Redistricting Board Rolls Out A Detailed Schedule

It's getting to be crunch time at the Redistricting Board.  Their new schedule has them finished with their Hickel Plan by July 12, 2013. Then if the US Supreme Court rules in the Shelby County v Holder decision to invalidate Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, they plan to be done with their plan by July 12.

There were several emails in the last two days for folks who have subscribed to the Board's emails.   Let's see if I can pull out the information from the emails with some explanation.

WORK SESSIONS:

First there are work session where the meeting is open to the public, but basically they are developing maps.  They have to have an announced meeting as long as three or more Board members talk about redistricting.  But much of the time will be spent on the computers making maps.

Alaska Redistricting Board Mapping Work Sessions

The Alaska Redistricting Board will hold Mapping Work Sessions at the Anchorage office, 411 West 4th Avenue, Suite 302 from 8:00AM until 5:00PM on the following days: June 12th, 2013, June 13th, 2013, June 14th, 2013, June 15th, 2013 June 16th, 2013 June 17th, 2013 June 18th, 2013 June 19th, 2013 and June 20th, 2013. This schedule may be subject to change. Notice of change will be provided.

These meetings are going on now.  I just couldn't drag myself over there over the weekend or in this hot weather yesterday and today.  I've posted about the meetings last week.  Probably there should be people there watching, but it's been more than I could handle.


Private Plans Due Friday June 21 at Noon

For anyone who wants to submit their own plan, it's got to be in by Friday at noon.  Mostly this will be done by organizations who have been tracking this - the two big political parties - Democrats and Republicans.  Several Native organizations have been following the process and have submitted plans in the earlier chapters of this process.

SUBMISSION OF PLANS
Any individual, group, or organization wishing to submit a proposed Hickel Plan for the Board to consider must do so no later than 12:00 p.m. on Friday, June 21. Hickel Plans are to be drawn based solely on the requirements of the Alaska Constitution and without any consideration to Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA).
Submissions can be dropped off in person to the Alaska Redistricting Office or emailed to info@akredistricting.org.
Then the email refocuses on the work session and then the meeting to be held Friday June 21.  You'll notice the work session sort of wraps the meeting. 

ALASKA REDISTRICTING BOARD WORK SESSION

 The Alaska Redistricting Board will hold a work session June 21, 2013 from 10:00AM until 4:00PM at their conference room at 411 West 4th Avenue, Suite 302.

ALASKA REDISTRICTING BOARD MEETING

 The Alaska Redistricting Board will hold a board meeting June 21, 2013 from 12:00PM (noon) until 1:00PM at their board room at 411 West 4th Avenue, Suite 302. The Board meeting will be teleconferenced. To listen call in at 1-855-463-5009 or streaming on AKL.TV. The Board intends to review the draft Hickel Plans created during the work sessions and also finalize the list of submitted third-party plans it will be considering.

What's a HICKEL PLAN?  Even for those of you following this, it could be confusing.  It means a plan that only considers the Alaska Constitutional requirements, not the Voting Rights Act (VRA) requirements.  The Court required the Board to draw these maps first and then stop.  Then they are to make the changes necessary to also meet the VRA requirements.  Of course, most of the Board is hoping they will be relieved of Section 5 of the VRA when the US Supreme Court issues its opinion on Shelby County v Holder, which I've posted about already.

Then Come Public Hearings

So a week after the June 21 meeting,  will be the first public hearing and people who submitted Hickel Plans will be able to present them to the Board at the hearings and anyone can testify about the plans.  The first time around I tried to present some information here for people going to the hearings and post questions people might want to ask.  I'll try to do that again.

PUBLIC HEARINGS AND PLAN PRESENTATIONS

The Board intends to hold public hearings in the following locations to solicit general comments and receive presentations on any third-party plans submitted prior to the Friday, June 21 deadline:

Anchorage (June 28, 2013) To be held at the Anchorage LIO [716 W 4th Avenue, Suite 200]  from 10:00 AM - 4:00 PM
Testimony will be taken in person and by teleconference 1-855-463-5009

Fairbanks (July 1, 2013)
To be held at the Fairbanks LIO [1292 Sadler Way Suite 308] from 12:30 PM - 4:00 PM
Testimony will be taken in person and by teleconference 1-855-463-5009

Juneau (July 2, 2013)
To be held in the Beltz Room, Capitol Building from 12:00PM - 4:00PM
Testimony will be taken in person and by teleconference 1855-463-5009

Any individual, group or organization wishing to present their submitted Hickel Plans at these hearings is required to provide reasonable advance notice to Board staff by:
Telephone (907-269-7402)
Fax (907-269-6691)
Email (info@akredistricting.org)

I'm guessing that 'reasonable advance notice' means they didn't get around to figuring out a specific number of days or hours before the hearings so they left it vague.  On the other hand, anyone turning in a Hickel Plan by the June 21 deadline, presumably, will say which public hearing they want to present it at when they turn in the plan.

