Redistricting Board Formally Adopts New Proclamation Plan and Backup Plan

I'll try to get back here and write up a summary, but I fooled around too long and now I don't have enough time.  Basically the adopted the plan they approved Saturday, which the staff cleaned up and prepared the metes and bounds for.  They also approved a back up plan - one that is basically the previous plan with the Fairbanks districts 1 and 2 adjusted to be constitutional.

All the documentation is up on line (well, not all, individual district maps are coming soon) so you can look there.  Below are my rough notes from today's meeting.

From the board's website:

REPORTS AND DATA

- Amended Proclamation of Redistricting

- Description of Amended Proclamation House and Senate Districts

- Board Adopted Findings

- Population Analysis

- Senate Terms

- GIS Files

MAPS

- Amended Proclamation Statewide Map

- Amended Proclamation Anchorage Map

- Amended Proclamation Mat-Su Map

- Amended Proclamation Fairbanks Map
- Amended Proclamation Kenai Map
- Amended Proclamation Southeast Map
- Interim Statewide Map
- Interim Fairbanks Map

Remember, the notes below are very rough.  There's a long gap where the attorney, Michael White goes over the time line.  There's a gap because I videotaped that and I'll put it up when I get it done.  Sorry it's not ready now.  And there are still some loose ends, but I think they come out in the notes below.

Alaska Redistricting Board April 5 Meeting

The Myth of the Big Election Turnout

Tuesday night at Election Central as the stories of people being turned away from the polls were told, people were also talking about 'the big turnout.'

That didn't explain, for me, how that would have affected things.  After all, they are required, as I pointed out in the previous post, to have enough ballots to take care of a 70% turnout.  Normal turnouts for Municipal elections range from low 20% range to the mid 30% range.  The numbers on the election results from last night show turnout at 26.82%.

Registered Voters 204838 - Cards Cast 54946 26.82%
Num. Report Precinct 121 - Num. Reporting 118 97.52%

 So, they had 54,946 people vote.  70% of registered voters (204,838) would have been 143,386 ballots.  If they had that many ballots ready, even if 20,000 unregistered voters showed up, that shouldn't have put any strain on their supply of ballots.  But people kept talking about high turnout.

The Anchorage Daily News has a story titled "Voter turnout creates ballot shortage" and quotes Municipal Clerk, Barbara Gruenstein:

"An "unprecedented number of voters" caused the shortage, she said."

 The Clerk is a sharp lady so maybe I'm missing something, but here are the voter turnouts as I could figure them for the last Municipal elections going back to 2006.  I got the numbers for the past election years from the Municipal Clerk's Website:  Election History/Past Election Results.  I got this year's numbers from this year's election results page. 

	# of Voters	% of Registered V's
2006 Mayoral	70,859	35.18%
2007 Assembly	62,071	32.13%
2008 Assembly	46,850	23.36%
2009 Mayoral	58,714	29.92%
2010 Assembly	39,096	19.42%
2011 Assembly	45,200	22.9%
2012 Mayoral	54,946	26.82%

HTML Tables

[UPDATE April 23:  The total number of ballots listed in the April 20, 2012 Election Summary Report is 71,099.  That comes out to 240 more votes than the 2006 election.  So this was a 'big' turn out by Municipal election standards, but only barely higher than the second highest count two mayoral elections back.]

 The numbers are as of 11:48 pm Tuesday night, 118 out of 121 precincts reporting.
Even if 10,000 more votes were outstanding, this year's total would not be a record in either total number or percentage of voters.  Is there something I'm missing? 

As it stands, the turnout is less than the previous two mayoral elections.

What makes more sense, if lots of unregistered folks showed up, was that they ran out of questioned ballots.  There were stories of people crossing out the Sample on the Sample ballots and using them.  But there should still have been a lot of back up regular ballots. 

Yesterday's Election Shenanigans

I was tired last night and not in a particularly good mood. So even though there was conflicting information I didn't pursue it.  But Mel at Bent Alaska covers it in detail and the story is going to be disturbing. From Bent:

"Yesterday, we reported that an administrator of Jim Minnery’s Protect Your Rights – Vote NO on 5 Facebook page posted the following notice: Attention Young People or First Time Voters – YOU CAN REGISTER AND VOTE AT THE SAME LOCATION TODAY !! It is super easy. Take a few minutes TODAY and stop by a polling station, register to vote (all you need is your AK driver’s license) and cast a NO Vote on Prop. 5. We really need you to vote. Tell at least 3 of your friends how easy it is."

As soon as I heard that there was a rush of people to the polls and they ran out of ballots,  I began to suspect that this was an intentional attempt disrupt the elections.

Mel's post makes it clear that the "Protect Your Rights" folks knew full well that the information was false.  They'd sent an earlier email out to their list telling people exactly when the registration deadline was. Is it possible the person who did the FB page and the email acted alone and didn't know about the deadline?  Not likely.  



The generally conservative - but with straightforward local political reporting - blog Alaska Pride (no, not gay pride) had this headline March 28:

Dittman Poll Shows 50 Percent Support Anchorage Proposition 5 Vs. 41 Percent Opposed; One Anchorage Got An Earlier Start, More Money, And Remained Civil

 Let's go back to 2009 when the Anchorage Municipal Assembly had hearings on an ordinance that would have done the same thing this ballot initiative tried to do.

Mayor Mark Begich had resigned to take his US Senate seat and liberal Assembly Chair Matt Claman assumed his job as Acting Mayor until the Municipal election in April, when he was defeated by current Mayor Dan Sullivan.  The new mayor doesn't take office until July 1.  There were enough votes to pass the ordinance on the Assembly, but Minnery and his Anchorage Baptist Church friends flooded the Assembly with people to speak against the ordinance - including busing people from outside of Anchorage.  Assembly chair Debbie Ossiander ruled that everyone could talk, even people from outside of Anchorage.  This strategy worked to delay passage of the ordinance for weeks, long enough that Mayor Sullivan took office and then vetoed it.

