Trying to Understand Problems I See At The Alaska Redistricting Board

This post is going to look at problems I see with the Alaska Redistricting Board.  This is meant to be descriptive more than judgmental, though some would point out that the word 'problem' itself is judgmental.    I’m reasonably certain about the actions I am reporting on, but I’m much less certain about the reasons.   This was going to be a series of posts so I wouldn’t overwhelm readers.  Or myself.  But while separating them makes it easier to talk about them, they really are all tangled together. 

Key problems I see:

1. Public Access problems
1. The Board doesn't say much about what it's doing and why
2. The website - I’ll cover that in its own section, but basically things get moved, disappear, return, show up in different places, critical things don’t get posted,
3. The state public notice website - the Board's official public notice, the only one that make sure they keep up to date, is the state's public notice website.  This is site that most people have never heard of, unless they are regularly looking to get contracts with the state.  It's not a place that most people check out regularly, or even know exists. It's much more user friendly now than when the Board started, but if you google "Alaska Redistricting Board"  it doesn't show up in the first ten pages of results (I stopped there.)
4. One way on-the-record communication with public - The Board does not answer questions from the public on the record.  Board meetings have no public participation.  At public hearings the public has three minutes to say something.  The Board can ask questions,  Other than that,  it’s all one-way communication and no conversation.  People can ask the Board members questions during breaks, but anything that challenges what the Board is doing tends to be met with resistance.  Thus we don't know much about what the board is doing or why.
1. It's hard keeping track of what the board is doing
2. It's harder to understanding the motivation of the Board
3. It's hard understanding what the differences are between all the plans
5. When I asked a Board member about the disappearance of the court documents from the website, I was told that people should be able to go to the court websites and get them on their own.  The Board didn't need to do all that for the public.
   I know the Board likes to say they are by far the most accessible redistricting board in Alaska history.  And I've said before, that's not a high standard.  Besides, technology has changed radically in the last ten years so they should be the most accessible.  But I do appreciate the access I've been able to have via the Legislative Information Office and via telephone when the either the Board or I am not in Anchorage.
   
   
2. Changing rules about when plans are due, and lack of rules for approving them, etc.
1. The Board created seven plans.  Why?  Why not three or ten?  There was no public discussion of the purpose of the options or criteria for deciding which ones to keep or not keep.  They simply approved them all.     
2. The Board had a deadline of noon, June 21 for third-party plans.  They then voted to approve all three state plans plus one Southeast plan.  There was no discussion of criteria for approving plans. 
3. The Board then accepted more third party plans and posted them the day before the first public hearing.  There was no explanation of why they accepted plans after the deadline.  There hadn't been another meeting for them to change the rules or to accept more plans after the deadline.  It just happened. 
4. When the Board added new and amended third-party plans after the deadline, it was problematic because others might not have submitted a plan or made changes because they thought that a deadline was a deadline.  At the very least the other group to submit a plan should have been notified that adjustments could still be made.  So I contacted Gazewood & Weiner, who had also submitted a third-party plan but not an amended one.  I talked to Michael Wallerie.  I wanted to know:
1. If the Board had notified them that the deadline had been extended  [he said no]
2. If the Board had sent the amended and new plans to them [he said no, but Calista had sent them their plans, but AFFER did not]
   
3. The sheer number of different plans plus the Board's lack of information about each of their plans means the public has lots of data, but very little information.  The public hearing had seventeen plans for the public to read.  But there was no information about how the Board plans differed from each other or why. (This overlaps a lot with number 5 below.)
   
4. Problems with the Board’s websiteLet me preface by saying I've gotten a lot of important information from the Board's website. 
1. Keeping the website current has always been something of a problem.  But toward the end of the first round of creating plans, the website had begun to have useful information and much of it was fairly timely.  
1. New maps got put up quickly.  
2. There was a link with all the documents filed with the Courts.  
3. But it took a little longer than forever for meeting transcripts to get posted. When the last executive director left, the website went to sleep.
2. Information has disappeared, been moved, reappeared, and otherwise been hard to find
1. The list of court documents - a very useful feature - disappeared.  I think.  I recently found it again.  But I had complained about it to three different Board people and none told me it was still there.  There's now even a litigation document link on the main page, but it says 'updated 6/28/12'.
2. Old maps from the prior round disappeared - though links I had to them from this blog continued to work.  And recently I found the Amended Proclamation Plan in a new location.  
3. Board meetings, when they were announced on the website, were usually on the main page.  Recently I looked for a meeting announcement and couldn't find it.  Later I found they were on the calendar - not a bad place, except the calendar hadn't ever been used before. 
4. The best way to keep track of what's happening with the Board is through their subscription email.  That link is almost on the bottom of the right column on the main page. 
5. The website problems were mentioned in one of the recent Court orders and I was told that the Board had contracted with a website managing company to keep the site up-to-date.  This is positive, but they really need someone who understands the Board's process and what the public needs to direct how the website is used.  Making a user friendly website isn't easy.  The Board has different information scattered all over the place in different formats.  There is no one person any more who knows the process who is also managing the site.
    
