Some Reasons Why The 2 Eagle River House Districts Should Be Paired And The East Anchorage/Muldoon Districts Should Be Paired

 The Alaska Redistricting Board is on the verge of NOT pairing the two Eagle River house districts into one senate districts, and not pair the Muldoon east Anchorage districts into a senate district.  Instead, when the got a sense of the Board, it was 3 (Marcum, Binkley, and Simpson) - 2 (Bahnke and Borromeo) to pair one ER district with JBER and the other with the northeast Muldoon district.  Here are a list of reasons why that's a bad idea.

1. The key argument made for pairing the two ER house districts with JBER and Muldoon was the common Socio-economic Integration (SEI is one of the state criteria for districts)  of having active and retired military in those areas.  There were no numbers provided - just “a lot”.  In fact, there are retired military and veterans all over Anchorage.  There are other SEI factors like income, ethnicity,  and lot and house size that shows these districts are not SEI.  

2. There is no shortage of support for the military in Alaska. They have discounts at most retail outlets.  They have discounts at the DMV, at the University of Alaska.   There's Veterans Preference for jobs,  tax credits for employers who hire vets, and discounts for fishing and hunting licenses.  Discounts at state parks and on the state ferries for disabled Vets,  and discounts for all vets on the Alaska Railroad.  They have a special lounge at the airport.  Everyone loves veterans.  

3.  20% of the Senate is made up of people who have served in the military, though veterans make up 11.9% of the adult population. There are  at least four more in the House.  And there are committees for Veterans Affairs in the House and  Senate.  Plus there is a State Department of Military and Veteran Affairs.  There is no shortage of support for veterans.

4.  There are no Hmong, Samoan, Latino,  Somali, Korean Senators or representatives in the Alaska Senate or House.  These are the people who suffer the most discrimination and are more likely to be in lower income levels.  Their voice is diminished by these pairings, while the military is already one of the most favored populations in Alaska.

5. Although the ER-East Anchorage pairing might seem contiguous, the vast majority of people in the ER district live eight or more miles from Muldoon, while the two Muldoon districts are small enough together to walk across in a couple of hours.  And the populated areas of the two ER districts are far more compact than the ER-Muldoon district.  It seems that some Board members emphasize compactness when that favors their interests, deviation when that does.  They tell us that all of Anchorage is SEI so it doesn’t matter within the Anchorage Borough.  But now their key argument for these Senate pairings is SEI of the military population.  And they even said out loud that this would create two ER Senate seats.  And we all know ER is far more Republican than East Anchorage.  Eagle River's two Assembly members are much more conservative than the East Anchorage Assembly members.  [SEI = Socio-Economic Integration, one of the State requirements for districts.]

6.  While the point was made that ER and JBER folks shop in Muldoon, Muldoon folks are far less likely to go to ER or the Base to shop. And if they aren’t connected to the military, getting on base is a hassle.  

7.  East Anchorage, along Muldoon has a bustling and diverse community that works together.  There are many people of color and immigrants in that area.  Splitting them up and pairing them with the predominantly white ER weakens their representation and violates the spirit if not the letter of the VRA.  

9.  Last redistricting round, the Board paired an East Anchorage district with an Eagle River district for the Senate pairing.  The result was that the only African-American state Senator lost her next election.  This was not an accident.  And it appears the same sort of gerrymandering is being attempted with these ER and East Anchorage districts again to the detriment of very underrepresented populations.   

Please pair the two ER districts together and the East Anchorage districts together. 

The Alaska Redistricting Board's Dramatic Pleas For Military Voters And JBER's 3.5% Voter Turnout [Updated 8/31/22]

The Republican majority of the Alaska Redistricting Board created elaborate stories to justify pairing a Muldoon house district with Eagle River.  When that was rejected by the Alaska Supreme Court, they made even more passionate pleas to keep JBER with Chugiak in a state senate district.   It was mostly about the military connections,  and how the holy soldiers would be deprived of their representation if paired with the unholy (read: Democratic) downtown. 

Simpson:  "The most partisan is the proposed pairing of JBER and downtown.  This would diminish the voice of our valued military personal.  I can’t accept that.  I will vote for 3B."

Simpson: "I find the pairing of 23 and 24 ER and Chugiak the more compelling solution.  Pairing JBER with downtown overlooks a conflict of interest and opens us to a challenge to that constituency.  Chugiak has developed as a bedroom community for the military families.  They send their kids to middle school and high school there.  That testimony was compelling to that pairing."

Marcum:  "I’m very uncomfortable with Option 2 because it moves JBER and links it with D17.  It makes the least sense for any possible pairings.  Downtown is the arts and tourism, not what makes up JBER.  It is used to wake up the military community.  Choosing option 2 is an intentional intent to break up that natural pairing.  JBER should be with Chugiak" [note, these were my notes and I suspect I missed some words, but I did get the tone and intent correct.] 

Marcum:  "I would like say on behalf of our military.  Implications for military will be major.  Dominated by downtown voters.  JBER voice will be lost.  Ironic that those who have sacrificed the most."

You can see each of them and Member Binkley on the video on this blog post.   

[UPDATED August 31, 2022:  I knew I had their comments and my responses somewhere, but couldn't find them when I wrote this.  They're in this post - at the end.  My comments are in red which should make that section easier to find.]

So, let's look at that lost voice.  .   Here are the results from House District 18 for August 16 primary election.  Those brave soldiers barely whispered

 

Note that the JBER precinct has 7,528 registered voters out of 12,157 voters total.  That means they comprise about 60% of the voters in the district.  Yet only 277 JBER precinct voters actually voted out of 1184 total votes.  Although they are 60% of the total voters, they were only 23% of the people who actually voted.  The State's chart shows that only 3.68% of JBER voters voted!

The military tend not to vote.  All the candidates with parts of their district on base know this.  The fact that campaigning on base is difficult - candidates aren't allowed to go door to door for example - doesn't bother candidates too much because the military tend not to vote in large numbers.  Particularly for state offices.  (I haven't found the precinct by precinct stats for the US Senate or House races which might have gotten a slightly higher percent of JBER voters.)

So all the theatrics by Budd Simpson, Bethany Marcum, and to a lesser extent John Binkley about how JBER needed to be paired with Chugiak so they could be fairly represented and not, God forbid, with downtown, was just that - an act to capture one more Republican state senate seat.  

Fortunately, the Alaska Supreme Court saw through the dramatics, thanks, in large part to minority Redistricting Board members Melanie Bahnke and Nicole Borromeo.  

Board Approves Senate Pairings

Continued from the previous post on the Monday afternoon session.  NOTE: All the district numbers they used are subject to change as they try to make the numbers go in some sort of sequential order around the state.