The liberals were outsmarted in terms of strategy.  And while busing in people from outside the city and getting the Assembly chair to let them speak pushes the limits of fair play, there is a long tradition of using the rules to thwart your opponents.  It tends to be ok if your side does it, but not if the other side does it. 

But telling people to go to the polling place to register, knowing they had to register 30 days earlier, in an attempt to disrupt the election crosses the line for me because it resulted in legitimate voters not being able to vote.  Clearly it's in the dirty tricks category.  But the First Amendment allows people to lie in most circumstances.

Assuming then they were intentionally getting unregistered people to the polls, what was their goal? 

If the anti-Prop 5 folks read the polling data that said Prop 5 was ahead 50% to 41%,  perhaps they decided to cause enough irregularities at the polls to challenge the election if they lost.  I don't know.  Now that they've won,  what will the Prop 5 folks do?  It would seem that even with a challenge, they are too far behind to get enough votes to win.  I'd emphasize the word seem.  I'm sure there are other possible scenarios. 

It's clear, to me anyway, that Minnery's group's Facebook post and emails were intended to get unregistered voters to the polling places to ask to register and then vote, which Minnery knew they were not entitled to do.  He couldn't help but know that this would disrupt the election process by diverting the attention of the voting officials from helping qualified voters.  And that it would increase the number of challenged vote ballots needed way beyond the normal level.  What his reasons for doing this were and what all the consequences were, we don't know.  Was he hoping to establish a grounds for challenging the election if they lost, which the Dittman poll suggested?

Of course, it also raises the question of how the Dittman poll could be so far off.  Last week it was 50% to 41% in favor.  And this week it is 58% to 41% against.  That is a HUGE margin of error.  Was Dittman really that far off?  Or is the vote count off?

I'd note that the ADN reported Tuesday that "More than 3,800 people had already voted at Loussac Library, City Hall or Chugiak Senior Center through Sunday . . . [and a]nother 2,675 people had requested absentee ballots. . ."   The absentee ballots have not been counted yet, nor, I believe, have the early votes.    But if 2,000 of the absentees actually send in their ballots, the total outstanding would only be about 5800 or 9.5%. 

Again, I encourage you to look at Bent Alaska's post on this.

Anchorage Mayor Wins, Gay Rights Lose, And Not Enough Ballots

Not all the votes were in when I left election central at the Denaina Center, but the numbers were pretty clear in most of the races.  But the big topic was that - this is all based on rumor, though I did talk to both mayoral candidates and an assembly member - about 17 -20 precincts ran out of ballots.

The Municipal Code requires that

"For each regular and special election, the municipal clerk shall ensure that ballots are prepared for at least 70 percent of the registered voters within each precinct to present all candidates and propositions to the voters."28.40.010 B

And turnout was significantly lower than that.   I talked with Mayoral Candidate Paul Honeman but didn't get his comments about the balloting on video.  It was not yet 9pm, but already he was significantly behind.



A bit later I talked to the Mayor.


 And finally I spoke to Assembly Member Dick Traini.

Scared Of Men In Dresses, Again

Anchorage folks, just go vote yes on Prop. 5.  Today. I'm tired of people using their gods to persecute other human beings.  A fanatic Jerry Prevo has fought against gay rights in Anchorage - just to keep a job or apartment, we're not even talking partnerships - here for far too long.

I heard about a Dittman poll on the radio yesterday saying Sullivan was ahead 57% to 30something% for mayor, but Prop 5 was ahead 50% to 42%.  That's promising, but I can imagine some people saying:  "Well Sullivan's in but Prop 5 will win, so I don't have to vote."

Don't you believe it.  I wouldn't be surprised if they put those numbers out there to keep people away from the polls.  "Your vote won't matter anyway, so why bother?"  NOT TRUE.  They certainly haven't given up.  There were big media buys for the weekend and Anti-5 people were on a bunch of corners on Monday already.  In force.

This year they've brought men in dresses back into their scare tactics as well as the idea that Prop. 5 would take away people's religious rights.  I don't recall any religious practices that require Christians to turn gays away from their rental property or workplace.  Where does it say, "Thou shall not rent to gays"?   It doesn't.  Instead it says repeatedly to be good to strangers - in the Old and New Testaments.  No one is saying that Prevo can't spew his hate in his church.  Or that people can't pray anyway they like  Just that they can't use their religion to keep gays from working at their businesses or renting their apartments.  And if it's a fourplex or smaller, it doesn't apply to you.  They can even boycott businesses with gay employees.  So chill.  Can someone say, "I won't rent to you because you eat pork and shellfish, which is prohibited in the bible"?  Of course not.   It does say to love your neighbor though. 

I'm really depressed that so many people are so ignorant and so personally needy that they have to lash out against others to make themselves feel better. [Is that a gross generalization?  Maybe, but surely it applies to many of these frightened individuals.]  Slavery and then segregation were also defended with the bible.  At least we aren't fighting a civil war over this.

We need to step back.  Breathe deep.  Each take responsibility to make sure three other people go vote yes on 5, and approach this with a little humor.  So I'm reposting a piece I put up last time Anchorage battled over this.  Enjoy.

Thursday, May 28, 2009

Men Jerry Prevo Would Ban from Anchorage Schools

[Note: The pictures in this post are NOT mine. To see the source of the picture, click on the picture. UPDATE:  Not all of them still work three years later.]

In his ADN letter opposing the addition of "sexual orientation" to Anchorage's anti-discrimination ordinance, Reverend Jerry Provo wrote:

Maybe, worst of all, this ordinance would allow a man who teaches a second grade class or any grade to show up as a woman in the classroom and the School District could do nothing because of this ordinance.