5. Lack of discussion at Board meetings about their different maps, how they were different, why they had those differences, etc.
1. Third parties were asked to present their plans at the public hearings.  They were given 30 minutes to do this.  They tended to explain the factors that were important in creating their maps - such as keeping  the deviations low or respecting ANCSA boundaries - then they talked about why they made decisions to things the way they did.  They’d say, for example, we looked at splitting Matsu to connect with Anchorage here,  or we used the east side of Fairbanks for the rural district because the military are much more transient than the people on the east side and they don’t vote nearly as much.  
2. The Board has been doing this work for two years now and they need the Third party map makers to explain their maps to them. 
3. The Board had seven plans but they did not explain any of their plans to the public.  One person, Lois Epstein, an engineer who works with GIS, asked a couple of the Board members, during a break in the testimony, to explain the logic of their plan.  PeggyAnn McConnochie, one of the more technically savvy members of the board said they followed the Constitutional criteria.  Asked if she could be more specific, she told her it was too complicated.  The tone of McConnochie’s answer said, “Why are you asking me this?  This is an unreasonable request.”  I talked to Epstein right after that and tried to find out more of what she was after.  Basically, she wanted to know what criteria they programmed into the computer - was keeping boroughs intact the key one?  Or low deviation?  Or what?  I told her the ones I understood - equal population in each district, yes, trying to keep boroughs intact, compactness, contiguity, etc.  But as we discussed this I realized that covering this process so long had lowered my expectations.  That yes, the public was just as entitled, probably more so, to an explanation of each of the Board’s plans as the Board was to explanations of the third party plans.  I say lowered expectations because two years ago, I suggested on this blog that the Board needed to give the public more information about each plan so that the public would understand them enough to actually make comments that mattered.
4. This is not to say that a few organizations with the interest and resources to pay experts to follow this process closely, haven't been studying these things closely.
   
   In fact, the first time we all went through this process, the Board, at their meetings, did talk about each of the plans and why they were done the way they were done.  But that didn’t happen this time.  There was no public discussion of the plans.  They only voted to accept them all.
    
6. No discussion at Board meetings about what Section 2 of the VRA requires of them.  The Board has been holding off action in hopes that the Supreme Court would rule that Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act would no longer be in force, on the grounds that they would then only need to meet the Alaska Constitutional requirements.  
   Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act was invalidated by the Supreme Court recently.  Section 4 was the formula for determining which states and localities needed pre-clearance as required in Section 5 of the VRA.  Since the criteria are no longer in effect, Alaska and the other states that had been required by Section 5 to get pre-clearance no longer need to.
   However, Section 2 is still in force.  The Board doesn't need pre-clearance, but it does need to comply with Section 2.  If they don't, they can be challenged by the Department of Justice or by Alaskans in court.  Such a challenge could cause long delays.
   The differences between the standards for Section 5 and Section 2 are not completely clear.  I recently wrote in a post on this that it appeared that Section 2 required proving intent while Section 5 only required proving a discriminatory effect.  In the public testimony, Natalie Landreth of the Native American Rights Fund "pointed out to the Board that though Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act is not in force now, Section 2 is.  And contrary to some media reports Section 2 does not require intent.  It too is evaluated on impact on protected groups."  Board attorney Michael White agreed with her.
   But there's been no public discussion of this by the Board.  They've simply concluded they just need to meet the state Constitutional requirements and all will be well.  Something seems to be missing.
    
7. Disruption of the Voting Process
   
   Redistricting is necessary, because maintaining the one-person one-vote principle requires some adjustment as population changes.  The US Constitution recognized this and requires states to adjust every ten years.
   But this adjustment is disruptive.  New districts require citizens to learn new borders, often new representatives, and new polling places.  Generally redistricting boards should minimize these disruptions while they balance the other criteria such as one-person one-vote, compact and contiguous districts, etc. 
   
   Another disruption when districts are changed too much is that Alaska state senators, normally elected to a four year term, can be truncated.  That means their term is shortened and they must go up for election at the next election after redistricting.  19 of the 20 Alaska Senators had to run for election in 2012.  That was the end of four years for some.  But for others, it meant they had to run for reelection after only two years.  And then the Board determined which new Senate districts would have two year terms and which four year (so that terms stayed staggered.)  So some Senators could have been required to run for office three times in  in six years (2008, 2010, and 2012.)  I haven't looked to see if there are actually any senators who came out this way.  But if there are, with new redistricting, it's conceivable that a senator would now have to run again in 2014 AND 2016 if the Board doesn't pay attention to this. 
   For most states, this happens only once every ten years.  But because the Board failed to create an acceptable plan for 2012, they are making another plan now.  For the second election in a row, Alaskans will be confronted with new districts, and in some cases new representatives.  And State Senators again face truncation and having their terms set for only two years. 
   This has not been discussed by the Board, but it seems to me that when the Board creates the new plan, they should be working hard to minimize such disruptions by keeping the new maps, when possible, as similar to the old ones as possible to avoid these disruptions for voters that degrade the quality of their representation in Juneau.  And that degrade the intent that Senators have a longer term view because they get elected every four years instead of two. 
   It's important for voters to know who their representatives are, to establish relationships with them, and to know their district and polling place.  The quality of representation is better this way. As I recall this issue was discussed by the Supreme Court when the Board's case was before them.
   This hasn't been mentioned at all as the Board reviews plans this time round. 