2.  They made their Senate pairings (that is they decided which house districts were to be paired as Senate districts.

Southeast Senate Districts:

Double click to enlarge

Districts 3 and 4.  They decided it made sense that the two districts that have Juneau in them should be one Senate district.   So districts 3 and 4 (I think 3 is downtown Juneau and south of Juneau and 4 is the Mendenhall Glacier area and north.) {Egan}

Districts 1 and 2.  With Juneau paired, you have only one other pairing left.  They mentioned that this pairs incumbent  Senators Kookesh (D) and Stedman (R), but this is unavoidable because they had already put them in the same House district.







Fairbanks Senate Districts

Fairbanks
Board member Holm:

It's a little better if you click on it

7&9 {Pairs Democrats Paskvan and Thomas}
8&12  {empty?}
10&11 {Coghill}

From my written notes:
Holm: Overwhelming reason for two pairings: 10&11 both have military contingent
7 goes out to Bush area, a little different from 9, but fits together well - people in Farmers’ Loop area.
8 really doesn’t have any connection with anyone down the valley, so it makes sense to put it with 12 - (the Valdez district)
Adding 2500 people to Fairbanks changes things. Used to be split.
Still have five districts - 8 connected to 12
Doubles up Thomas, I think, is in seven. Not sure where 8 goes. I think Paskvan is in 9
Coghill is in 11, nobody in 10.
No one in house district 8. Whose the Sen from Delta?
Torgerson: Coghill - 12 and 8 will be a new Senator.
Essentially, two truncated. How did that work.
Torgerson: I’ll point out, 12 is the Valdez district. A little outside of Fairbanks.
Holm: They’ve been paired for a long time.
Brody: We voted not to consider Senators in our discussion. What are the plus and minuses of having a vacant district or each one having a district. [No one picked up this discussion.]
5-0 yes adopted.

Double click to enlarge

Matsu Senate Districts
Matsu
3:57
Torgerson:  Testimony was to put Wasilla and Palmer separate.
15 goes with Anchorage 19 - split district with Anchorage
14&17 - Palmer to rural Matsu
13&16 - Wasilla/Big Lake/Pt. McKenzie
If they want to be separate - overwhelmingly. 
Brody:  Bothers me with the odd numbers above and below Anchorage.  Rational way to hook odd number of Kenai to Matsu?
Torgerson: If rational no.  If a way?  yes.

I'm not sure how this affects incumbent Senators. [Update June 7:  Phil Munger in a comment below says Menard is in 17 and Huggins is in 14.]



Kenai Senate Districts
I'm not completely sure about the Kenai districts.  The maps aren't too helpful.
5 and 6  are paired.  I believe this is Kenai and Soldotna going on down to Homer. {Wagoner}
34 (North Kenai Peninsula and the road all the way to Seward) & 33 (South Anchorage) {Giesel}
I don't know how this affects incumbents.

Anchorage Senate Districts

My understanding is that Chair Torgerson worked on these with the staff.  Using AFFR's map with Anchorage incumbent locations, I'm guessing at the incumbents in each district.  Don't bet on the incumbents, that's speculation.

• 21/18 Majority of Muldoon with Eagle River (dark green) {Davis - ER possibly Dyson?UPDATE: No, I'm told there is no pairing here, just Davis.}

  

  Click to enlarge - names are community councils

• 20/23 - Russian Jack/ Elmendorf  (yellow) {Wielechoski?}
• 22/32 (Abbot Loop Mid Hillside, Huffman/O’Malley (puke green) {Meyer?}
• 24/25 - downtown (blue){Ellis}
• 26/27 Midtown/UMed/Campbell Park (Brown){empty?}
• 28/29 SandLake/Lake Turnagain (pinkish - north and south of the airport){ French?}
• 31/30Taku and Bayshore/Klatt (burnt orangish){McGuire?}
• 33/34 (Hillside-South Anchorage/Kenai Peninsula to Seward) {Giesel}

Native Senate Districts 

39/40 Nome/North Slope {Olson}
37/38  Aleutians West-Bethel/Wade Hampton-Matsu-Denali-Fairbanks {Hoffman}
35/36  Kodiak/Bethel-Dillingham {Stevens}



Here's some speculation on the Senate incumbents who I think are paired:

Southeast:  This one appears unavoidable, at least given the House districts they created. Stedman and Kookesh live in the same district - though people say that Stedman has two houses each in a different district.  With the loss of a House district, this is hard.  Since Kookesh is Native, it may raise issues with the Department of Justice.





Fairbanks:  They've paired two Democratic Senators while there is a vacant Senate seat nearby.  Seems they could have figured a way to work this out if they had wanted to.

Anchorage:  Bettye Davis, a Democrat and the only African-American in the Legislature has been paired with the Eagle River district.  [UPDATE June 7:  I've promoted Stoltz from the House to the Senate - sorry, it was late last night when I finished this - and I was told today that Dyson lives the current 19, so there was no pairing of Sen. Bettye Davis with another incumbent] in I don't know where the Eagle River/Chugiak Senators live, but since Tom Stoltz is from Chugiak, I'm guessing he's in the district paired with Matsu and that Davis is paired with Fred Dyson (R.)  Eagle River has been a pretty safe Republican area.  There is an open Senate district not far from Davis' Anchorage district, though the lines would have had to have been drawn differently to make them contiguous.  I'm assuming the two Eagle River districts were not paired because each has a Republican Senator. 

A lot of Republicans would like to see an end to the even split in the Senate that has led to a coalition majority there.  (For that matter Democrats would too, but the other way.)  These Senate pairings would seem to make it a little harder for Democrats to maintain their ten seats.

Trump Undermining Military Order - Firing His Own Appointee, Navy Secretary Spencer [Updated]

The president of the United States has intervened in military justice and fired the Secretary of Navy, a person he himself appointed over a Naval justice system case with which he disagreed.  Here's a little background that I haven't heard on the news blurbs I'm hearing at NPR.  Ultimately, this is one more sep onTrump's part to weaken the US internationally, by weakening the US military.  How many rogue military will disobey their officers with the hope of support from the president?

Eddie Gallagher had become, apparently, a right wing cause.  He'd been found innocent of murdering prisoners of war, but guilty of taking a picture with a dead prisoner.  There were problems in the case according to the Navy Times and the LA Times. 

[UPDATED Nov 25, 2019 11:57am] However, other Seals testified against Gallagher - something I suspect is uncommon - though ultimately their testimony wasn't convincing because they didn't actually see him pull the trigger.  Here's description of that testimony.

I tried to find some of the Free Eddie Gallagher websites, but several had been corrupted.

Forged a website aimed at veterans has a t-shirt for Gallagher with this description:

"Chief Eddie Gallagher is a highly decorated Navy SEAL with over 19 years of honorable service to our country. On September 11, 2018, he was separated from his wife and children, and locked up in pre-trial confinement in the military brig. On July 2nd, Chief Gallagher was found NOT GUILTY of all charges, except unlawfully taking a picture with a dead ISIS fighter. Although Chief Gallagher is free, his battle is not yet over. He and his legal team are still fighting for his right to retire with a full pension and benefits.