I confess that I laughed when I read this letter last Friday. Phil had an overview of some of the blogs that showed how each point in the letter was dead wrong. The letter is ludicrous. His biggest worry was about men dressing like women. Where are his public crusades against drunk drivers? Against redlight runners? Against heterosexual adulterers? It seems to me that murder and adultery are both prohibited in the Ten Commandments, not in some obscure passage in Deuteronomy along with other obscure prohibitions that we no longer observe. After all, what is the big deal about men who want to dress like women?

Men have a long tradition of wearing clothes that are more like women's clothes than than the "pants of the family" we associate with men in the US.

Religious men, particularly, seem to like to wear gown like clothing. Probably foremost is the Pope who wears some of the most elaborate clothing of anyone in the world. But this trend of dressing in garments more like women's clothing isn't confined to Catholics. Protestants also find this appropriate for the leadership.






Like these Episcopalians.
















And Russian  Orthodox.









Muslims clerics don't wear trousers either.

Nor Buddhist monks. They wear robes.

Nor Hindu priests

Even rabbis.

All the religious leaders I know of are also considered teachers. Would Rev. Prevo protest any of these people teaching in an Anchorage school wearing their work clothes? (I know some people are thinking "separation of church and state," but it's ok. If they are teaching ABOUT their faith and NOT teaching their faith, it's ok. And most such religious leaders also have expertise in other areas they might teach.)

And it's not just religious leaders who wear clothing that would be more closely associated with women than men.

Surgeons wear gowns at work.

And academics also have a tradition of wearing gowns. Even our former President whom Rev. Prevo supported so strongly.






And would Rev. Prevo prevent these two gentlemen from coming to class dressed this way to talk about Scotland?


OK, these men aren't exactly dressed as women, but my assertion that what they wear is more like women's garments than men's is much closer to the truth than Prevo's various assertions about the 'horrible' things that would happen if the ordinance passed.

And what should we do about all the women teachers who come to school already wearing pants? Prevo doesn't raise this 'serious' problem. My belief is that in our society it's less of a problem for a woman to dress like a man, because it's natural for people to want to be mistaken for the people who have the most power. But it seems perverted, to some people, for people with power, to try to be like those with less power. So men shouldn't dress like women. It's giving away their male based privilege.

Sorry I can't let go of this quite yet. I suspect Prevo knows this is ludicrous, and he probably knows that those who introduced the ordinance did so because they think they have the votes to pass it. Last December, Frank Schaeffer was interviewed on National Public Radio. You can hear the interview at the link. From the NPR page:

Frank Schaeffer's parents, Francis and Edith, were best-selling authors who were instrumental in linking the evangelical community with the anti-abortion movement.

But after coming of age as an evangelist and helping to organize religious fundamentalists politically, Schaeffer had a crisis of faith: Though he is pro-life, he decided that abortion should remain legal.

One of the things he says in the interview is that abortion and gay issues were no big deal with his father when Frank (the son) was little. They became big issues for evangelicals because whenever they talked about them, they got lots and lots of donations.

So, I'm guessing that Prevo has a knee jerk reaction to the word 'gay'. It's less about stopping the ordinance than it's about raising money. This letter isn't aimed at the vast majority of people in Anchorage. It's far too silly. It's aimed at the rabidly ignorant who will open their wallets to fight the 'perverts.' So when Prevo writes:

It would allow any man to dress like a woman and use any public women's restroom. Ladies, do you want that to happen?

it's to alarm those folks, who don't think, into supporting Prevo's high lifestyle.

Of course, thinkers would shake their heads in disbelief. What's to stop men from dressing up as women now and going into women's bathrooms? The law? It's illegal to go through red lights, to litter, to beat up women, yet people do these things every day. And when the ordinance has passed and is law, I promise you that it won't prevent the police from arresting men who dress as women in order to get into women's restrooms.

First, the ordinance says:  [April 3, 2012: it's basically the same this time around]

The assembly finds that invidious discrimination in the sale or rental of real
property, financing practices, employment practices, public accommodations, educational institutions, and practices of the municipality, based upon race, color, sex, sexual orientation, religion, national origin, marital status, age, veteran’s status, or physical or mental disability, adversely affects the welfare of the community. Accordingly, such discrimination is prohibited.

Only the bold is new language. It is already illegal based on sex. So using Prevo's logic, men already can't be prevented from using the women's room. But simple practical logic tells us that since men already have an equal, alternative place to wash their hands, they aren't being discriminated against. In fact at big events, the lines are usually longer at the women's restrooms, not the men's. Sexual orientation doesn't change the fact that gay men are still men. So the same logic that applies to "sex" will apply to "sexual orientation." If it didn't happen when 'sex' became a protected class, it won't happen now.

Second, even if the ordinance did what Prevo asserts, the sexual orientation clause wouldn't save men who dress up as women to get into the women's room. Why not? Simple. Gay men aren't sexually interested in women. It is only straight men who would try to see women's private parts exposed. And they couldn't claim they were being discriminated against because of their sexual orientation.

There is one serious issue here though. Transgender folks. Despite what we've been taught, the distinction between men and women is not as clear cut as we tend to believe. This topic is far too complicated to start after I've already written so much here. My advice is for people to read Eugenides' Middlesex. Wikipedia says:

Middlesex is a novel by Jeffrey Eugenides. It was published in 2002 and won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2003.
The narrator and protagonist, Calliope Stephanides (later called "Cal"), an intersexed person of Greek descent, has 5-alpha-reductase deficiency. The bulk of the novel is devoted to telling his coming-of-age story growing up in Detroit, Michigan in the late 20th century.