Why are these things happening? 

I can’t tell you exactly because I don’t have access to enough information about what the Board members are thinking and what they say to one to another when others aren’t listening. [I'm not charging any hidden conspiracy here.  Board members - if only two are present - can talk to each other about these things.  If I were on the Board, I'm sure I would.]  So I don’t know for sure how decisions got made or didn’t get made.   But I can speculate and here are some possibilities:

1. It’s lack of resources
2. It’s incompetence
3. It’s the inherent conflicts in the task 
4. It’s intentional
5. It’s Group Think
6. It’s that Board members’ models of their job and their obligations are totally different from mine

I think that there are different reasons for different problems and that in each case it isn’t simply one or the other, but some combination of them.  And some problems exacerbate others.  For instance, not hiring an executive director means they don’t have the human resources necessary to keep the website up to date.  I think the board’s views of what public participation means also makes the website a lower priority for them than for me.

I'll go through these issues in another post. There is already way too much for people to chew on,

Immigration, Indians, and Voting Rights in the Declaration of Independence

Two issues that are still burning in the US today that caught my attention:
While rereading the Declaration of Independence, three of the 27 particulars the writers listed, caught my eye as of particular relevance as we celebrate July 4th in 2013.


Immigration

Item number 7:

"He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands."

The Founding.com a project of the Claremont Institute explains this desire for more immigration to the Colonies and England's resistence this way:

This charge relates to the King's opposition to various colonial laws passed for the purpose of encouraging immigration to America. The British government feared that such encouragement would reduce the population of England and lure away workers who would otherwise be employed in its domestic industries. In addition, the King issued orders that made it more difficult to obtain land by royal grant. Americans believed that one part of the unalienable right to liberty was the liberty to make use of property to provide for oneself and one's family. To that end, government should make unused land available to the people by homestead or auction, so that it can be put to use by their labor. The King, however, treated all land in America as his, to be granted or to be withheld from others at his pleasure, even though neither he nor his officers had expended any labor upon it. 

There are people who fear the influx of foreigners today and want walls to keep immigrants out.  Some of those same folk cite the founders and the 2nd Amendment as reasons for no laws whatsoever that regulate the possession of guns in the US. It seems to me that in the first case, they are, at least implicitly, saying that conditions have changed, while in the second, they are saying nothing has changed.  

I realize that the Declaration of Independence is NOT the Constitution.  My point is that times change and we need to adjust to those changes. The need for immigrants today is different than it was 200 years ago, and so is the issue of bearing arms.  I'd encourage these folks to loosen up on immigration and also loosen up a bit on guns.  Afterall, the founding fathers were all for immigration. 


Indians

Item #27

"He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions."

There's a screaming irony here.  While the colonists' representatives are complaining to the British King that they aren't being allowed to govern themselves and find their own path to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, they are mimic the King in their dealings with the people already living in the New World.  I'm sure the words for merciless and savage in the various Native American languages were frequently to describe their treatment by the European settlers. 

But there's more according to Founding.com:

The British had encouraged slave and Indian revolts against the colonists. For example, in 1775, Lord Dunmore of Virginia, swore to members of the Virginia House of Burgesses that if "any Injury or insult were offered to himself" he would "declare Freedom to the Slaves, and reduce the City of Williamsburg to Ashes." The governors of North and South Carolina also were planning similar uprisings. General Gage, commander in chief of the British army in America, tried to persuade various of the Indian tribes to attack the colonists.
In Jefferson's original version of the Declaration, this charge was followed by a long passage condemning King George for having failed to suppress the slave trade to America. According to Jefferson's autobiography, Congress struck the passage from the final version of the Declaration in deference to South Carolina and Georgia, who wanted to continue the slave trade with Africa.
This is the stricken passage: "He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the Christian king of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought and sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce: and that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people upon whom he also obtruded them; thus paying off former crimes committed against the liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another." [This continues here.]

Voting Rights

Item #4

"He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures."

 Just after the Supreme Court struck down Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act, which was aimed at preventing states from moving polling places to unusual, uncomfortable, and distant locations for the sole purpose of fatiguing voters into not voting, I see that these kinds of  practices were already well known in 1776.  In this case, the British set up legislative sessions where it would difficult if not impossible for colonists to attend and participate.  The point is trying to thwart an activity by making it hard to access.