#FREEEDDIE features the Forged Frogbones, one of our classic designs which has always been, and will forever remain deeply rooted in the Navy SEAL Brotherhood.

Please join us in our fight to #FREEEDDIE! Chief Gallagher deserves justice.
*All proceeds will be donated to the Navy SEALs Fund - Brotherhood Beyond Battlefield (501c3) Justice for Eddie Gallagher Support Fund"

Navy Secretary Spencer is a marine veteran and was appointed by Trump.  Defying the president is a major action here and clearly suggests a serious breach between Trump and the US military.  That's pretty serious.  And one more move that helps Putin by weakening the morale of the US military.

Here's from Wikipedia's post on Richard V. Spencer:

"In June 2017, President Donald Trump nominated Spencer to serve as the 76th United States Secretary of the Navy Spencer was confirmed by the United States Senate on August 1, 2017. He was sworn in on August 3, 2017 and served until November 24, 2019.
On July 15, 2019, he assumed the duties of acting Secretary of Defense and expected "to continue to serve in this role until a Secretary of Defense nominee is confirmed by the Senate and assumes office. At that time, I will continue to serve as Secretary of the Navy." He assumed the duties of Deputy Secretary of Defense on July 23, 2019.
Born in 1954 in Waterbury, Connecticut, Spencer attended Rollins College as an undergraduate, majoring in economics. After graduating, he joined the United States Marine Corps, serving as a Marine Aviator from 1976 to 1981.
After leaving the Marines as a captain, he worked on Wall Street for 15 years, holding positions at Goldman Sachs, Bear Stearns, Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette, A. G. Becker, Paine Webber and Merrill Lynch. Spencer served on the Defense Business Board, a Pentagon advisory panel, from 2009 to 2015 and on the Chief of Naval OperationsExecutive Panel. During his time on the Defense Business Board, he proposed shutting down domestic military commissaries in favor of negotiated military discounts at public retailers.

Legislative Stats Update: House 420:40 Senate 308:26 Both 728:66

	HOUSE		SENATE		TOTALS
	INTRO	PASSED BOTH	INTRO	PASSED BOTH	INTRO	PASSED BOTH
Bills	420	40	308	26	728	66
Joint Res.	53	16	29	6	82	22
Concurrent Res.	22	6	16	5	38	11
Resolutions	15	10	10	6	25	16
Special Con. Res.	0	0	0	0	0	0

[These numbers come from BASIS bills statistics, Wednesday afternoon, March 24.]

So we still have an 11 to 1 ratio between bills introduced and bills that have passed both houses.

Let's compare with two weeks ago:
March 24: House 420:40  Senate 308:26  Both 728:66
March   8: House 412:38  Senate 302:26  Both 714:64


You can click on the committee links to see which bills they have to hear.  
[These numbers come from BASIS-Bills-Bills in Committee]

Finance - has 80 House Bills to deal with (plus 17 more resolutions and Senate bills)
[On 3/9 they had 72 bills]
Resources -39 [3/8 - 38]
Health and Social Services - 34 [41]
Labor and Commerce - 33 [35]
State Affairs -32 [37]
Rules - 25 (plus 15 more resolutions and senate bills) [21] (Note: Rules is the last stop before going to the House Floor)
Judiciary - 21 [28]
Transportation -18 [25]
Education - 16 (also not counting Senate Bills) [20]
Community and Regional Affairs 14 [19]

Energy -13 [15]
Fisheries -11 [15]
Military & Veterans' Affairs -1 [1]
Econ. Development, Trade & Tourism - [1]



I've learned that it usually helps to check things out before jumping to conclusions.  So while I often conjecture, I try to leave the conclusions open ended.  I did talk to the House State Affairs staff and the chair briefly to see why they have 27 bills, but Thursday they are only going to start at 9:30am (instead of the regular 8am) and they will only hear one bill, Sen. Menard's SB 43 to add a second verse to the Alaska State Song.

The answer was interesting.   Two common reasons bills are never heard - at least in State Affairs - are

1. The sponsor hasn't asked that they be heard.  They may have 27 House bills, but for most of them, the sponsors haven't requested that they be heard.  Chair Rep. Lynn says he won't hear a bill unless the sponsor requests it.  
2. There may be several bills on the same topic.  For example, there were three House bills on campaign expenditures in response to the US Supreme Court decision on Citizens United, and one from the Senate.  The bill that passes in its body's chamber first is the one that goes on through the other house. So, if the Senate version of a bill passes the Senate before the House version passes the House, the House bill gets dropped and the Senate version is the one that goes on.  And the Senate bill's sponsor gets credit if it becomes law. 

That got into a long discussion of why people introduce bills, a discussion that I'll save for later.  But the point here is that State Affairs is pretty much up to date. The key point though, in some cases there are good reasons why a committee may have a lot of unheard bills, or that a lot more bills are filed than are passed.

That's not to say that sometimes Chairs simply sit on bills they don't like to kill them and other such things. But there are also valid reasons.

AK Redistricting: About that 2002 Eagle River to South Anchorage House District Singer Keeps Talking About

 The Supreme Court Docket for the Redistricting case is adding new documents.  

The Board has two major documents.  

• Motion to Stay Trial Court Order; Motion to Expedite Consideration of Motion to Stay
• Petition for Review

The first document is seven pages.  The second is an expansion on the first document and is 47 paged.  

I've read the first one fairly closely and skimmed the second one.  In this post I want to make two observations.  

From the Motion To Stay Trial Court Order

Throughout the redistricting process and again in the court hearings, Board majority members and Singer have insisted that previous court rulings have affirmed the constitutionality of combining Eagle River and South Anchorage/Hillside in a single district.  So this time I took Singer's quotes and checked on that Court decision he cites.  As I read it, the claims are exaggerated and misleading.  Let's look.  

Singer writes:

"Unlike the prior round of litigation, where the superior court identified regional

partisanship in pairing South Eagle River with South Muldoon, the superior court

departs from the framework it previously adopted with a rambling decision that fails to

articulate what a constitutional “community of interest” is or a legitimate basis for

invalidating a district that this Court has previously held was compact, contiguous, and socio-economically integrated.7"

So, let's look at Singer's footnote 7.

"7 As Judge Rindner observed, "respect for neighborhood boundaries is an admirable goal," but "it is not constitutionally required and must give way to other legal requirements." Therefore, the districts containing the Eagle River area are not unconstitutional in any respect." 

First, Judge Rindner was NOT talking about 2021 Senate District F. He was talking about 2002 House District 32.  We'll get back to this point shortly.