I'm not an expert on this topic, but this novel gives at least one view of the topic in a way that makes the issue understandable to people who otherwise might dismiss people having a sex change as crazy. And it is a well written and interesting story. I would say this is the easiest way to get a good understanding of the topic.

I raise this because there are people who, as they are transitioning from one gender to another, will be using new restrooms. (I notice that Prevo isn't worried about women coming into men's rooms.) If someone reads Middlesex, and their mind isn't totally shut down, they will understand that these people pose no threat at all to women in the restroom.

I'm not satisfied with what I've found on the topic online for those who want to know more, but are not ready to get Middlesex from the library. Here's the Mayo Clinic's take on ambiguous genitalia.

When Did You Decide To Be Straight?

That's still the best response I've heard to someone who says gays choose to be gay.  This post at Bent Alaska, RJ Haywood's story of growing up gay in an Anchorage Baptist Temple family, also addresses that question powerfully.


 We vote in Anchorage to be part of the 20th Century - to stop allowing people to be discriminated against in housing and work etc. simply because they are gay.  Vote Yes on Proposition 5.  

Rather than start something new, here's a post I did from June 25, 2009.

Some Context of Holier Than Thou Types

From today's Anchorage Daily News:


From today's New York Times article on Governor Sanford:

But other senior Republican strategists and leaders said they were concerned that their party’s large segment of evangelical voters makes the party more vulnerable to political damage from scandal, especially when it involves politicians like Mr. Sanford and Mr. Ensign, who had both been harshly critical of the infidelities of former President Bill Clinton and others.

From a Wiki on Republican Sex Scandals we see a long list of politicians who have been involved in sex scandals. Granted that many were involved in state and local level politics, a number on this list (without having looked at further details of each) are said to have been particularly vocal against the sexual misdeeds of others. For example:

Matthew Glavin, president and CEO of the Southeastern Legal Foundation, big player in the Clinton Impeachment, and many anti-gay jihads, has been arrested multiple times for public indecency, one time fondling the crotch of the officer who was arresting him.[102]

The link gives us a longer article that begins with another fallen angel:

It had been a tough two weeks for anti-gay Republican moralists. First, John Paulk, the leader of the bogus Ex-Gay movement was caught frolicking in a Washington, D.C. gay bar.

And then goes on to talk about Glavin:

The Atlanta Journal Constitution notes that Glavin’s Southeastern Legal Foundation has been active in anti-gay crusades as well, helping the Boy Scouts "fend off a court challenge to their anti-gay posture," and leading "a charge against an Atlanta City Hall initiative to provide insurance and other benefits to same-sex partners."

The wiki also got me to other links like this news story:

With the Mark Foley scandal still troubling Republicans, one of the nation's top evangelical leaders is now accused of paying for gay sex. Heading into Tuesday's election, when voters in eight states will decide on gay marriage bans, liberals and some conservatives are saying the party that prides itself on family values has a hypocrisy problem.

Ted Haggard, a staunch foe of gay marriage and occasional participant in White House conference calls, resigned as president of the National Association of Evangelicals and head of his Colorado church following allegations he met monthly with a gay prostitute for three years. Haggard denies having sex with the man, but admits receiving a massage and buying methamphetamine.
Five weeks ago, Foley -- a vocal advocate for exploited children -- resigned from Congress because of sexually tinged messages to male pages. Rep. Don Sherwood, R-Pa., a married father of three, has been burdened by revelations about his five-year affair with a mistress who says he physically abused her.

On tedhaggard.com, the former evangelist has a lengthy "healing overview" in which he refers to these events as "my personal crisis" or "my incongruity." The closest he comes to spelling things out is when he discusses what

...the Overseers, who were a group of 4 pastors from outside New Life Church that were given authority by the church bylaws to investigate alleged misconduct on the part of the Senior Pastor and, after their investigations, discipline or remove the Senior Pastor...

imposed on him after he "confessed my sins to them and resigned all of my positions."
Included in this list of requirements in addition to leaving the state of Colorado and other prohibitions was that he

not engage in any sexually immoral behavior.

That's as close as he gets to suggesting what his 'incongruity' was about. We have to look elsewhere to get the specifics.

Since being fired as pastor of New Life Church amid a gay-sex and drugs scandal, the Rev. Ted Haggard has discovered he's "completely heterosexual."
The Rev. Tim Ralph, senior pastor for New Covenant Fellowship in Larkspur, told The Denver Post on Monday that Haggard's homosexual activity appears to be limited to Denver male escort Mike Jones, who said he and Haggard had a three-year sexual relationship.

The fact that I can't find nearly as extensive a list of Democratic sex scandals (Top Ten Democrat Sex Scandals in Congress shows up a few times) doesn't mean that Democrats are having less extra sex I'm sure. And I can't believe that Republicans aren't capable of making lists of Democratic transgressors. I suspect it's more about Democrats being less committed to sexual purity than Republicans. For Republicans, in addition to the sex, there is often the contrast to their strong 'morality' stance.

"The attention focused on these cases will inescapably lead people to think about these people's hypocrisy," said Matt Foreman, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. "They make a career out of defaming gay people and preaching family values, when it's clear that it's just a veneer." (from Truthout)

When people focus so strongly on demonizing people over their sexual practices, one wonders what they themselves are trying to hide. Is the lashing out at others a way of projecting punishment for their own desires or guilt? Is it 'just a veneer?" I'm sure for some that is the case. What drives the others to such extremes?

Jerry, how about a heart to heart about your gay phobia. Or is it just that you found it stirs up the fears of your flock and they open their wallets when you cry "Gay?"

The Kids Know What They're Doing

When I stopped by the museum last week I also got to see the Anchorage School District's Annual Student Art Show. These kids have good imagination, good eye, and good execution. Unfortunately, I just see that it ended today. From the Museum's program of exhibits:

“Art Makes Anchorage: 40th Annual Anchorage School District Art Exhibition” On view March 2 through April 1 The 40th annual Anchorage School District exhibition showcases artwork from the district’s most creative student artists. The exhibition gives kindergarten through high school students the rare opportunity to display their art in a museum. Works are chosen by teachers and include drawings, paintings, and sculpture.