My perception was that if there are minor issues that affect a neighborhood, or coincide with what the Board wants to do, your recommendations have a good chance of being adopted.  But if it conflicts with what the Board wants to do, probably not.  For example, in the first public hearings, lots of people from both Muldoon and Eagle River argued that they should not be in a single House district because they have very different interests.  And while the Board did separate them more in the House districts, they also paired one Eagle River House district with one Muldoon House district to form a Senate seat that became Republican enough to bump off Sen. Bettye Davis.

More Board Meetings For A Final Board Hickel Plan 

ADDITIONAL BOARD MEETINGS
The Alaska Redistricting Board intends to hold a meeting at its Anchorage office on
July 5, 2013 at 11:00AM ,
July 6, 2013 at 10:00AM and
July 7, 2013 at 10:00AM,
July 8, 2013 ( time to be announced) J
July 9, 2013 (time to be announced)
July 10, 2013 (time to be announced),
July 11, 2013 (time to be announced) and
July 12, 2013 (time to be announced, to adopt a final Hickel Plan.

All board meetings will be teleconferenced at 1-855-463-5009 and streamed at AKL.TV .
The Board's schedule thereafter is dependent upon the status of Section 5 of the VRA, which will determine if the Board's adopted Hickel Plan becomes the new final plan or whether further changes must be made to balance Alaska constitutional requirements with the requirements of the VRA, in accordance with the Hickel Process.

And there you have it.  I'm sure that this is getting old for the Board.  If it was fun once, it isn't so much any more.  And you can see from the last paragraph in the email that they are looking forward to the US Supreme Court relieving them of the pre-clearance requirement.  (Except Board member Marie Green who has worked hard to preserve Alaska Native districts in compliance with the VRA.) 
 

Redistricting Board Complies With Court Order, But Insists They Would Have Anyway, Not Because The Court Told Them To

On Friday June 7, the Redistricting Board met to discuss how they were going to proceed given a Superior Court ruling telling them to get moving and to hold hearings.  I've reported what happened at the meeting, but I've been thinking about what it meant and been trying to interpret what I saw and heard.  It's sort of old news, but it's not been said yet, so I'm putting this up for the record.  Which seems to me was a key goal of the Board at the June 7, 2013 meeting. Basically, it's my interpretation of what I heard with some rough quotes to support my assertions.  It's a bit tricky because:

• My notes are spotty and I don't have the official transcripts
• The comments weren't spelled out one by one - all were mixed together

It seemed to me that the Board was:

1. Upset by the Court telling it what to do
2. Trying to make a point that they were doing things (that the court told them to do) but they were doing them because they planned to all along, not because they had to.
3. They wanted to be sure that their new schedule and plans for hearings did not become a precedent for future Boards.
4. Therefore, they checked with their attorney that their legal right to challenge the Court's right to tell them how to do their job wasn't hurt if they proceeded with a new, speeded up schedule and public hearings.   (The attorney assured them they could preserve their right to appeal.) 
5. Putting on the record their response to things they felt were wrong that people seem to think about the board - We're not doing a bad job - problems are other people's fault

Things the Board was upset about:

1. The court setting their schedule
2. The court saying they had to hold public hearings
3. Faulty "public opinion" seemed to hold that
1.  That the Board had gerrymandered, when, attorney White told us in detail, that the court had found no evidence of that, and in fact so ruled
2. That the whole plan had been thrown out when, in fact,  only a few districts had been found to have problems

In past meetings, the Board - mostly Chair Torgerson - said things like "for the record" or "we can't say for the record too often."  Most notably on May 14, 2012. They didn't say that at this meeting, but it sure sounded like that's what they were doing.  Getting their side of things on the record.  You can hear the echoes from different folks.

Some examples:  [NOTE - these are not direct quotes, they're from my running notes of the meeting which you can see in their entirety here.]

Preserving Our Court Challenge While Moving Forward

The Schedule/Timelines -  We're doing them because we want to, not because the Court is forcing us to.

• Torgerson:   We could set a schedule and move forward, working on Hickel plan and following time line and at the same time pursue the appeal because we think the legal precedent is wrong.  
• PeggyAnn McConnochie:   I’d say, let’s set the schedule, it’s not because we are required to, but because we want to.  I don’t want any other board to have to deal with the stuff we have to deal with, without having some outsiders come in and dictate what we have to do.  
• PeggyAnn McConnochie - Motion to ?? they’re trying to impose timelines on us?  Is that right?  Riley Plaintiffs asked for a specific timeline and to hold hearings. 