Second, Singer ignores the implications of "must give way to other legal requirements."  In the 2002 case, those other legal requirements were about having deviations that were too high.  So, while neighborhood boundaries are "an admirable goal," if they mean the district has too high or too low a deviation, then you have to find other alternatives. In 2002 deviation meant neighborhood boundaries needed to be sacrificed. In the 2022 case, those other legal requirements include no partisan gerrymandering.  

Singer continues:

"The superior court also ignores In re 2001 Redistricting Cases, where this Court rejected attempts to Balkanize the Municipality of Anchorage into separate areas for purposes of election districts. In that case, the Court reaffirmed that “communities within the Municipality of Anchorage are socio-economically integrated as a matter of law,” and that the community of Eagle River could be paired in a house district with the South Anchorage hillside.8 This Eagle River-South Anchorage hillside district was “not unconstitutional in any respect.”9"

Then, in the footnote 8, Singer tells us:

"Id. at 1091 (upholding House District 32, which spanned from the Eagle River Valley to the Anchorage hillside); See ARB Board Record at 10414 (2002 Amended Redistricting

Plan)."

Again, I say that the 2002 House District 32 was very different from 2022 Senate District F.

In those days, Eagle River and Chugiak weren't big enough for two House districts.  The north of the Eagle River Valley district had to go to southern Mat-Su to get enough population for a second district.  

In fact House District 30 captured most of the Eagle River Valley area.  House District 32 (the one Singer keeps harking back to) stretches from the edges of District 30 down south to Whittier and into the Kenai Peninsula, getting enough population to be a whole district by taking some population from the Hillside. 

BUT based on the only 2002 House maps I could locate, there are few if any residents of Eagle River in that district. If there are Eagle River residents, they are the leftovers once the district hit its target number of inhabitants. HD32 was called the Chugach State Park district.  This was a compromise district that went to the Supreme Court and was accepted because of problems with deviations in other districts.  It was a compromise under special circumstances.

From  the Alaska Election Pamphlet 2002 Anchorage area  here are the maps so you can see the context of that district.  

Maps of 

D 17 (ER) 18 (Military) =Senate I

D15 (Rural Mat-Su)  D16 (Chugiak/Southern Mat-Su= Sen H

D32 (Huffman/Ocean View) D32 (Chugach State Park) =Sen P

This first map focuses on the Chugiak/Southern Mat-Su district 16.  You can see a tiny District 17 on the lower left.  That's Eagle River.

You can see here that Eagle River, HD 17 was relatively tiny.  Smaller than the largest districts in the Anchorage bowl.  It was paired with the Base (18) to make a Senate district because there weren't enough people for two Eagle River/Chugiak House districts.  32 goes down into the Kenai Peninsula.

In the map below you can see District 17 better.  Basically ER Valley is in one district.  What ER residents there might be in District 32 are surplus people who couldn't be fit into 17.  

This wasn't an "Eagle River/Hillside" district as Singer portrays it.  It was called the Chugach State Park district that reached to the outer edges of ER and down into the Kenai.  It was a district that was trying to scrape up enough population to be an actual district.  

It's sort of like how the Board majority characterizes HD 23 as the JBER district when it's really 1/3 north Anchorage Bowl.  

I haven't been able to find better maps to pin this down more precisely.  But it seems a point worth raising and exploring. I suspect the meme of an Eagle River/Hillside house district in 2002 that was constitutionally approved that floated around among the Option 3B supporters wasn't better supported than my points here.

Political-Gerrymandering And Zero-Sum Thinking

There are a number of issues to raise from the Board's motion to the Supreme Court and I just don't have the time to go through them all right now.  But I do want to address this one. From Singer:  

The upshot of the superior court’s order is that because it found a portion of the

Board’s previous 2021 Redistricting Plan invalid as a political gerrymander, the

Board’s new April 2022 Amended Redistricting Plan must also be a gerrymander.  On this basis, the superior court orders the Board to adopt senate pairings advanced by and preferred by democratic leadership in the Alaska Senate.6 This is wholly inappropriate.

First, the judge didn't conclude that because there was political gerrymandering in the first plan that, ipso facto, the second plan is also gerrymandered.  Judge Matthews addressed this question directly and at length.  He concluded that given the intentional partisan gerrymandering the first time round, and given that the second time round the Board continued to create two Senate seats for Eagle River, the level of proof of partisan gerrymandering  needed wasn't as high as it was the first time.  The judge also cited an email from board member Simpson 

 "to an unknown number of contacts stating in part that the Court's Order "implies that what the court perceived as a political gerrymander must be replaced with a different political gerrymander more to their liking."118 (From Court Order p. 24)

While I suspect that Simpson was probably being sarcastic, he's an experienced attorney and should know better than to write such an incriminating sentence.  Sarcastic or not, I suspect it was revealing of what he was thinking.  

Second,  

"On this basis, the superior court orders the Board to adopt senate pairings advanced by and preferred by democratic leadership in the Alaska Senate.6"

Let's see now.  Option 2 was advanced by the East Anchorage plaintiffs, not the Democratic leadership.  I'd note that Option 3B WAS drawn and advanced by one of the most partisan Republican operatives, and former Chair of the Republican Party. And supported by the three Republican appointed Board members.  

I'd note that footnote 6 refers to "Senate Minority Leader Tom Begich’s text-message communications to a board member seeking to influence Anchorage senate pairings."

It seems the Board majority and its attorney are firm believers of the zero-sum way of thinking.  It posits that what one person loses, the other person gains.  

Here, Singer posits that if the judge takes away the ill gained extra Republican Senate seat that the majority 'won.' then that translates into an intentional  extra Democratic seat for the enemy.  Singer seems to assume here that the only reason the Board minority voted for Option 2 was to gain an extra Democratic seat.  His evidence is a text message from Tom Begich, which he doesn't quote. This attempt by Singer to simply turn around and accuse the Board minority of doing what the Board majority did is classic Republican Rovian  "Tactic #3: Accuse Your Opponent of What He/She is Going to Accuse You Of."   At times it might be accurate, but the evidence against the Board majority is overwhelming while the evidence against the Board minority doesn't exist.  Was there lobbying of the Board minority?  Sure, but it was for specific things various constituents wanted, things other than partisan gerrymandering.  It wasn't to get more people elected from a particular party as the actions of the Board majority are.  

OK, enough for tonight, but there is plenty more there to chew on and spit out.  

AK Redistricting Board - Fixing Technical Glitches And Senate Pairings Parts #1, #2, #3, and #4

 I'll add to this post as the meeting progresses.  

Summary

[At this point they agreed on  1&2 and 3&4 in SE  39&40  37&38 Voting Rights Act districts and 33&34  in Fairbanks.  These are more or less certain, but eventually they will approve the whole state together.  Now they are in work session (still online) to individually and in pairs work on the other districts that are not such obvious pairings.]