As I went through the exhibit I shot a few that really grabbed my eyes.  Lucas (the otter above), sorry, my picture was too blurred to catch your whole name.  Email me and I'll put it up.  I was going to go back, but then I saw it was over today.   Wow!  That walrus face!  And Aaron's fish are amazing.  They're even better close up.  And he's only in the second grade. 

OK.  I'm partial to bikes, but it takes daring for a 6th grader to cut off the front and back and bottom.  But it makes a great picture.  And look at how Katherine put the art supplies together on the page.  Look at the detail of her background. 

Both of these above are exceptional.  The top one (Chris Maron - sorry it font was too small) is grade 3, but look at the design and how it isn't constrained by the borders or the normal vertical and horizontal.  And Cheyenne's colors and designs are wonderful. 

Jaz' birch trees are terrific.  Steven Gordon, watch out!  I'm joking.  Art shouldn't be a competitive sport.  I bet Steven and Jaz would get along great.  And look how Paige carries off her abstract mountains.  They are all wonderful.

Art is NOT fluff.  It's not a subject that can be discarded as a luxury.  Aside from jobs in art and theater, every car, every package, every advertisement, every building, every iProduct, is better because an artist participated. 

Spray Of Plaid Foil and Soap Doily Roll Far

Are you scratching your head?  Look back.  If it still makes no sense, find help here.

Tim Remick's Remarkable Denali Faces

The size and detail of these photos of people getting down from Denali climbs was unrelenting. Every detail of their faces blown up about 15 times life size.

This was one of the older climbers and the most beat up by the mountain.

Tim Remick's words on the wall of the museum explain the series of portraits:

"is a visual exploration of the human condition after climbing North America's highest peak.  These portraits attempt to document the human experience through the communicative power of the face."

 "Each portrait explores the curious physiological details resulting from the ravages of exhaustion, accentuating the emotional condition of the individual."

"It is within the moment of the after that I have sought to find the exactness that exists within the human response and to capture that curious mix of adrenaline, reflecting, and exhaustion, all sharing the same instant."

Look carefully for the photographer

"It is through this consensual process that these portraits become an artistic exploration of persona, character, and identity reflective of the physical manifestation of the journey's toil, celebrating human capacity to endure."

Each portrait had a card.  The number ranked the climbers from slowest to fastest, their age, they all made it to the peak, and how long the climb took.

I'm putting this up to demonstrate I didn't abandon my life completely to redistricting this week.  I stopped by the Anchorage Museum one afternoon a spent an hour decompressing.  The advantage of buying an annual pass is you can just drop in for a short visit as frequently as you like.  $12 for an hour would be steep, but the pass means I don't feel the need to make my visit a half a day long.   This exhibit is here until April 15.


Interestingly, they had another Denali exhibit upstairs. 

This photoshop attempt worked ok in the painting on the lower right.  I superimposed a photo they had of Browne taken by photographer Bradford Washington.  The rest is  'experimental.'  I think visually, the bio is way too much.   The end of the bio says he died in a shooting accident in the Adirondacks.  You can see he was quite young. This exhibit ends April 22.

Redistricting Board Adopts, In Concept, "The Bethel-Chain Amended Proclamation Plan"

Overview of Saturday March 31, 2012 Meeting

1. Looked at two maps the sent to VRA expert and discussed her findings and how the fixed them.
2. Chose to adopt, in concept, a map called "Bethel-Chain Amended Proclamation Plan" which was yesterday's 3/30 - 1 with changes after VRA review.
1. Basic Change = get HD 37 Native VAP up, move Nunivak from 38 to 37, 
3. Gave the staff and attorney power to clean up the plan, and get documents ready to send to VRA and to courts.
4. Approved in concept: senate pairings, truncation, term lengths.
5. Will meet one more time, probably Wednesday afternoon, to formally approve everything. 

[UPDATE 9:30pm:  The Board's website has added an announcement plus a map

A preliminary statewide map is available for download here*. Additional maps and data will be added to www.akredistricting.org and distributed via email on Monday, April 2nd.]

Basically, the board is done except for cleaning up and final formal approvals.
They presented their two plans - one that is relatively similar to the Proclamation plan, but rejoins the Aleutian Chain and fixes House Districts 1 and 2 in Fairbanks and, presumably, puts both City of Fairbanks House Districts into a single Senate seat. [In the end, that happened.]  Then it makes some adjustments to the Native districts to get overall population deviations within 10%.  One change from yesterday was moving Nunivak Island from HD 38 to HD 37.


There weren't any new maps available and maps of each district weren't available.  Talking after the meeting, my understanding is that Senator Paskvan and Senator Thomas are no longer paired in Fairbanks.  But I believe that Ester and Goldstream are still part of a rural Native District, that goes from McCarthy in the west, up along the Canadian border and across Alaska to the west and includes Nome and Gamble and Savoonga.  [They're in District 38 that goes west to Hooper Bay.]

 It's been a hectic week for the staff.  They had to be at the meetings and then afterward they were making maps.   The last meeting posted on their website is for Wednesday.  I'm sure now they will be able to catch up.  Many if not all of the districts in Southeast, Anchorage, are the same.  I think Kenai and Matsu have some changes.  The Board members have the statewide maps on their computers which they can enlarge to see districts, but details weren't worked out until late last night or early this morning and there were no maps available of the individual districts.  Even the new statewide map wasn't handed out.  They just explained changes to the map they presented yesterday.