My comment:  Well, at the previous meeting they had a schedule that had them done in January 2014 and now they have one and will be done July 2013.  It's hard to believe the Court had nothing to do with that.  

Public Hearings - Variations of "the court can't make us hold public hearings" and "but we want to on our own."

• Torgerson:  We never said we wouldn’t hold hearings, but making constitutional point it’s not required.  I personally think that public input is important and this Board thinks public input is important.  I recall PeggyAnn McConnochie and Marie Green working so hard to meet the public concerns.

•  PeggyAnn McConnochie:  McConahy [Fairbanks judge] says that public hearings are required on the Hickel Process.  If VRA is removed, then I’m not sure we would still have to do that since we wouldn’t follow Hickel plan.  .  .The Board is only required to hold public hearings on its draft plan, but not on its final plan.  Nothing after final plan is adopted. 
•  White:   It’s my understanding the Board always planned for public hearings anyway.  Waiting would only be for future Boards.  .   . [to challenge the Courts' ability to set the Board's time schedule so future Boards won't have to deal with this]
• White:  We will have public hearings because we want to, and reply to Monday’s decision.

My comment:  At the previous meeting they were saying there was no need for public hearings this time around, that they are only required in the first go around after the Census data comes in.  There was no mention, that I recall, of wanting to have public hearings at that Board meeting, because they were the right thing to do and not because the Court wants them.  But now the Board is embracing the idea of public hearings and that they always intended to have them this go around. 


SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT

• It's Not Our Fault and Setting The Record Straight

Torgerson:  Just because the Court doesn’t have time to do its job, not because we aren’t doing our job.

My Comment:   This is wrong on so many levels I don't know where to begin.  I'm guessing Torgerson is conflating time and process here.

• The Court said it couldn't do its job if they didn't have a plan that met the Alaska Constitutional requirements.  They needed this because their job is to determine if any deviations from the Constitutional requirements are the least necessary to meet the Voting Rights Act.  They need the first plan to compare to the second plan.  This did delay the Board's work because they hadn't taken the Hickel Process into consideration until the Riley plaintiffs argued it in their challenge and the Court agreed with them. 
  However, I'm willing to give the Board the benefit of the doubt when they first got this order and didn't quite know how to interpret it.  But they then went back to the Court several times asking, "You don't really mean this, do you?"  But that's not the issue here as I see it.
• The Board, instead of getting back to work and developing a Hickel Plan, decided to do nothing until the Shelby County v Holder opinion comes out from the Supreme Court.  They set up a very leisurely schedule that gave them about ten months (from March 2013 to January 2014).  The Constitution has the initial process getting done in 90 days, but doesn't talk about what happens after the 90 days is over and a new plan has to be done from scratch.  The Board interpreted that to mean there were no longer under any time pressure.  Given that whatever they do will probably be challenged in court, it seems to me that getting it done as quickly as possible makes sense.  If there is time leftover at the end, no problem.  That's better than not having enough time at the end.  And now the Board has a plan to get things done in about six weeks.  So why the nine months schedule before?
• The Courts have gotten their opinions back to the Board with incredible speed, with just one exception.  That was after last May's (2012) decision that allowed the Interim Plan to be used for the 2014 election.  Their next decision - to start from scratch - didn't come until late December 2012. And there I can't be sure how much of that was the Court's delay and how much was related to the filings of the different parties.

Saying that they're doing their job fine and that any problems are because the Supreme Court doesn't have time to do their job is, in my view, completely at odds with reality.

• Political Gerrymandering

White:  no political gerrymandering claim made in the filings.  In trial, Riley raised them.  I’ve looked at the orders.  Sept. 23rd order - there is not evidence in the record to find partisan gerrymandering occurred.  . . . It finds the allegations regarding political motivation are speculative, but not persuasive.
Later:  allegations that John, you said, political paybacks.
Court agrees with Board, that alleged gerrymandering unpersuasive.
Torgerson, Holm, and Bickford [all said they were] proud [of the Board's work] and not persuaded by partisan… and court finds this persuasive.
Made changes for Native districts, result lowest possible deviation.  p. 134 proclamation plan is not based on impermissible partisan . . .  Court ruled over and over again. 

My Comments:  You can prove political gerrymandering two ways:

• Revealing the intent of the Board 
• Showing the effect of the Board's work

To show the intent, one has to get inside the heads of the Board members.  One has to have recorded somehow their talking about designing the plan to put in more Republicans.  That's pretty hard to do.  Maybe you can show that there is no credible explanation for something except gerrymandering and the other side can't produce one. There was talk at public hearings about how in the previous redistricting, the Democrats had gerrymandered and switched many seats over to Democrats and thus it would be proper to just fix what they broke last time.  Is such a statement proof?  They would say that's just fixing past wrongs, not doing wrong this time.  And that was people who testified - if I recall correctly - not Board members.  So this avenue is almost impossible and the plaintiffs said they didn't try to do this.