Could You Tell An Egyptian (Or Anyone One Else) The Gist of the Declaration of Independence?

It's July 4th.  The day we celebrate American Independence.  Though, on that hot summer day in 1776, the signers were no more certain they would achieve their goal than the demonstrators in Tahrir Square in Cairo were a year ago or are today.  They were taking a risk, a big risk.  They didn't represent the majority of colonists.  And the last line of the Declaration reflects this:

"And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor."

Most Americans have either never read the Declaration or have only read it in school.  They couldn't readily explain it to someone.  I looked at it carefully last night and realized I too was guilty.  The quiz in the previous post was to tweak people into looking at the Declaration.  For those who had better things to do on this July 4th (hey, I'm teasing here, we all make decisions on how to spend our time), I'll give you a shorter way to engage this.  Here's a synopsis and, below, an outline.  Perhaps a few of you may want to look at the whole thing.

A Synopsis of the Declaration of Independence

Essentially the document says:

People have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  Governments are set up to ensure these.  When the government fails to do this, it's ok to overturn that government and set up a new one.  But this shouldn't be undertaken lightly.  We are not doing this frivolously and here is a list of complaints we have to support the justness of our decision.  They then list 27 items that they say they have petitioned the King over only to have the violations repeated.  They have also appealed to the people and legislative body of England only to be ignored.  So now they have no choice but to declare themselves independent as a nation. 

I've made the following outline of the Declaration.  Others will probably make different outlines as different points resonate with them more strongly.  I'd love it if people knew enough about the Declaration to point out where I've gone astray. 

An Outline of the Declaration of Independence

Paragraph 1.  There comes a time when you have to cut ties

• And when it’s only reasonable to give the reasons

Paragraph 2.  Our basic assumptions

• all men are created equal and 
• have certain unalienable rights
• Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness
• Governments, deriving their power from the governed, are the means to these ends
• When the government deprives people of these ends,
• they have the right to change or get rid of the government
• to institute a new one with principles and powers they think most likely to establish their Safety and Happiness
• Changing governments shouldn’t be undertaken lightly
• But after much abuse, it’s their right to throw off such a government
• That’s our situation, and here are the particulars:
• List of 27 items - basically dealing with
• Interference with the Colonies; legislatures, laws, rights to govern selves
• Interference with justice systems
• Bringing armies, inciting others (e.g. "merciless Indian Savages’) to plunder, ravage, burn,  and destroy
• Preventing immigration and blocking trade

Paragraph. 3.  Every step of the way we humbly petitioned for redress only to be answered with repeated injury

Paragraph. 4.  We’ve also reached out to our English Brethren, but they  too were deaf to our pleas

Paragraph  5.. We therefore, as representatives of these united States of America, declare

•     they are absolved of allegiance to the British crown and
•    all political ties are cut
•     As free an independent states
• the colonies have full power to
• levy war
• conclude peace
• contract alliances
• establish commerce
• and all things independent states have the right to do
•     We mutually pledge our lives and fortunes and our sacred honor.

In a third July 4th post, I'll look at a few issues that struck me as of interest today as I reread the Declaration.

Declaration of Independence Quiz - How Much Do You Know?

The Fourth of July is a good day to read the Declaration of Independence.  To tease you into doing that, here's a quiz.  

Declaration of Independence Quiz

1.  Which of these terms was not used in the Declaration

1.  Almighty God
2.  Laws of Nature
3.  Nature's God
4. The Supreme Judge

2.  Which of the following phrases is not in the Declaration Independence?

1. all men are created equal
2. all men are endowed by their creator with unalienable rights
3. of the people, for the people, and by the people
4. let Facts be submitted to a candid world

3.  Which word does not appear in the Declaration of Independence?

1. democracy
2. consanguinity
3. naturalization
4. savages

4.  What were the thirteen colonies?

5.  Which colony had the most people sign the Declaration?

6.  Which colonies only had one person sign?

7.  To whom did the Colonists plead their case (in vain) before writing this document?

8.  How many specific complaints did the colonists list?

9.  How many paragraphs are in the Declaration?  


Here's a link to the Declaration.  Using the find function you can find most of these answers fairly quickly.  But I hope you don't rush through it.  There's a lot worth thinking about. 

Are there folks reading this who don't know how to 'find' something on a webpage?

How to find something on a page in Firefox.

How to find on your iPhone?

Which Life Prolonging Intervention Would You Choose As The End Nears?