The Bethel-Chain Plan - Adopted in Concept

This is the map we got yesterday. [UPDATE:  The new map is available here.  You can enlarge it greatly, but the urban districts are still hard to see.  Districts 3 and 4 are City of Fairbanks.  The Anchorage districts should be the same as the previous Proclamation plan, but we'll have to wait to see for sure.] The most obvious change I know about is that Nunivak Island, the red island on the left, has moved from district 38 to district 37.  It should be green on that map now.  Those two are in a single senate district which is connected by water via the island. 



The other plan they had sent to the VRA expert is similar, but connects the Bethel House District with a House District in west Anchorage to create a Native Senate seat.

Both maps had problems with the Native Voting Age Population in District 37, but were otherwise found to probably be VRA compliant.  So they made changes to get the VAP higher in 37 - including moving Nunivak Island to 37.  The first plan, they said, had fewer deviations from the constitution than the Anchorage - Bethel plan.  

In the end the Board adopted the first one which they had some trouble naming and even after naming it they weren’t completely consistent.  Board Chair Torgerson called it the Bethel-Chain Amended Proclamation Plan.   They spent most of their time going over all the potential problems and explaining very carefully their rationale for what they did in language that hold up in court.  I couldn’t help thinking “just because you say the words, doesn’t mean it’s actually so.”  But they have said all the right words - I think - so they can go back to the transcripts and say, “here, we said that” over and over again. 

They then asked staff to go through the plan, make necessary minor changes, set up the Senate pairings, truncation, calculate which Senate seats would be 2 year and which 4 year, do the metes and bounds, and all the other details that are necessary to turn in with the plan.   Here's my explanation of truncation and Senate terms from last June 12:

Truncation
1.   Substantially changed district requires new election.  Elected officials should represent the people who elected them.  But when the districts are substantially changed by redistricting, they have new constituents who didn't vote in their new districts.  And thus this new population is represented by


someone they had no say about.  So, it is believed  that a substantially changed new district should vote for its senator as soon as possible - which would be November 2012. 

So, truncation is the process of cutting short the terms of sitting Senators in those new districts that have substantially new populations so that the people can vote for the representative at the soonest possible election. [This is not an issue for House districts since they are all two year terms.]


2.  Two or Four Year Terms?  Alaska Senators serve for four years in staggered terms.   From the Alaska Constitution:

The term of representatives shall be two years, and the term of senators, four years. One-half of the senators shall be elected every two years.  [emphasis added]

Thus, in addition to truncating, the board has to make sure that half the seats are up for election every two years. So, for 2012, half the Senators would normally be up for reelection and the other half would be in "mid-term" - that is, they have two more years left in their terms and wouldn't normally be up for reelection until 2014.  Unless their districts have been substantially changed. 

They were pretty much certain that truncation would be pretty much like the Proclamation Plan that was sent back by the Supreme Court, but the GIS expert, Eric Sandberg, had gone back to Juneau and is the only one who could calculate whether a district had 'substantially changed.' Last time they figured all the districts except Juneau had substantially changed so all the Senators except Sen. Egan have to run in 2012.  They've assumed the same is true for this plan.  The actual percent of new voters in a district needed to truncate is vague, but 90% the same is ok and under 70% the same isn't.  You can go back to that June 2011 post to see more on this.

Metes and Bounds is the written description of each district.  I have a post on that from last June 13, 2011 as well when they did that the first time if you want to know more on that.

I've made a table based on the handouts and the discussion to show for each senate district:

• The house seats
• Next election
• Term length from 2012 election

Senate District	House Districts	Next Election	Term Length from 2012
A	1 & 2	2012	4
B	3 & 4	2012	2
C	5 & 6	2012	4
D	7 & 8	2012	2
E	9 & 10	2012	4
F	11 & 12	2012	2
G	13 & 14	2012	4
H	15 & 16	2012	2
I	17 & 18	2012	4
J	19 & 20	2012	2
K	21 & 22	2012	4
L	23 & 24	2012	2
M	25 & 26	2012	4
N	27 & 28	2012	2
O	29 & 30	2012	4
P	31 & 32	2014	2
Q	33 & 34	2012	4
R	35 & 36	2012	2
S	37 & 38	2012	4
T	39 & 40	2012	2

HTML Tables

Here are my ROUGH notes from today's almost final meeting of the Board.  Remember, a fair amount is missing and there may well be mistakes.  Beware.


Alaska Redistricting Board meeting Saturday March 31, 2012

10:14:  Got here just now, [it started at 10]  Bickford finishing talking about two plans.
[Checking during the break, the key change seems to be moving Nunivak Island from from HD 38 to HD 37.  There were some other minor changes and a village or two was switched.  This was all done to keep deviations.]

White:  VRA issues?  We both talked late with Lisa, she indicated some issues with House District 37.  Wanted the number higher than the 41.5%.  Changes Taylor just told you about were designed to fix those problems.  Lisa up late for us, and she says it now meets the numbers.  Like last time, she doesn’t think it’s a slam dunk, because trial court said we can’t divide the Chain.  Lower chain is mostly non-native.  When we drop down to that 41% we’re having trouble.  When we got pre-clearance, it was the first time DOJ cleared under 50% this year.

You remember from the trial what we talked about Lisa and Dr. Arrington said ‘ability to elect’ is dichotomy, thumbs up or down.  Compared to benchmark, this is not retrogressive.  Lisa:  you have a good shot if you have Native support behind you.  Amicus briefs sent to the court said they do not want their incumbents paired.  Wanted to comply with VRA and did least harm to Constitution.
Taylor Bickford: I think you said under the proclamation - you said 71%, not so, was actually 46%.  That district more closely resembles then.  Lisa:  Why are you dropping from 46 to 41 - we said because the Court said we can’t split the chain. 

White:  Now that we put the chain back together and Lisa wanted to look at effectiveness.  Concerns about dropping number, but by moving it back up she feels better.  Again, Native support will be important. 