Showing the effect - changes in the makeup of districts to favor Republicans and of the legislature after the election - can show a correlation, but you can't show the cause was intentional political gerrymandering.  The Board talked about many technical reasons that forced them to do these things.  [I use Republicans here only because the Board is 4-1 Republicans.  If it were switched, I say Democrats.]

But I was listening in to most of this and if some omniscient being were going to reveal the truth in 30 days, I'd wager a lot of money that Fairbanks and Anchorage were intentionally gerrymandered.  I watched them play with districts, such as splitting the two Fairbanks city house seats into two different Senate seats, and extracting Ester from the rest of Fairbanks and attaching it to the Bering Sea, and putting an Eagle River house seat into Bettye Davis' Anchorage Senate seat.  I know they can defend these moves, but I'm not at all convinced.  That said, as long as they can produce a Constitutional map that meets the VRA, they have a certain amount of freedom to do it their way.  No, the Court didn't find the Riley plaintiff's proof persuasive, but that doesn't mean there weren't some districts whose boundaries reflected ways to get more Republicans into the Senate. 

• Public believes the whole plan was illegal.  The whole plan never declared illegal.   Only two districts.  .

White:  Somehow [people believe] the whole plan was illegal.  The whole plan never declared illegal.  Specific rulings on specific districts.  SC said on HP by not following that, we can’t tell if you properly balanced between the VRA and constitution we can’t do our job.  Just a couple of districts - trial court said some issue on influence district, 2006 amendments and DOJ don’t rule out influence districts, SC you may want to look. 
Torgerson:  Told board this would just be an hour.
White:  Only two districts 32 in SE which we changed and SC said never mind use your original.  And 38 . . .. can’t keep up. 
Hear people saying things about illegal plan.  Only ten out of 60 challenged.  4 that were ?? and only 2 ????

Brodie:  Thanks for the clarification.  Keep reading that the plan is unconstitutional.  They didn’t say unconstitutional, only that they couldn’t see how we reached our conclusion.  I think we did constitutional.
PeggyAnn McConnochie:  I agree. It was constitutional and good to hear that from you Michael.

My Comments:  We could split hairs here or count the angels in a census bloc.  A few districts were found unconstitutional - not every district.  But the plan is either legal or not.  If just a few bad districts make the plan illegal, then, as I understand it, the whole plan is illegal.  Not all the districts, but the whole plan.

It's always hard to have a higher authority declare you wrong.  And there are plenty of situations where that higher authority IS wrong.  Two members of the Supreme Court - one liberal the other not as much - wrote a dissenting opinion on parts of the decision.  But, it's my understanding that by definition, what the Supreme Court says is constitutional is what is constitutional.  There's no instant replay here. 

As I said, this all sounded a lot like the earlier meeting when they were busy saying things just to put them on the record.  I think that's what this was all about. 


The Board's job  is not easy.  They have worked hard. They've done a lot of good things.  They particularly worked hard to get the VRA districts right.   Some members harder than others.  Some members seem to be more political than others.  But all this patting themselves on the back is counter to what I was taught at home is good form.  And declaring it rather than offering proof -  Attorney White did offer examples when talking about gerrymandering - isn't convincing.  There's a lot they could have done better and I've not been shy  about posting those things over the last couple of years. 


Blogging comment:  There's so much to blog about, I can't keep up.  There's the court order that came out June 10 which I'll try to get up soon.  The Supreme Court still hasn't published its opinion on Shelby County v Holder which will have an impact on the Alaska Redistricting Board, because some on the Board are counting on not having to deal with pre-cleariance any more if Shelby County wins.  We'll see.  Was today's Arizona case throwing out their law requiring proof of citizenship to vote an indicator that enough Supreme Court justices do understand the problems of voter suppression or was it decided on a legal technicality?  And Anchorage is still having warm sunny weather.  I can't remember such a long streak of such weather - but I'm sure that reflects my faulty memory.  I passed on today's meeting.  These working meetings are far more tedious than usual.  Lots of computer work and little discussion of what they are doing or what it means. 

Shelby County 2: Will the End of "Racial Entitlement" Help Republicans Win?

Most of the Alaska Redistricting Board is hoping that the US Supreme Court will overturn Section 5 of the federal Voting Rights Act when the decision on Shelby County v Holder comes out soon.  (Though one member told me it was disappointing to see that the State of Alaska filed an amicus brief for Shelby County.)   I've written about this case already here.

But I wanted to point out that getting rid of Section 5 likely, at least in the short run, give Republicans a boost in elections by making it easier to set up obstacles to voting by Blacks and other protected classes. 