Added Fairbanks:  33&34 downtown (noted already above)   32&36  and 31&25  

Kenai:  5&6 and 7&8  

Matsu:   25&30   37&28 and by default 29&36

More summary at the bottom.  They went into Executive Session at 5pm and never reconvened, apparently, and will open in Executive Session tomorrow morning.  It seems everything is settled except Anchorage.

Rough Notes of meeting Part 1:

ARB pm Nov. 8, 2021

1:02pm

Torkelson: Going over changes board staff had to make to based on checking details of the map. First one lowered the deviation of D39/38   by 2 people.  Move to change technical correction passed. 

Next is  more complicated.  In Wasilla.  The map got Zoom bombed and so he took down the map.  

Torkelson Explainging Matsu glitches

See the red circle- had 10 people and so the ended up changing three parts.  716 to 748.  Changed 4 blocks.  Contacted everyone by email - couldn’t wait. 

Next Cantwell - 2 or 3 people change - voted to change

Next a strip of Glen Highway - no population - voted to change

Glenn Highway Glitch

   That’s it.  Done

Binkley - appreciation for the staff all along, and particularly this weekend, and Eric, and the contractor who went over the Metes and Bounds.

Now Board set the Senate pairings.  In a work session.  On the record.  Work individually or separately, based on testimony we’ve had

Borromeo - South East suggestions?  

Simpson - Only district contiguous to D1 is D2, so suggest that and regional connections.

Binkley:  Need to go off line briefly in order to share screen.  

Simpson:  Then 3 and 4 have to be paired.  Mostly served by same Senators.  With that, motion, consensus?

recommend 1&2 and 3&4 for SE districts 

Binkley - use the #s on our final map, but that may change as we look at the pairings.

Borromeo - 

Bahnke - to the 4 VRA districts.  Matter of contiguity 39&40  37&38  seems the obvious and right thing to do.  

That was accepted by all.

1:32   Borromeo - one more - FBNS  not other options there  33&34. 

.......................................

Meeting Part 2  During the work session, Added some photos above and below the Board members working on pairings.

Melanie Bahnke

Nicole Borromeo & John Binkley

Bethany Marcum and Budd Simpson

2:24 pm

Part #3

[Here we have a battle over whether the two ER districts should be paired together, or one with JBER and the Other with north Muldoon.  As we go on break it looks like the Board is 3-2 for splitting ER house districts. That also means splitting Muldoon districts.]

3:11 Back in session

Bahnke - 6&7 5&8 reflected in testimony -  This Kenai

Binkley - 

Simpson - Hard for me to hear his low voice.  

Binkley - not seeing on this map - Cordova, etc.

Bahnke - testimony Cordova lower Kenai Peninsula, testimony about shared fishing industry, 

Borrome:  7&8 share oil and gas, 

Binkley - also Marine Highway connection between 5&6

Marcum:  Overwhelming testimony - we have nothing in common with Kodiak, that being said, I've been involved with fishing world and understand the connections between 7&8 and 5&6  - I could be comfortable either way 

Consensus:  5&6 and 7&8  Kenai

Matsu next.

Bahnke:  Little testimony here, so not bound with this

Marcum:  Let someone else

Borromeo:  

Bahnke:  Written testimony not consistent.  What are current pairings?  

Marcum:  Changed significantly.

Binkley:  29&30?  

Bahnke AFFR 26&29, 28&27 25&30 Glenn and Parks Highway

Marcum:  Testimony about fastest growing part of state and over populated plus we have Valdez:  Propose 27&28, Palmer 

Binkley:  AFFR, AFFER, and you Bethany all agree.  

Marcum:  Palmer big city and Wasilla 29&30  all places west and south of Wasilla come to Wasilla. You go through Palmer to get to Wasilla.  District with Wasilla as city center.  Other city is Valdez in 25.  Logic giving 26&25 allowing Valdez a center of the district.  

Borromeo:  Houston is also there so 29& 26  ????? Pairing Palmer and that population

Marcum:  Counter that - Houston half the population of Valdez.  Valdez hasn't had much weight in this project.  Give them some voice in the Senate.  Wasilla and Big Lake logical reasons.  

Borromeo:  AFFR 26&29  greater Wasilla in same area as Wasilla.  27&28  Fairview and Palmer - lots of testimony that Fairview is part of greater Palmer area.  25&36   Only break Borough once.  

Binkley - I like rationale that your in Big Lake you have to go to D29, where people shop.  West side of Wasilla.  Don't know what Valdez folks would think.  

Simpson:  A tough one.  Find compelling that two orgs clashed from beginning are in agreement on the pairings here.  27&28 29&30 25&36

Bahnke:  Peter what are the current pairings?  Currently 30 & 25  

Borromeo:  Quite telling that AFFR and AFFER agree.  I'm comfortable with it.

Bahnke:  I am too.  

25&30   all agree 37 and 28 and by default 29&36

Muldoon 23 and 18      21 with 20  13 and     12 and 11    17&19  ER -22&24

Borromeo - consistently heard that ER should be together and that Muldoon not be paired with Hillside.  Mt View and U-Med.  Base comes down to downtown and Govt Hill.  

Banke - 12 & 13 share school district.  People from Turnagain       20&21 Base people shop downtown

Simpson:  9&16  10&11   12&13 14&17  18&23  20&21  22&24  

Binkley:  Further questions for Nicole or Melanie   Other pairings?  

Marcum:  Most important premise we ignored the natural physical and SEI between JBER and ER.  Repeatedly throughout the process.  ER is bedroom community for many people on JBER.  I made the natural connection to allow the physical neighbors.  That's the one thing that is common.  21&22.  

Borromeo:  What about the connection between ER and Eagle River?

Marcum:  Two separate house districts.  Gives ER change to have two Senate Districts.  ER has most direct ties with military base.  

Historic parts of Anchorage - Downtown, parts of area have different lifestyles and housing 

[No one has given us actual data.]  Pairs downtown with Mt View - historic areas.  Two ways downtown could go.  Mt. View or Spenard.  

Bahnke:  Every one of your maps splits ER?  

Borromeo:  Help me understand splitting ER.  ER has more tie with base than other parts of ER?   We disagree strongly.  I don't think ER has a special claim to the base.  Including Fairview where I spent time.  Troubled by the premise that ER has superior claim to the base.  

Marcum:  I've lived in ER, on Base and East Anchorage.  This is a way.  Something I feel very strongly about.  

Bud:  Possibility of Anchorage downtown district.  20&19 MtView  20&13 Spenard

Marcum:  Sandlake divided so important thing we can do is pair 11 and 12 - I think the case on all four versions.    

Bahnke  ?? what pairings 21&22, 20&13, (ok with 20&19),  if we go with 20&13, then 14&10.  very few with N/S orientation.  Glenn Highway boundaries almost perfectly between 10 and 14.  

