by Darrell Dennis which tapped into an edgier humor to bring underlying issues in Gramma Susie right up to the surface.  I'll put up video of Darrell Dennis in the next post.   In this post, I offer you some video from Gramma Susie.

Sharon Shorty after performance

As I edited the video, I laughed over and over again each time I saw the clips. It's not so much the jokes, but how she tells them. True genius. And she's been winning awards for her performances even though they don't quite fit into most standard categories.

"Sharon Shorty has been voted one of the TOP 10 YUKONERS to meet (Up Here Magazine, 1999) and is from the Tlingit, Northern Tutchone and Norwegian People. Sharon is from the Raven Clan and was raised with the storytelling tradition of her southern Yukon community." 

Sharon is also an award winning actor (Aurora Award, 1997) and Storyteller (Aurora Award, 1998). She has received the Ross Charles Award (1999), the CTV Fellowship (1999) and The Yukon Filmmaker's Fund Award (1999). And more importantly, Sharon is an award-winning Bannock-Maker! (New Yukon Indian Days, 2003)  She was also recently named "Best Comedian" and "Best way to dress as an Elder"." 

She also performed at the Vancouver Winter Olympics.  Find out more at her website.

I edited the video a bit out of order so you could hear her dead-on raven call first (and last.)  She's from the raven clan and when she introduces herself, she gives her lineage in English and Tlingit.  There's a hint of the humor already, but it really starts after honoring her heritage.  If you can use a smile, just watch the video. All of it.

  


By the way, I asked Sharon after the performance if I could post the video and she generously consented.  And also said to credit 'grandson' Caleb who plays the drum in one clip.  (He gave permission too.)

Clear Roof Snow Easily With Snow Chute

[UPDATE Sat 3:53 pm: I couldn't remember my student's last name when I posted this.  But I got an email from a reader who looked up the patent and asked if Leroy Groat was the man with the patent.  Yes he is.  And I've now left a message with his daughter's business and hope to find out soon if the snow chute is still available to buy.  Or if you know how to get hold of Leroy, email me .]


A long time ago I was paired as a mentor for a student at the University.  I've lost touch with her over the years, but I thought about her today as I went looking in the garage for my Snow Chute.  This is a patented device her dad had invented.  It's so obvious and simple and easy to use.  So I bought one.  I haven't used it for a long time, but this year with all the snow, and stories of roofs having trouble in Cordova, I decided it might be a good idea to get some snow off the roof.  So today I decided to find it and experiment with the lower roof over our 'greenhouse.'

The device is a rectangle with a long plastic tail attached.  You put the metal as close to the end of the roof as you can and then pull it up the roof.  It neatly slices the snow and sends it down the plastic tail and off the roof.  I know that's hard to imagine from that description, so I took my camera out with me and made a video.

The video shows how easy this is because I had to do it one handed to use the video.  With two hands it's nothing at all to do.  Brilliant in it's simplicity and effectiveness. 

Does this mean those people were right about Palin too?

The Alaska Dispatch is reporting that the Director of the Alaska Division of Wildlife Conservation  was arrested on 12 counts of illegal hunting today. 

A former predator control officer for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Rossi is a longtime friend of Chuck and Sally Heath, Palin's parents. After Palin took office in 2007, Sally lobbied her daughter to have Rossi named commissioner of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. The commissioner oversees all wildlife and fisheries management in the state. Sally Heath, in an email to Palin, noted that almost everyone would object to Rossi as unqualified, but added those "are the very same people who said the same thing about you."

So, does this mean those same people were right about Palin too?

Rossi did not get the commissioner's job, but a special job -- assistant commissioner for abundance management -- was created for him within state government. .  .

. . . His qualifications have repeatedly been called into question. He lacks a college degree and his prime professional association with wildlife has involved killing rats and foxes in the Aleutian Islands.

 You can read the whole article at the Dispatch.