Taylor Bickford:  We’re looking at this plan.  Also analyzed Anchorage plan.  Differences in how 37 arranged.  That plan after looking at numbers, you had a harder fight to make for VRA. 
Torgerson:  Her analysis wasn’t the Bethel Anchorage pairing, but …
Taylor Bickford: Any time you do a pairing like that with rural losing population. . .[I think this was looking at if the district would continue to be effective as population shifts.]
Also concerned about how chain configured.
White:  In the current plan, ????? native loses ???? can’t say. We don’t know what the standard is 2002 plan or proclamation plan?  [yesterday Board said the benchmark is the last VRA approved plan 'in effect." So they aren't sure if the Proclamation plan was ever in effect."]    When we present to DOJ we’ll show why it is not retrogressive to either plan.  that’s all I have.
Torgerson:  Questions?
White:  thank you Mr. Chairman.  You have the Bethel?  I can do comparison on just one.  We did our Hickel - this is the most constitutional plan in the history of the state
Torgerson:  The universe.
White:  But Lisa said not VRA compliant.  We had to make the map comply with the least necessary reasonable harm to the Constitution.  Two fixes.
1.  fifth effective house seat - 6
Taylor Bickford:  37 under the plan
White:  Call that district there, the interior comes around.  To do that, court found did least harm to fix both in Bethel plan and here, HD 39, will have some compactness and SE Integration issues.  Best fix is the configuration of 38 and 39.  Bottom line is least harm you can get away with to the constitution.
Third party plans had districts that affected the constitution 3 or 4 times.  Can argue that it is compact, similar to Valdez.  need to ????
2.  How to get the 3rd effective senate seat.  Because court mandated putting chain back together.  Required difficult machinations.  This plan does that without any real harm, only I see - senate pairing 37 and 38.  Trial court didn’t like this amount of open water, but far less than here.
Taylor Bickford:  said for house district
Torgerson:  You are saying "here," but using pointer, people here can see that
White:  In 37 we split Aleutian chain and paired it across the island to Bethel.  Trial court said no, SC didn’t say, but threw out their numbers.  Only rationale still applicable, not paring Native incumbents.  Key issue here, Trial court dealing with house seat.  Constitution Contiguous, compact, and SocioEconomic Integration.  Only requirement for Senate seat is as contiguous as possible.  I take that to allow this pairing across Nunivak Island. 
Torgerson:  In past plans, court has accepted connection over water.  The old Kodiak - Ketchikan was 1000 miles across water.  OK, because court has approved larger water crossings.
White:  In order to avoid splitting the chain, this is less harm, if it is even a violation at all.  We have lots of islands, this is nearly as practical. 
Taylor Bickford:  Nunivak Island has to go in one of the districts.  I wanted to make sure you are talking about minimal harm.  I’m not sure there is any harm to the Alaska constitution.
White:  I agree ……...necessitated by the need to create 3rd Senate seat.
Green:  Did you try to go this way too?  Along the coast? 
Taylor Bickford:  Yes, I tried to do that, but you cannot connect Bethel portion of 37 to 38 by land without adding too much population.  We started with Proclamation plan with that connected, but reuniting the chain made it hard.  Can make it contiguous by land, but then you have to split the chain.
White:  I don’t see any problem with the constitution in any of the others.  Geographic reality.  Because Hickel Plan does not comply with VRA, to make that plan comply have to take 39 in a way that doesn’t strictly comply with compactness and maybe SEI .  38 population issues that have nothing to do with VRA, Fairbanks still contains a good portion of 38, you can do it either of two ways and push it over to the heavily populated native areas on the coast.
Torgerson:  You are making it sound you could create another map.
White:  By unpacking the nearest area to grab - the Wade Hampton area is ?????
Torgerson:  How did the trial court rule on 38.
White:  urban and rural need to be combined, reasonable to do that, but reasonable harm, speculative pairing argument, I think that’s wrong because the pairing had nothing to do with 38 because same in PAM_E plan and Proclamation.  Districts you have to depart from C are 37 and 38.
Taylor Bickford:  I might be a little stubborn.  You’re talking about 39.  I’m not sure that isn’t compact.  Only so much you can do in rural Alaska.
Torgerson:  I don’t want you two to debate.
White: I would agree with you that an argument can be made based on AK geography.
Torgerson:  What about Kenai B?  How many times did we split it?
Taylor Bickford:  Twice.  This portion here is Tyonek - Beluga and needed to put it in some Native District.  In this case picked up by 36.  Second split by Kodiak.  Two villages from tip of Peninsula here, put into 36.
Torgerson:  Just curious, trying to put Tyonek back into Kenai.
White:  Kodiak doesn’t have enough population, have to get it from somewhere.  To get enough Native population need to get it to push up the VAP.
Taylor Bickford: Very good point, deviation too high and need population.  This was in proclamation plan.
Torgerson:  You were using your pointer, want people online to know what ‘over there meant’  picking up community in ????
White:  Although issue addressed in trial court (reasonable and justifiable to split Fairbanks two ways) not address by SC. 
????????  Nothing wrong with previous plan - except 6 and 2 and 1.