The conservatives - particularly Scalia, Roberts, and Kennedy - seemed to be suggesting the standards used to determine which states were required to get pre-clearance for redistricting plans and other voting regulations is outdated.  The problem is over now, they say, and the states shouldn't be singled out above all the other states for special treatment. 

This is despite a report to Congress [I think the link is to the Report], but there's a small chance it's another report] showing that serious problems still exist, and Congress passing the renewal of the VRA overwhelmingly - 98-0 in the Senate.  390 - 33* in the House.

Listening to the oral arguments, I couldn't help but think that these are the same Justices who voted to cut off the Florida voting review process and declare George W. Bush president in 2000.  And I couldn't help but think of this quote I saw on Immoral Minority (from Huffington Post) from a Texas Tea Party leader the other day:

“I’m going to be real honest with you,” Emanuelson said. “The Republican Party doesn’t want black people to vote if they are going to vote 9-to-1 for Democrats.”

I'm sure that is true.  Why would they want Blacks to vote if they're going to vote for Democrats?  But voter suppression is what's supposed to happen in phony elections in dictatorships, not the USA.  But voter suppression was one of the tactics Republicans used in the last several elections - though their spin was to fight "voter fraud" which no one could find. 

As the decision in this case is imminent and it will affect redistricting in Alaska, I do want to point out a couple of points that came up in the oral arguments.  

Scalia and "Racial Entitlement":

"And this last enactment [the 2006 renewal of the Voting Rights Act], not a single vote in the Senate against it. And the House is pretty much the same. Now, I don't think that's attributable to the fact that it is so much clearer now that we need this.  I think it is attributable, very likely attributable, to a phenomenon that is called perpetuation of racial entitlement. It's been written about. Whenever a society adopts racial entitlements, it is very difficult to get out of them through the normal political processes." (p. 47 of the Oral Arguments transcript)

OK, entitlement is a bad word for Republicans.  It means, for them, you get something you don't deserve.  So, whatever "Racial Entitlement" is supposed to mean, the intent would seem to be getting something you don't deserve because of your race.  Prof. Peggy Macintosh wrote persuasively about White Privilege in 1988, but I don't think that's what they mean here. 

"It's been written about" caught my eye and so I googled 'racial entitlement' and found that others noticed that term when it was uttered back in February.  Rachel Maddow's research staff found that it was indeed written about, in a paper in 1979, written by one Antonin Scalia, called "Racial Entitlement:  'In Order To Get Beyond Racism We Must First Account of Race.'"  I know it's ironic, paradoxical even, that we have to take into consideration the idea of race to fight racism, but yeah, we do.  After hundreds of years of race being used to discriminate against people you can't make it all go away by saying today everyone is equal.  But that seems to be a lot of Scalia;s thinking on this. 

Apparently here he means that the 98-0 vote in the Senate means the members have no choice but to vote for it.  He uses this logic for why the Court should overrule this overwhelming vote for renewing the Voting Rights Act in 2006 (which President GW Bush was strongly supporting.)

"I don't think there is anything to be gained by any Senator to vote against continuation of this act.  And I am fairly confident it will be reenacted in  perpetuity unless -- unless a court can say it does not comport with the Constitution."

So, the Senators are spineless and afraid to vote against it because their constituents their constituents want it.  Therefore the Supreme Court needs to step in.  I don't hear him arguing that Senators afraid to vote for gun control, and therefore the Supreme Court needs to help out.  

And, in fact, 33* members of Congress were not afraid to vote against the VRA. 


Voter Turnout Shows Mississippi is Fine But Massachusetts Isn't

The logic of the Chief Justice:

CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: Just to get the --  do you know which State has the worst ratio of white  voter turnout to African American voter turnout?

GENERAL VERRILLI: I do not.

CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: Massachusetts. Do you know what has the best, where African American turnout actually exceeds white turnout? Mississippi.

Part of the formula in the law, for determining which states must get pre-clearance from the Department of Justice (DOJ) is percent of voter turnout.  But I would argue that his conclusion, today, that Mississippi's black turnout his higher than Massachusetts', is wrong.  It doesn't indicate the problem is over.  I would argue it indicates the opposite.

The formula that the Justice Department uses in calculating, in Alaska's case, "Native Districts"  includes factors such as whether the non-Native population votes the same way the Native population votes.  If yes, then the percentage of Natives in the district can be lower to meet the standards. 

And that's why you might see lower African American turnout in Massachusetts.  African American voters know their votes are not as important because the white voters vote the same way they do.    African Americans feel their rights are protected and have less concern about voting.  They know the party that will protect their rights will be elected if they vote or not.

In Mississippi, if African Americans don't vote, they know the White voters will vote against their interests.