Another commonality of all my maps - restore that part of 15 to Hillside.  What's left 3 contiguous to 24,  16, 18, 23.  

Bahnke - any concern about combining one of the most diverse parts of Anchorage 23 with ER.  I think strong ties with ER.  I don't see people by race, but as people closely tied.  ER people come to town go through Muldoon.  

[I'm sorry, this argument is all a cover to politically benefit GOP candidates by splitting up Muldoon  and matching them with more affluent and much more Republican and much whiter ER.  This form of gerrymandering is called cracking if I'm remember right.  You take lower income diverse neighborhood that tends to vote more Democratically with wealthier White neighborhoods that are more Republican and tend to have a higher percent of people voting.  This is also the tactic they used last time to get rid of the only black state Senator Bettye Davis.  

Much of this is based on her opinion and personal patterns.  She doesn't see race.  does she recognize that Bahnke and Borromeo are Alaska Natives or does she just see them as two more white folks?  If that's the case, she dismisses their cultural heritage.]

Binkley:  All justifiable in my opinion.  

Borromeo:  The word reasonable.  Hard time with 'reasonableness'.  One comment Bethany said was ???   ER has potentially two Senate seats.  Asked to share house seats in ER with ER.  This is not any lack of ignoring data analysis of ER.  We've heard loud and clear from ER and east Anchorage that they didn't want to be mixed.  And we gave them separate House districts.  Highly populated part of diverse Anchorage in East Anchorage.  They are on top of each other.  Majority of Muldoon together.  95% of public testimony supported this.  Open to entertain other things around Anchorage.  Very opposed to splitting ER and Muldoon.  

Marcum:  Idea that ER is so different from North East Anchorage.  In fact they have a long relationship.  Question of whether ER is part of Anchorage  resolved 40 years ago.  

Skipping back to Fairbanks.  

Binkley:  I think we have a majority for Bethany's map.  We don't have all five members, I have heard from three members agree with Bethany's map. 

Borromeo:  I'd like to hear legal advice.  We can get advice on both maps.  

Simpson:  We went over this - hard for me to hear.  

Five minute Break  4:24,  back at 4:30.

Part 4   4:49pm

Back too Fairbanks.

Binkley:  five FB seats plus one connected with .  Testimony people from Ft Greely and Gulkana talked about military bases that pair 31 and 36 for military connection.  However, equally compelling reasons to combine 32 with 36.  Left side of FB together near the University.  Difficult for people of Goldstream not being in same house district.  But puts them in the same Senate district.  I propose 33&34 downtown   32&36  and 31&25  would keep NP integrated with Eilson AFB.  

Borromeo:  very happy to support your recommendations. Goldtream people very unhappy and while they got put in a separate house district from University, they can no be reunited in a Senate district .  [But doesn't address the majority of people in the very large district 36 district.)  

Part 4:  7:28 pm

So basically they agreed to all the pairings except Anchorage.  Marcum was making a specious argument about the SEI of having military from ER,JBER, and East Anchorage kept together in a Senate seat.  But the obvious underlying objective was to go for two ER Senate seats and get rid of an East Anchorage senate seat.  

I got home and onto Zoom but they were still in Executive Session.  And when I looked again, it had shut down.  

Just read an email from the Board:

Hello Subscribers,

 

The Alaska Redistricting Board has recessed for the night and will come back in to Executive Session tomorrow am at 9am.

 

Public session will begin at 10:30am to continue the discussion of agenda item #6: Assignment of House District Senate Pairs.

 

The public is welcome to attend in person at our office (3901 Old Seward Highway Ste. 141) or via zoom: 
Zoom Meeting: https://zoom.us/j/9074062894?pwd=VWxjem42YUloTnBFcTlpVWZVS0wwZz09
Meeting ID: 907 406 2894/Passcode: MoreMaps

One tap mobile: +16699006833,,9074062894#,,,,*56615375# US (San Jose); +12532158782,,9074062894#,,,,*56615375# US (Tacoma)

The rest of the agenda:

6. Assignment of House District Senate Pairs
7. Recess - Pending Dept. of Labor production of Senate Constituency Crosstabs 
8. Adoption of Senate Truncation Cutoff
9. Adoption Senate Election Cycle Table
10. Recess – Pending Final Proclamation Drafting, Proofing & Metes and Bounds Error Checking
11. Adopt Final Proclamation of Redistricting
12. Signing of Final Proclamation 
13. Adjournment

Politics Not As Usual - Murkowski Votes To End Don't Ask Don't Tell

Sen. Lisa Murkowski was among eight Republicans to vote to repeal Don't Ask Don't Tell (DADT), staying consistent with comments she made a couple of weeks ago that she thought it was time to end the policy.   But this must have been a pretty hard decision for her, harder than probably any other of the Republicans who voted against their party position. 

Murkowski lost the Republican primary.  This vote on DADT  ensures that the rabid right of the Alaska Republican party will work hard to defeat her again in the 2016 primary.  While her write-in re-election (close to being settled now in the Alaska Supreme Court) required the support of lots of Democrats and Independents who believe she owes them votes on some critical issues, she didn't have to break ranks with most of the Republicans here.  Perhaps she believes that in six years gays in the military will be a non-issue.  A likely US Supreme Court decision on the constitutionality of California's Prop. 7 is likely to keep GLBT issues hot for the 2012 Presidential election and possibly beyond.

Plus Alaska has not been friendly to GLBT issues.  Alaskan voters amended the State Constitution to make explicit that marriage means one man and one woman.  

Can Murkowski win her next Republican primary?  At this point, I would expect her to have some heavy opposition.  Would she run in the primary as an independent?  Six years is a long time in politics, but she must have been thinking about these things when she voted to repeal Don't Ask Don't Tell. 

I don't see this as anything but a principled vote for what she believed was the best policy, in the face of her party's general opposition.

Looking at all eight Republicans who voted for repeal, on the surface there seem to be three key factors:

• State support of same-sex marriage or civil unions
• Collins and Snowe of Maine, Scott Brown of Massachusetts
• Gender 
• The only woman of 17 in the Senate not voting for repeal was  Kay Baily Hutchinson (R TX.)  The other three Republican women - Collins, Snowe, and Murkowski - voted for repeal.
• Age
•  Of the male Republicans who voted for repeal all but one were among the 20 youngest Senators.  The exception, George Voinovich, is retiring. 

Here's a bit more on the:

• other seven Republicans who voted to repeal DADT
• three Republicans who were absent
• one Democrat who was absent (no Democrats voted against it)

Republicans who voted for repeal


Scott Brown  (51) (R-Mass.)

Brown won the right to finish Ted Kennedy's term as US Senator, is up for reelection in the first US state to allow same-sex marriage.   