We're all dying.
We start that process when we're born.
Some of us are closer to the due date than others.
Some of us don't realize how close we are, because the statistics suggest we shouldn't die soon.
But things happen.
Others wait, impatiently, to die.
The increasing number of aches and pains and bodily failures that come with aging, are, I think, a way to make dying less disturbing.  Eventually, dying seems, if not a better option than living, then at least a reasonable one.
I'm thinking about this a lot because at 91 my mom would seem closer to her due date than most.
And while she worked, by choice, until she was 85, and has taken care of herself well, including driving on her own to the DMV to renew her drivers license just before her last birthday, things have been more difficult since then.
There are good days and bad.
Living in Anchorage makes it hard for me to look after her the way I feel I should.
Moving to Anchorage is not on her list of options.
Her caregiver is terrific and eases my conscience a little, but she's not superwoman.
I talked to Hospice folks yesterday.
Death is inevitable for all of us.  Handling it well is not.
My mom has always said she didn't want to be dependent on others.
So this chart and the article from The Dish were of some solace to me as we wander this thorny garden.

"When hypothetically on the cusp of death, physicians overwhelmingly decide against life-prolonging intervention, with the exception of pain medication."

Image from The Dish

Ventilation sounds particular gruesome:

First, few non-physicians actually understand how terrible undergoing these interventions can be. [Murray] discusses ventilation. When a patient is put on a breathing machine, he explains, their own breathing rhythm will clash with the forced rhythm of the machine, creating the feeling that they can’t breath. So they will uncontrollably fight the machine. The only way to keep someone on a ventilator is to paralyze them. Literally. They are fully conscious, but cannot move or communicate. This is the kind of torture, Murray suggests, that we wouldn’t impose on a terrorist. But that’s what it means to be put on a ventilator.

This, of course, is the hypothetical. When actually faced with a choice to let one's life go, I suspect many people have second thoughts. 

Think Paula Deen's Getting A Raw Deal? “Well, what I would really like is a bunch of little niggers to wear long-sleeve white shirts, black shorts and black bow ties, you know in the Shirley Temple days, they used to tap dance around.”

Paula Deen laughed and said “Now that would be a true southern wedding, wouldn’t it?  But we can’t do that because the media would be on me about that.”

The media accounts that I've seen on Paula Deen have focused on her admitting to long ago having said 'the N word' but that she really means no harm and she isn't a racist.  There's been sympathy for Deen losing so many business deals over this.  As though what she did was long ago, and simply reflected the culture she grew up with in the deep South. Today, she would have us believe, she is horrified at what she had done long ago and so very sorry.  Given that context, the many businesses cutting ties with her may seem extreme.    I decided to hold off writing about this until more came out.

StoneKettle blog had a link to the court documents from At Law blog listing numerous alleged instances of sexual, racial, and other discriminatory behavior at Paula Deen's businesses.  It's a PDF document I can't cut and paste from.

Although these are allegations, it's hard to imagine someone making up so many, so specific incidents and getting them this far in the legal process without their being some basis to them.  As much as people claim that there are false claims of racial and sexual discrimination and harassment,  these go way beyond simple or isolated incidents.  There are other court documents that were already up on Scribed, but in this one the allegations are clearly spelled out.

It is truly shocking to imagine that people are putting up with such behavior at work today.

Here are a few of the allegations, and I'm only picking a few and restricting my selection to racial discrimination, not sexual.   The point is to expose the timidity of the media in their handling of this case.

Note:  Bubba Hiers is Paula Deen's brother and the locations are all businesses under the Paula Deen business empire.

"52.  At Uncle Bubba’s restaurant, African-American staff persons are required to use the back entrance for all purposes, including picking up their checks.  they were prohibited from using the front entrance.

53.  African-American staff persons at Uncle Bubba’s restaurant are required to use one restroom that is in the back of the restaurant and is not the customer restroom.  White staff was allowed to use the customer bathroom.

55.  Ms. Jackson hired two African-American hostesses.  Their position required them to be stationed in the front of the restaurant.  Bubba Hiers complained repeatedly about one hostess being out front and she was later fired for allegedly stealing a white customer’s purse.  The police were called and the young woman was searched, but she was not arrested and no charges were brought.  Mr. Hiers demanded that the other African-American hostess be moved to a position in the back of the restaurant where she could not be seen by customers.

56a.  Ms. Jackson was meeting with a vendor in her office at Uncle Bubba’s restaurant when Bubba Hiers entered the office and slammed the door behind him, stating “I wish I could put all those niggers [in the kitchen] on a boat to Africa.” 

56c.  In Ms. Jackson’s presence Bubba Hiers said to his African-American security guard and driver, “don’t you wish you could rub all the black off you and be like me?”  the security guard responded, “I’m fine the way I am,” whereupon Mr. Hiers replied that ”you just look dirty, I bet you wish you could.” 

56e  In the presence of a vendor who traps wildlife (e.g., raccoons) and Ms. Jackson, Bubba Hiers stated, “you also got a bunch of coons in this kitchen you can trap.”  The kitchen was primarily staffed with African-Americans.

This is just the tip of the iceberg.  Here's the whole list which I found through  Stonekettle, who linked to At Law which had a link to the document which I put on Scribed so you could see it.  The allegations start at page 4. 