Torgerson:  Anchorage to Bethel
White:  Except for VRA, major difference is that in Bethel to Anchorage plan, two Senate districts that would cross over water.  36 across Cook Inlet and takes a HD in Anchorage.  In this plan only once in Anchorage-Bethel plan do it twice.  Fact you only have to do it once, makes the first unnamed plan, makes it do less harm to Constitution than Anchorage-Bethel. 
Which one does less harm is the one Taylor presented this morning.
Torgerson:  Questions?
10:44  Refer to Bethel as the Chain plan. 
White:  No pairings of Native incumbents, to be on the record, except Kookesh in Southeast. 
Torgerson:  I’m ready for a motion to adopt the plan.  Procedural question for you, we call this the amended proclamation plan or make, we have to be able to identify this plan.
White:  I anticipate adopt in concept for staff to clean up , call it Bethel-Chain Amended Proclamation Plan.
Brodie:  I move to adopt the plan as presented, known as the Bethe-Chain Amended Proclamation plan in concept.
Torgerson:  seconded by b member green..  Add allow staff to make necessary changes, in concept and we’ll have metes and bounds.
Vote: 5-0  Adopted the Bethel-Chain Alaska map.  In concept.  At this time we could do motion to authorize staff to make minor changes - then 1/10th of 1% maybe have to go a little higher now.  When they do metes and bounds if they find things improper, they have the authority to fix those.
Moved by PeggyAnn McConnochie and second
Taylor Bickford:  Are we sending a baseline?  We may need more than 1/10 of 1%
Torgerson:  I did bring that up.  No, I think you can note any changes you make.  I suggested to board we have tighter range of all the maps before us.  In this case we have less of the map you are working on.  If you find anomalies, let us know and we can adopt them
Roll call vote:  5-0 yes
Adopted allowing staff to clean it up.  D
Need to do Senate pairings, I’m assuming all the same,
[I took a 4 minute break]

Taylor Bickford:  We know the senate pairings for Sen districts would be the same.  if we combine City of Fairbanks, Paskvan would still have to run in 2012.
Torgerson:  All the geniuses here and Eric is the only one who can do this?
Taylor Bickford:  I believe he gets off at two.
Torgerson:  I’d like to adopt those today.  Then we’d have a complete plan.  People out there are waiting to see what we’ve done.  Let’s take about a 30 minute recess, Try to get hold of Eric.  I don’t mind doing this over teleconference.  I didn’t know Eric was leaving until yesterday afternoon.  Jim were going to go off line.  Break until 11:30.

11:30am 
PeggyAnn McConnochie:  Move to Adopt Senate Pairings iinto Bethel-Chain plan
these are the same as in the Proclamation Plan?
[I've put these in the table above]

Taylor Bickford:  Yes. 
White:  For the record, the issue of whether or not Fairbanks is entitled to a seat of its own, but the Board has decided a plan that puts the city of Fairbanks back together leaving that legal issue unresolved.
Holm:  I don’t.  Can you have Taylor describe for me 1,2, 3, 4.?  Describe the boundaries for my edification.
1 is essentially what used to be 4?
Taylor Bickford: NO, 1 is what used to be 2.
2 is what used to be 4.
Holm:  You numbered from east side of the city.  Doesn’t have any of the roads, but the populations are right so that’s good.

Roll call 5-0 

PeggyAnn McConnochie:  Move on truncations
A -4
B-2
C
D
[This is actually setting the term lengths, not truncation.  I have this in the chart above.]

Is there a second?  I would also say this is the same as the Proclamation plan.  We don’t have the data for sure on changes in districts.  Our GIS expert is not here, but if there are any changes

White:  What we have here is assigned the districts and years, but we haven’t actually done the truncations.  First you have to truncate and then you assign the years.  That was assigned randomly based on Senate Seat P which is not truncated [Egan in Juneau has substantially the same district.]
Brodie:  I’d like to table Ms. McConnochie’s motion.
Torgerson:  I think we can fix this in 30 seconds.  I don’t want to have 60 calls asking me  this.
Taylor Bickford:  This assumes all are truncated.
11:39   Off the record.
TRUNCATED DISTRICTS:  D, F, H, J, L, N, P, R, AND S


There’s some disagreemnt among the board members.  Bickford pointed out that they haven’t done the analysis of the populations of the districts to determine.

PeggyAnn McConnochie:  read the truncated districts:
TRUNCATED DISTRICTS:  D, F, H, J, L, N, P, R, AND S
Is that not what you wanted?
White:  I understand this to be the truncated districts, old ones last time in proclamation plan.
Taylor Bickford:  I understand but I don’t understand why reading the districts from the old plan
Torgerson:  Let me bring this back.
Moved to adopt the truncation.
5-0   Board has adopted truncation.
Next motion SEnate terms
PeggyAnn McConnochie:  I’ll go thru them one more time.  Reads all the districts, alternately 2 and 4 years starting with A.
Roll Call:  5-0  for.
Torgerson:  Board has adopted.
PeggyAnn McConnochie:  Motion to direct legal and staff to findings thaxxxxxxt are on the record?  
White:  I think that’s fine, summarize the informal written findings?
Roll call:  5- 0  has authorized the staff to make written findings for presentation to the board in the future.
PeggyAnn McConnochie:  Authorize legal to make any preparation for legal filings necessary????
White: 
Torgerson:  Authorize legal  to start proceedings to file in court. 
Roll Call:  5-0 yes. 
PeggyAnn McConnochie:  I’d like to authorize legal to start preparing documents for pre-clearance with DOJ.
Roll Call 5-0 yes

Torgerson:  The Board will get back together for teleconference of board to approve the formal proclamation and everything we approved in concept today.  At this point don’t see need for face-to-face we can.  Any guestimates for day?
White:  If you called meeting for Wednesday afternoon, but staff has to be ready.
Torgerson:  It will be Wednesday or thursday.  We have to notice the meeting.  Notived for all next week, but not for teleconference.  We’ll look at that, Wed or Thursday unless some issue comes up and we have to come together.
Then this board is adjourned.  No time for speeches.
Holm:  I’d just like to thank each of you for all the hard work you’ve done.
PeggyAnn McConnochie:  I’d like to thank everyone including Taylor and Mike and the court Reporter.
Green:  The same.
Torgerson:  Do we need the court reporter to transcribe the teleconference.
Anything else?  It’s 11:53 we are adjourned.