Richard M. Burr (55)  (R NC)

The National Review writes:

Burr said it was not a difficult vote to cast, despite his state’s being home to Camp Lejeune, the largest Marine Corps base on the East Coast. Gen. James Amos, commandant of the Marine Corps, had been one of the most high-profile opponents of repeal. “Hopefully we all think independently here and we listen; we don’t have to be lobbied or influenced,” he said.

Burr told reporters that he supported repeal because “this is a policy that generationally is right,” but said he “didn’t necessarily agree” with those who have characterized the issue as a civil-rights struggle.

“A majority of Americans have grown up at a time [when] they don’t think exclusion is the right thing for the United States to do,” Burr said. “It’s not the accepted practice anywhere else in our society, and it only makes sense.”

I don't know enough about North Carolina politics to know how his vote compares to Murkowski's.  He has the largest Marine Corps base in the US in his state and the Marines were the of branch of the military most strongly opposed to repealing DADT.  On the other hand he did well in the 2010 election according to Wikipedia:

Burr defeated North Carolina Secretary of State Elaine Marshall (D) on November 2nd, 2010 with 55% of the vote. He is the first Republican since Jesse Helms to be re-elected to the United States Senate from North Carolina and garnered the largest percentage of votes of any Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in North Carolina history.

Susan Collins (R-Maine) (58) and Olympia Snowe (63) (R-Maine)

Collins has been the leading Republican Senator in support of repealing DADT.  She was the only Republican Senator who voted in favor the Defense Bill that had DADT attached earlier in December.  Olympia Snowe joined her when DADT was a stand alone bill.  Both Maine's Representatives (both Democrats) in the House voted for the bill.  I haven't checked, but this is the only state I know of where the whole Congressional delegation voted for repeal.  Maine allows domestic partnerships.

Same-sex marriage in Maine was a divisive issue in 2009: a bill to allow same-sex marriages in Maine was signed into law on May 6, 2009, by Governor Baldacci following legislative approval, but opponents successfully petitioned for a referendum on the issue, putting the law on hold before it came into effect before going on to win the referendum by 300,848 to 267,828 on November 3, 2009. Maine's domestic partnership law remains in effect. [Wikipedia]

John Ensign (52) R Nevada

I'm stretching here, but Nevada seems a little looser on moral issues with long time legalized gambling and prostitution.  Liberace was an institution in Las Vegas.  

The National Review wrote: 

Before the vote, Ensign said the choice for him was a struggle between what he personally thought was the right thing to do, and the circumstantial concerns of various military chiefs.

That’s why, he explained, he had voted against taking up the measure.

But in the end, once the question on the table, it appeared personal conviction won out over political circumstance. “My personal feeling is that it should be repealed,” he’d said before the 65-to-31 vote.

Ensign left the Senate chamber quickly and quietly . . .

Mark Kirk (51) (R-Ill.)

Kirk, a Naval Reserve Officer, moved up to the Senate from the House in a special election to finish out Obama's Senate seat and start his own six year term in January.  In the House he voted "against   Constitutional marriage amendments, he supported ending job discrimination based on sexual orientation and received a favorable 75 percent rating from the Human Rights Campaign on gay rights issues."  [Huffington Post]

From The Examiner.com in Chicago

Is Sen. Kirk really in favor of allowing gays to serve openly in the military?  His past history suggests otherwise.  As a member of the House Armed Services Committee Kirk voted against a measure to repeal DADT as recently as last May.  One suspects that his slim margin of victory in November's senatorial contest may have sensitized Sen. Kirk to the realities of representing the entire state of Illinois, not just the 10th congressional district.  Once Governor Pat Quinn gets around to signing the Illinois Religious Freedom Protection and Civil Union Act already sitting on his desk, the state of Illinois will recognize civil unions. A "no" vote on DADT would have put Mark Kirk at odds with a very large bloc of Illinois voters.  It also would have provided potent ammunition for the next Democratic challenger for his senate seat.

George Voinovich (74) (R-Ohio)

Voinovich is retiring from the Senate.  






Republicans who didn't vote

Jim Bunning (79) (R KY)

Bunning, who barely won his last election in 2004, and was named by Time Magazine as one of the five worst Senators, is retiring at the end of this term.



Judd Gregg (63)  (R (NH)

Same sex marriage became legal in New Hampshire in January 2010.

Gregg is retiring at the end of this term.


Orrin G. Hatch (76) (R UT)

Polygamy has a history in Utah, but the Mormon church has been strongly opposed to same-sex marriage and Hatch is an institution in Utah who doesn't have to worry that his absence would harm him in any way. 

The Salt Lake City Tribune reports:

Sen. Orrin Hatch was absent for the vote but registered his dissent from afar. He said November’s election should have shown that voters want Congress to focus on the economy — not try to appeal to their liberal supporters.

“Rather than take part in this cynical exercise in political charades, I am honoring a long-standing commitment I made more than a year ago to attend my grandson’s graduation in Missouri,” Hatch said.

Democrat who didn't vote

Joe Manchin III (63) (D WV) 

It appears that Manchin, newly elected to fill the seat of Sen. Robert Byrd is trying to figure out which way the wind is blowing. He's up for election again in 2012. He skipped this vote and the vote on the Dream Act. He's the only Democrat who didn't vote for repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell.

Hoping For A Short, Boring Redistricting Board Meeting Monday - Here's Why

Quick Take:  The Board's job Monday is to either accept the Interim Plan as the Permanent Plan OR to 'show cause' why it shouldn't be the Permanent Plan.  

What does "show cause" mean?  Basically, it means they need to give good legal and/or factual reasons why, in this case, the Interim Plan, shouldn't be adopted.  

If the Board Monday has no good reasons to object to adopting the Interim Plan as the Permanent Plan until the next redistricting process in ten years (eight years now), it will be a short meeting.

If Board members feel the need to change the Interim Plan, I expect they will consult with the Board's attorney on how to do this and whether it is likely to succeed. Some, of that discussion, if not all of it, will (but not necessarily should) be held in Executive Session.  (The courts felt they overdid the Executive Session leading up the the Interim Plan.)

If they decide that they want to "show cause"  I expect they will either discuss their reasons, and/or adjourn to work on those reasons.  They may just ask the attorney to write up their response to be voted on at a later meeting.  This will then be sent to the Superior Court for consideration.  

At least, that's how I understand this.  

Background:  I don't like to repeat myself, but this opening is a quick background for people who haven't watched this saga too closely.  If you know this pretty well, just skip on down.  

Back in May 2022 the Alaska Supreme Court said the plan the Alaska Redistricting Board had approved (the vote was 3-2) was unconstitutional partisan gerrymandering.  They sent it back to the Board through the Superior Court, ordering the Board to approve the Option 2 plan that the Board considered, but had not approved.  This, then would be the Interim Plan for the November 2022 election.  Given the looming deadline for candidates to file for office, the Supreme Court just couldn't wait for the Board to come up with a new plan on their own.  More recently, the Supreme Court completed its Opinion - a long document that looks at all the issues it had raised regarding the Board's original plan (thrown out by the Court), and its second plan (which was also thrown out.)  