Jackson v. Deen Et Al. Complaint

Ranier and Columbia Sunsets

The connection was tight, but we got into Seattle 20 minutes early so there was no problem.  Just walked from the C terminal to the N Termanl train, and walked onto the LA flight.  My  only exposure to outside was getting on and off the planes and it was plenty warm there.   It was about 9 when we took off.  Here's Ranier glowing in the sunset rays.

A little latter we flew over the Columbia River reflecting the glow of the sunset. 

\

Board Meets In Fairbanks, I'm At Airport Headed South

I was able to listen to about an hour or so of the public hearing in Fairbanks this afternoon, but I was gathering stuff for a last minute trip to visit my mom.  She had some issues over the weekend and I just felt I needed to go down and check up on things.  The caregiver is there and as things change, I need to be flexible. 

Michael Wallerie presented the Gazewood & Weiner plan.  He acknowledged some issues in his plan, but said it was more "This is a demonstration that it is possible" to meet the Hickel plan. 

It seemed to me the people testifying had a better grasp of the plans and gave more details than a lot of the people who testified in Anchorage.  There weren't any people who sounded like they were sent in to make sure the numbers supporting a particular plan were good. 

These are the rough notes I took as I was making sure I had everything packed.  Like always, BEWARE, these are very rough, just to give you a sense of what was talked about.  They have a transcriber and at some point the transcription should be on the Board's website.

Rough Notes: 

12:35:
[It took me a while to figure out how to connect.  It said there was a number if I wanted to testify, but not just listen.  They turned out to be the same numbers. So I got in midstream and assumed it was Michael Wallerie, the attorney who represents the Riley Plaintiffs and who I heard via telephone in the Fairbanks court and saw when he appeared before the Supreme Court.]

Wallerie:  Using Borough lines
Boroughs designed to,…
Factor under state constitution
Integrity of Borough lines gets high integrity factor in Constitution
Every borough less than a district is in a single district.
Eery borough that has surplus population - is only split once.
Some discussions about that in the courts and we think the court made it clear, that the courts made it clear that preserving that representation is important. 

Biggest problem is treatment with Lake and Pen - if you look at our D38, the Aleutians are kept intact, but are pared with Dillingham area and Bristol Bay which raises issues of contiguity.  To maintain integrity of design of plan, it is possible to slip the Lake and Pen district in. . .

One of the problems is logistics of Kodiak B.  Surrounded by other boroughs, Lake and Pen, Kenai.  Trying to maintain the integrity and representation and rights of Kodiak and L&P.  This is a demonstration that it is possible to come up with a Hickel values.

Second part is to demonstrate the treatment of Fairbanks.
A&B - originally decided to ‘shed Democrats” out of Goldstream area.  That is no longer an issue any more.  Historically, never any ???  in litigation, putting Ester and Goldstream is probably not consistent with Constitution.  Justification for the Board was VRA and that is no longer a factor. 
Socio-Economic integration is an issue.
Way to deal with Fairbanks problem - ½ district surplus population.  We believe that board does not have discretion to assign parts of the borough willy-nilly.  A&B Ester and Goldstream placed with ??? region.  Problem with SE integration.  Our understanding of SE I - Math formula - A+B=C???
No question, rarely examine the issues in depth, because dominated over litigation.  Fairbanks is a hub and SE connections with surrounding areas.  True and not true.  Not about commonalities, but the economic interplay between areas.  Not about commonality, but about interplay. 
When we look at it - historically - transportation, health care, shopping, common media, educational services - lead to problems with A and B.  While Fairbanks is a transportation hub, people in Kaltag go to Fairbanks airport, but not ???
When go to Fairbanks for health go to Fairbanks hospital, not to Ester clinic.  Shopping in Fred Meyer and Sam’s Club.  People in Ester don’t go to Kaltag to go shopping and vice versa.  Family and ethnic connections.  Majority of people Ester and Goldstream are non-native and vote on urban lines.  They elected Rep Guttenberg.
In rural area, no question that Dick was the preferred candidate - shows these two groups in opposition.
Calista has problems with including Native groups that are not integrated with Ester.
Common media - Fairbanks most tv and radio systems.  Some outreach, but not Ester and Goldstream.  shared with Ester, but not a direct relationship between Ester and Kaltag. 

Ester and Goldstream have ,,,,, [break another phone call]

Borough ?? and your plan B
Prior 2010 in effect plan.  Configuration in Anchorage.  Where do we need to change the lines to reflect changes in population.
Our understanding that Sullivan and Ruedrich want to scramble the district.
Purpose to adjust the population and not to politically change the districts.
Posible to do whole plan D all basically, when you gt to Anchorage and adjust it for population, not to scramble a district to create new political situations, which has profound partisan implications.

If Board has questions. . .

Torgerson:  D39 - Yakutat to Nome? 
Wallerie:  Areas do follow regional boundary, but what we’ve done there is preserve the line that hsa been in effect since 1990 redistricting.  Line that divides the Ahtna region.  In your plan D? you don’t do that and may be a better option.  Ours is about demonstration.  The line was to accomplish VRA goals and not the Hickel process to say. 