This could be a lot longer because there is plenty to raise one's eyebrows in this case.  For instance, Justice Kennedy brought up the term "reverse engineering" to explain why ther VRA standards are a bogus way to give an after the fact rationale for picking the states they wanted to pick.  (Others argue that those standards are still a good proxy for the states that need to be watched most closely and the number of lawsuits correlates with that reasoning.)  But I just don't have time for more. 

This should at least get some people aware of the thinking of the Justices who are likely to vote in favor of Shelby County. 

Undoubtedly, removing the checks on states and localities who have traditionally discriminated against Blacks and other ethnic groups, is likely to increase the number of disenfranchised voters.  After the fact remedies don't unelect people who got elected by voter suppression.  

I would note, that some argue that the Voting Rights Act actually helps Republicans by packing all the left leaning protected classes into a few very heavily Black (or in our case Native) districts, thus getting Democratic voters out of other districts.  There may be merit to that argument (some Black representatives win 90% of the vote), but just getting rid of Section 5 (that requires pre-clearance of changes) seems to do more harm to Black (and Native) voters than good.   I need more time to think this through. 

 *House members voting against renewal in 2006.  

State	# of No Votes	Congress Members Voting No
Alabama	2	Jo Bonner (R-AL) Terry Everett (R-AL)
Arizona	2	Trent Franks (R-AZ) John Shadegg (R-AZ)
California	6	John Campbell (R-CA) John Doolittle (R-CA) Wally Herger (R-CA)  Gary Miller (R-CA)  Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA)  Ed Royce (R-CA)
Colorado	2	Joel Hefley (R-CO) Thomas Tancredo (R-CO)
Georgia	6	Nathan Deal (R-GA)  Phil Gingrey (R-GA)  John Linder (R-GA)   Charles Norwood (R-GA) Tom Price (R-GA)   Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA)
Iowa	1	Steve King (R-IA)
Indiana	1	Dan Burton (R-IN)
Louisiana	1	Richard Baker (R-LA)
Maryland	1	Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD)
North Carolina	2	Virginia Foxx (R-NC) Patrick McHenry (R-NC)
New Jersey	1	Scott Garrett (R-NJ)
South Carolina	1	J. Gresham Barrett (R-SC)
Tennessee	1	John Duncan (R-TN)
Texas	6	Joe Barton (R-TX) Mike Conaway (R-TX) Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) Sam Johnson (R-TX)  Ron Paul (R-TX) William Thornberry (R-TX)

 Lavender indicates former member of Congress.

"I don't think anybody would've done anything differently" - Killing Moose In Denali National Park

The Anchorage Daily News story "Air Force staff sergeant felt he had to shoot charging Denali moose" Thursday tells about a family hike near the entrance to Denali National Park. They encountered a moose that charged them.  The airman, fairly new to Alaska, says he reluctantly shot the moose in the head when he felt his kids lives were in danger. 

I thought about this as I stopped on the Chester Creek bike trail on the way home Friday afternoon to watch a moose grazing about 50 feet off the trail. 


Richard Mauer wrote in the ADN story:

"Sirvid said he realizes some people think he shouldn't have shot the moose."

"I just wish that they were there with me. I know there are some points of views out there, but I don't think anybody would've done anything differently," Sirvid said.

Actually, I would have done something differently.  I wouldn't have shot the moose because I wouldn't have had a gun.

Carrying guns in Denali National Park only became legal in 2010, so all these years people managed their encounters with wildlife in the Park without killing the animals.  When we first came to Alaska - 35 years ago - I looked up the history of bear encounters in the Park.  No human had ever been killed by a bear in the Park.  I had done a check earlier when I snorkled in Hawaii and realized I knew nothing about the dangers I faced.  I learned that world wide, at that time, about ten people a year were killed by sharks.  I decided my odds were better in the water than on the road.   

A Craig Medred story in the Alaska Dispatch says that the first human killed by a bear in Denali only happened last year. Denali National Park's FAQ's about bears says there have only been 23 incidents where bears have injured humans in the Park.

No one can say what might have happened if Sirvid hadn't shot the moose.  I'm not saying I know that no one would have been killed by the moose or at least badly hurt.  I don't dispute his story - how could I?  He was there and I wasn't.   But considering the number of people killed by moose in Denali over the years (I can't find any examples), the probability is that no one would have died.

I do dispute his comment that nobody else would have done anything differently, because most of the people who have ever gone to Denali never had that choice to make.  Because they came into the wilderness unarmed.

And if he weren't carrying a gun, he would have spent what time he had thinking about non-lethal ways to avoid the moose instead of whether he should shoot or not.

And Friday, after I watched the moose for a while, I continued on home through the sun and shadows of the birch lined trail.