Torgerson: Questions?
thank you very much for your presentaion

Wallerie:  And we look forward to working with you.

Torgerson:  We go into public testimony until 4pm, please limit yourselves to 3 minutes.  Please spell your name for transcriber.

John David Ragen?:  Going to read article in Fairbanks paper yesterday  From Ester.

Lance Roberts: 

Bolen?  Attorney From Fairbanks North Star Borough - goal oriented - interested in contiguity and SE Integration. 
Excess needs to be in non-road system should be in SE Integrated
B and Gazewood and Wiener plan work - put NSFB Borough into five districts and surplus into ok district.  Assembly will support any other plan that meets the same overall goals

Sorry, that's all I have for you. 

Bookshelf Porn

"Well-run libraries are filled with people because what a good library offers cannot be easily found elsewhere: an indoor public space in which you do not have to buy anything in order to stay. . ."

The quote comes from Bookshelf Porn, a website dedicated to the spaces we find books.

Sometimes I put up a list of some interesting blogs.  But this one deserves to have this post all to itself.  Picture upon picture of books and bookshelves.  And here and there apt quotes.   Definitely worth a visit.  Just click the link.

This blog also challenges how we think about what we mean by the word 'porn.' Why does it seem to fit here and what does it mean in this case? Does it just mean ;in excess'? And what does that do to our understanding of the traditional meaning of the word 'porn'?

Alaska Redistricting Board - What Happened Friday at Anchorage Public Hearing?

There's a 50 page analysis of what's happening with the Alaska Redistricting Board floating through my head.  Much too much for a post.  I'm hoping to find ways to reduce it to the most critical issues and explanation.  I'm thinking of a series of shortish posts, each covering a different point, though they all overlap to some extent.

Meanwhile here's my raw data from Friday's public hearings in Anchorage and two things that struck me Friday - the new emphasis on very low deviations and Randy Ruedrich's discussion of the source of AFFER's Anchorage map.   I'll talk about these at the end.

Other posts will look at what's not working right at the Board.



The Facts:

 Friday, June 21, 2013 at noon was the deadline the Board had set at their previous meeting for third parties to submit their redistricting plans.  It was also when the Board last met before the public hearings.  At that the Board meeting approved 11 plans:

• Seven Board plans (Options A - G)
• Three third party full statewide plans
• AFFER (Alaskans for Fair and Equitable Redistricting, essentially the Republicans) - presented by Randy Ruedrich, former Chair of the Republican Part of Alaska with a cameo role by Matsu mayor Larry DeVilbiss
• Calista (Bethel area Native Corporation) - presented by Calista attorney Marcia Davis along with the contracted GIS person, Steve Colligan, (who also did the Republican maps), and political consultant, generally Democratic, Tom Begich
• Gazewood and Weiner, representing the Riley plaintiffs (who successfully challenged the original plans in court) will be presented on Monday at the Fairbanks public hearing. 
• One partial plan
• Ketchikan's plan of Southeast that had Ketchikan in a district with the southern part of Prince of Wales Island

Thursday, June 27, 2013 the Board posted three more plans on their website

• AFFER revised
• Calista revised
• Calista 2

[NOTE:  All the plans, plus additional ones mentioned below, as I write this, are available on the Board's website here.  You can get the maps, the GIS files, and the population data.] 

Friday, June 28, 2013 - When the Board opened the public testimony, it was announced that there were still more plans. 

• Calista 3 (which I think they used in their presentation)
• Matsu Plan 
• South Lakes Community Council (Matsu) Plan

Each stack is a different plan

At the meeting there were piles of maps for each Plan - with Statewide maps and more
detailed maps of Anchorage, Fairbanks, Eagle River/Matsu, Kenai, Southeast, and Western Alaska.  Plus the deviation numbers for each plan. 

• Public testimony - began with three presentations by third parties
• AFFER - (Randy Ruedrich (former long time Republican Statewide chair) and David DeVilbiss (Mayor of Matsu)
• Calista - (Marcia Davis, attorney for Calista Native Corporation, Steve Colligan, GIS expert, and musician, (mostly) Democratic political consultant, Tom Begich)
• Ketchikan (I only caught "Dan," but the internet shows that Dan Bockhorst is the Ketchikan city manager, so that would be a good bet.)  They wanted the southern half of Prince of Wales Island.

• I took notes on testimony by 27 people, not in this order (links go to posts that gives a little fuller account of their testimony.) Some might quibble whether my gist of each person should be considered under 'facts.'  Maybe not:

• Roger Jenkins - neutral some good, some issues
• Peter Goldberg - Board doing great
• Kelly Walters - Board Incompetent need master
• Bruce Schulte - (phone)  Support AFFER
• Brian Blessington - questions about NE districts - Muldoon
• Lois Epstein -  Board needs to be professional, explain maps to public
• John O’Day (phone)- AFFER good
• Leila Weisz (phone) - Board should do its job, hire a director
• Jerry Ahwinona (phone) - Thank you Board for your service
• Pat Abney -  Comply with court orders, hire full staff, make maps more accessible
• Steve Strait - (phone?) Leave things like last election, AFFER great
• Hope Nelson (Phone?)  I like what we have
• Rebecca Kurtz (phone) Cuts my neighborhood - Airport Heights - in half, shouldn’t
• Deborah Williams - Include Rights Coalition.  No intact Matsu map.  No Analysis Hire a master to finish this.
• SJ Klein - (phone) Fairview Community Council - Fairview shouldn’t be split in half, a whole community needs single representative
• David Morgan (phone) AFFER map good for my neighborhood Rogers Park
• David Cobb - Valdez Mayor wanted Valdez connected to Richardson Highway
• Ernie Weiss - Aleutians East Borough
• Matt Ganley - Bering Straits 
• Natalie Landreth - Native American Rights Fund - Likes Calista map 
• Susan Olsen -? - Anchorage concerned Board process not good.
• David Nees -  ? -Cooper Landing shouldn't be with Anchorage (Senate)
• Sen Kevin Meyer - Likes AFFER
• Brian Hove - Likes AFFER
• Scott Hawkins - Likes AFFER
• Tom Klinkner - Attorney for Petersburg - Plan A good; Plan E not good
• Frances Bennet - Live in D19, like AFFER

[I posted more detail of their testimony as it was happening on Friday, June 28, 2013.  You can click on the links at their names.  Most posts include several presenters.]

The Third-Party presentations explained how they went about making their maps, which criteria had higher priority, and explained where they had problems and had to make decisions - like having to break up Fairbanks borough because it had excess population, but not enough for a whole new district, and where they took the population from and why.


For now, I'll limit my comments to two things that caught my attention Friday:

• Keeping Deviation Low
• Ruedrich's Comment on The Source of the AFFER Anchorage Map

Keeping Deviation Low -  Deviation refers to each district's number of voters more or less than the ideal sized district of 17,755 (The 2000 Census reported Alaska state population divided by 40 districts.)   AFFER and Calista emphasized the low deviation their maps had - below 1.5%.  The basic idea is that if one district is much bigger than another, then the people in the big (by population) district have more people per representative than the people in the smaller district. Calista's deviations show their smallest district with -142 people and their largest with plus 168 - a difference of about 300 people from the biggest to the smallest.

But low is a relative term here.  In the previous round, the deviations for the state were much higher and the absolute maximum - only to be approached if there was no other way to meet the other criteria - was 10%.

I just got concerned here about the sudden sanctity of extremely low deviations.  This is good, but only if other issues are NOT being sacrificed.  Like keeping cities and boroughs intact.  Like not splitting neighborhoods like Fairview and Airport Heights.  I kept wondering what I wasn't being told about the other criteria as they kept emphasizing low deviations.

Again, the lower the better, all other things being equal.  But a statewide 5% deviation was well within the acceptable limits the first time around, and there's room for a little more deviation if needed to keep communities together in districts.

One reason that the plans can have such low deviations is that the planners are no longer worrying about pre-clearance from the US Department of Justice.  However, although Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, which calls for pre-clearance for Alaska,  is still in tact, Section 4 of the Act has been invalidated by the US Supreme Court (in a 5-4 decision) because they didn't think the formula for determining which states should get pre-clearance was any good today.   This despite the fact that it was renewed in 2006 by 98-0 in the US Senate and 390 - 33 in the House. Until there are new criteria for Section 4, there won't be any states required to get pre-clearance.

However, Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act still stands and still protects Alaska Natives from having their access to voting curtailed.  So, even though pre-clearance isn't required, the Board can be sued if there is retrogression that cannot be avoided because of loss of population or other such justifications.

That said, Calista is a Native Corporation and they say they consulted with other Native Corporations.  One would hope that means at least their maps will be consistent with the Voting Rights Act.  And their deviation is low too. 


The Source of the AFFER Anchorage Map - When Randy Ruedrich got to talking about Anchorage he said:  (from my rough notes)

Anchorage map product of mayor's office, Assembly work group, Clerk.
From Girdwood to north of Muldoon, no change. 

The point he was making was that they just took what Anchorage had made for themselves.  But I recall two years ago when it came out that the Anchorage map was one that AFFER gave to the mayor.  He approved it.  Debbie Ossiander, then the Assembly Chair, testified that the Assembly approved it.  But it turned out that other Assembly members had not seen the map, let alone approved it.    It's probably not a big deal, but to someone without the history, it would seem like the AFFER group had nothing to do with the Anchorage maps, they came from the Assembly and Mayor and Clerk.  But, the way I heard the story, AFFER gave Anchorage the map in the first place.