Got A Little More Info On the Process From The Chair

Ok, after I put up that last post, where I posted some maps and confessed I didn't know what was going on, I talked to Chair Torgerson about the process.

He showed me on the Auto Bound software how you create a new plan and give it a name.  He pulled up a new blank map of Alaska.  Well, it's not completely blank.  There are lots of lines that he thought were various local boundaries or geographic features.  Everyone started with fresh maps. 

The techs weren't given any instructions except to just work on districts and learn the software.  He said they seemed to be having a hard time getting out of Fairbanks and Kenai, which seem to be the hardest places because of the excess population.  My understanding of that is this:  each district should be as close to 17,755 people as possible.  Fairbanks and Kenai each have enough for, I think five and three districts respectively, but then they have left over population for another half a district.  So figuring out how to use that left over population is the hard part.

[UPDATE: I got clarification on this later.  Kenai's population works out well to (I think) three complete districts.  But Kodiak needs population so they were experimenting with population from Kenai.  These are all very preliminary maps as the new techs are getting up to speed on this.]

Torgerson also said they were using a lot of approaches and coming up with unique options.

These working meetings are going to continue through the 21st of June.  Board members will drift in and out as their schedule permits.  I think there are three Board members here today.  I've seen Torgerson and Green, and I think Brodie is in the back working on his own maps.  Torgerson thought Jim Holm would fly down for tomorrow.  Yes, the Board members will work through the weekend along with Eric, but the other two techs - Ray and Erin - are off for the weekend.

The 21st is also the date that third party plans are due - by noon.  During the last process there were a lot of sample maps that people could see and comment on during this stage, if I recall correctly, but it appears that this time there won't be any until next Friday.

What Am I Doing Here? Some Maps As Of Now While I Try To Figure This Out

I didn't come in until 1pm today to watch the Alaska Redistricting board move pixels around on their way to a new plan.  It almost feels like the first meeting I came to and had no idea what was happening.  These are work meetings so there is a lot of silence and then quiet conversations. 

I still have a lot questions about how this is being done.  I don't know how the districts on these maps got to be the way they are.  Did they start from a blank map or from a previous template of districts?  I got conflicting answers yesterday.  I'll try to clear this up.

[UPDATE 3:30pm:  After I posted this I talked briefly to chair John Torgerson and got some answers to my questions about what is actually going on.  I posted that here.]

I did not make it the first day when, perhaps, they explained things.  But there is no one transcribing - which would be tedious because there are long, long periods of silence except for the noise of the cooling equipment.   Which will make it difficult to record.

They had a lot of districts and a lot of numbers on the maps.  I'm waiting for someone to walk outside of the working meeting so I can ask questions.

I'm trying to square what's happening now with what happened when they did this before.  I think much of what I'm seeing now happened in people's offices before the actual meetings.  Then at the meetings they discussed what was on the maps.  Now the three techs are in here at their computers.  Two of them are hooked up to projectors so you can see what they are doing on a big screen.  John Torgerson is in here too and asking questions, but unless I stand close, it's often hard to hear over the air coolers and the fans.  And it seems pointless.  Thinks like will they have to go to Anchorage to get enough people for Matsu and for Kenai.

"That makes sense if you pick up these pieces.  Are you into the Matsu here?  Or Anchorage?  Here's the borough.  What was your deviation?  4.8.  That green doesn't belong over here."

Not really too meaningful without being able to see the maps they're talking about, and even then, I'm not sure.

Anchorage is 16 (15?) districts . . .

So, I'm just going to give you some maps.  I'm not sure who is looking here and what they'd like to see.  In any case, this is a snapshot of where things stood mid-afternoon (before 2:30pm) June 14.  There will be some overlap because different photos covered different parts of the same area.

Statewide:

Double click any image to enlarge a little more

Western Alaska

Central Alaska area

Fairbanks area

Matsu area

Anchorage/Matsu areas

Anchorage area

Anchorage again from Ray's screen

Kenai Peninsula:

OK, that's what I have for now.  I did take some video which I'll check on later to see if the sound came out over the cooling noise. 

John Torgerson just walked in with Board member Marie Green whom he introduced to the techs. 

Anchorage Has More Summer In The Last Week Than All Last Summer

Or so it seems.

11pm returning from the airport Wednesday night after dropping some visitors for their trip back to Singapore.

 

Midnight  returning from the airport Thursday night after dropping a friend on his way to India. 

This week we've had six days over 70˚F and there are predictions of into the 80s this weekend.  A little warm for my blood.

As we head for the solstice next week, we gain less and less daylight per day - only 1 minute 24 seconds today, according to the ADN weather page.  Sunset at 11:39pm and sunrise at 4:21am. 

Former Redistricting Board Director Taylor Bickford Is NOT Coming Back To The Board

I posted on June 4 that the Board was going to rehire former Executive Director Taylor Bickford on a part time basis to help with the mapping.  When the Board went on hiatus after the Interim Plan was accepted last May, Taylor was hired as the Director of Alaska Operations with Strategies 360 - a PR firm whose Alaska office also includes former Alaska Public Radio reporter David Shurtleff and former state house member and gubernatorial candidate Ethan Berkowitz.

But Taylor wasn't here working on the mapping, so I contacted him to find out what the story was.  He told me that when he was first contacted by the Board to see if he could come back to assist, that he'd said he now has a full time job, that he could only do part time help, and that Strateiges 360 would have to be his first priority.  They hadn't yet signed off a final agreement and the possibility of conflicts of interest with clients became an issue that could become an issue for both himself and the board.  In the end, he told me, it didn't seem to be worth the potential problems for the small amount of time he'd be able to spend on Board work. 

So, Taylor is not coming back to the Board.  That's a loss for the Board.  Taylor has strong interpersonal skills and always seemed more sensitive to the needs for good communication with the public about what the Board was doing. 

Redistricting Board's GIS Techs Are Designing New Districts

The term "watching paint dry" comes to mind.  I'm just going to show you some photos of what's going on.  Basically, they are working with the Auto Bound Redistricting software to get some districts together.

The two new techs appear to be just trying to make things work, technically, without political consideration.  They seem to just be trying to get districts that meet the parameters - 17,755 people per district, compact, socio-economically integrated (though I'm not sure how they figure that from the data on the computer).

There are long periods of silence and then there's some discussion which is hard to catch on video because of the noise of the fans and coolers.

But here are some pictures so you can see what's happening

Eric working his computer which is projected on the wall behind him.

This is Ray doing the same thing.  He was working on Fairbanks here I believe.

I'll add some video below, but here's a sense of how they are doing things.  From the upper left image, Eric zoomed into the middle image, and then to the lower right image.  For the middle to lower right transition I'm not completely sure why there's a flat line on the bottom - maybe the angle continues, but it just got cut off at the bottom.

On the bottom of the screen are stats for the districts they are looking at. They can change which stats to see.  Here the columns are TAPERSONS (not sure, I think it's total persons); Target (this should be 17,755*, which is the total population divided by 40 districts to make them all equal);  DEV (deviation);  Difference (Actual number - Target);  PctNatWht (I think this is percentage of Native to White population - something needed to make sure the Board has maintained the Native districts to comply with the Voting Rights Act);  PctNatAB (percentage NativeAlaskan??); PctVANW (percentage voting age Native/White); PctVANA(percentage Voting Age Native Alaskan). I'm not 100% sure I got the names right, but enough for you to get a sense of things.

*I asked Eric why the Target column said 17,756 and he said something like, it was an adjustment the computer did and it would have to be reset to 17,555.  

So, each time they make a change in a district - like move a census bloc to a different district - these numbers can change.

These are the controls they have for making changes.

Every now and then there is some discussion.  The third tech, whose name I haven't gotten yet, switched computers with Eric, so her map is now projected on the screen.  When she moved over, Torgerson asked her some questions, like "why do you have that big thumb sticking out?"  Then he saw that it followed the river, which conforms to the principle of 

"Follow natural and physical geographic boundaries such as major roads, major arterials, rivers, streams and creeks."

At least on the river side, but what about the neighborhood on the other side?  That's one of the problems here - you can only use the census blocs and they may not fall the way that looks best.  

As I'm watching this, it seems more and more obvious that at least the first stabs at the districts should just be done by computer which would be infinitely faster than humans moving census blocs around.  Then people could eyeball the results for those kinds of things human brains can still see better than computers can.

The video is short - I spared you the long waiting for the computer to react to the click of the mouse.  It gives you a sense of what most of today has been like.

Fairbanks, Cordova, Kodiak - Board Working On New Districts

I took a break - it was too hot in here and nothing was happening and I had something else to check up on.  I ran into Board Member Bob Brodie in the hall way who said they were debating whether connecting Kodiak and Cordova would be considered compact or whether it would be better to pair Kodiak with part of Homer.  One would be more socio-economically integrated and the other more compact.  Figuring out how the court would interpret things.

They were talking about connecting Cordova and Fairbanks as I sit here.  But all of this is just playing around for now.   The new techs may know GIS but they seem to have lot of catch-up to do with redistricting. 

Board Attorney Michael White was in the room when I got back here, but he's gone now.  Back to Chair Torgerson and the three techs.

They seem to be getting ready for a lunch break.  They've shut down the projectors and are walking out. 

[I can't get the preview in Blogger to work now, so I can't see what the post will look like before I post it. But this is pretty short and no pictures so it should be ok.]