Actually, that's an oversimplification.  The first plan, with a couple of changes, was essentially approved WITH THE EXCEPTION of some Senate seats in Anchorage.  So, the Interim plan for all 40 House seats, as understand this, is settled. 

Purpose of Monday's Meeting From The Supreme Court's Opinion

The Supreme Court's Opinion ended this way:

"IX. FINAL REMEDY

After the second remand, the Board adopted the Option 2 proclamation plan as the 2022 elections interim plan.240 The question of a final redistricting plan for the

[I've cut out footnotes]

decade remains. Having concluded that the Board engaged in unconstitutional gerrymandering in its initial final redistricting plan and that the Board then did so again in its amended final redistricting plan, our remanding for yet another redistricting plan may be questioned. Indeed, by clear implication article VI, section 11 authorizes courts to mandate a redistricting plan when, after a remand, the Board develops a new plan that is declared invalid.241 But we will remand out of respect for the Board’s constitutional role in redistricting.

Given that the Board adopted the current interim redistricting plan for its final plan deliberations — confirming the Board’s belief that the interim plan is constitutional — and given that Alaska’s voters have not had a chance to raise challenges to that plan in the superior court:

We REMAND for the superior court to order that the Board shall have 90 days to show cause why the interim redistricting plan should not be the Board’s final redistricting plan for the 2020 redistricting cycle:

A. Upon a showing by the Board of good cause for a remand, the superior court shall REMAND to the Board for another round of redistricting efforts; or

B. Absent a showing by the Board of good cause for a remand, the superior court shall direct the Board to approve the interim redistricting plan as its final redistricting plan, allowing any legal challenges to that plan to be filed in superior court in the normal course."  [Red emphasis added.]

Basically the court said:

1. You had two final options last year - Option 3A (which you adopted, but we found unconstitutional) and Option 2.
2. We told you to adopt Option 2 as the Interim Plan.  
3. You approved Option 2, thus implying you thought it was a constitutional plan.  [Though some Board members might say they had no choice given the time constraints.  If they hadn't approved it, I suspect the Court would have imposed it anyway.]
4. You now have 90 days to give a good reason why the Interim Plan should NOT be the final plan. (The Opinion was dated April 21, 2023.  So 90 days is just about July 21, 2023.)
5. If the Superior Court deems your objection to be a worthy objection, then that Court will remand (give back) to the Board, the task of further changes to the map.  
6. If you do not 'show good cause' for making further changes, the Interim Plan becomes the Permanent Plan
7. If you show cause but the Superior, and then the Supreme Court, reject your argument, the Interim Plan becomes the Permanent Plan.  
8. Once the Permanent Plan is in place, the public will have one more opportunity to challenge the plan.  My understanding of the various court rulings and the Board's public musings, all the 40 House seats and all but a few Anchorage Senate seats are already fixed. The period to challenge them was within 30 days of the original Proclamation Plan.  There were challenges to some other parts of the map and there were other parts of the map that no one challenged.  The only parts of the map that were still in dispute in May 2022 were a few Anchorage area Senate seats.  

Reading The Rules Carefully Is Always A Good Idea

When I was writing this post in my head, I was thinking the Board, on Monday, could either agree to leave things as they are (the Interim Plan becomes the Permanent Plan) or try to tinker with the map.  But rereading the Court's Final Remedy section of the Opinion, the first step is to 'show cause' and get the courts to agree there is cause before anyone is authorized to adjust any Anchorage Senate seats.  

What Cause Might The Board Show?

I don't see any cause that the Board could put forth.  But I'm not an attorney and there are always undetected cards they seem to be able to pull out of forgotten statutes and old cases upon which to make a claim.  

Here's how I see it:

1. The Superior and Supreme Courts have both agreed that the Interim Plan was Constitutional.
2. The Board, by approving the Interim Plan last May, implied they saw it as Constitutional. (They aren't supposed to approve a plan they don't think is constitutional.)

So the Board would be hard pressed to argue the plan isn't constitutional.

At that point, what else could they argue?  That it's constitutional, but they have a better plan?  I think it's too late for that.  

In its rulings about the Eagle River and Skagway Senate pairings, the supreme court discussed the concept of 'taking a hard look' at public testimony.  It ruled with the superior court and against the Board on this ground in Eagle River because the Board violated another constitutional requirement of districts

"specifically for unconstitutional political gerrymandering." (Court Opinion, p. 43)

However, in the Skagway case it ruled against the superior court ruling on 'taking a hard look' at public testimony, because

". . .if public comments merely reflect preferences for district boundaries without implicating substantive redistricting requirements, drawing district boundaries based on demonstrated substantive redistricting requirements and not the “weight of public comment” likely would not violate the hard look requirement. We nonetheless note that a Board’s failure to follow a clear majority preference between two otherwise equally constitutional legislative districts under article VI, section 6 may be evidence supporting a gerrymandering claim."

But the court ruled that House Districts 3 and 4 were unconstitutional based solely on its “weight of public testimony” approach to the hard look analysis. Because the court otherwise agreed substantive redistricting requirements were satisfied and no salient problems were raised that the Board failed to consider, we reverse the court’s invalidation of House Districts 3 and 4 and its accompanying remand to the Board." (Opinion, p. 43-44)

It would seem that same logic would be applicable here.  Just because some Board members might prefer different pairings, that's not good enough to tamper with an already constitutional map.  The Board isn't exactly 'the public.'  However, in this situation, if the Board wants to protest against Senate pairings that the courts and the Board have already agreed are constitutional, it would seem to be up against a similar obstacle the public is up against if it "merely reflects preferences for district boundaries without implicating substantive redistricting requirements."

Furthermore, the only (true) reasons the Board majority might want to make changes, as I see it, would be to try to give Republicans some advantage they don't have with the current plan, or to mess with the Democrats, by creating new Senate pairings which would force Democratic incumbents to run against each other.    

Why do I say that?  

1.  There are only a few districts, as I understand this, that are still in play.  

1. At this point, all 40 House districts are set.  They've been approved and the time for the public to challenge them is over.
2. The only districts that could be in play now are a couple of northeast Anchorage Senate seats.  I posted the map below and incumbent lists in my previous post, but it's worth looking at again.  

I've circled the Senate seats that could possibly be in play.  The House seats can't be changed, 

they can only be paired differently to create different Senate seats.  Below are the incumbents 

of the House and Senate seats.  I'd note these are the district numbers in the Interim Plan.  

House Seats	Senate Seats
17 - Zack Fields - Democrat	I - Loki Tobin - Democrat
18 - Cliff Groh - Democrat	J - Forrest Dunbar - Democrat
19 - Genevieve Mina - Democrat	K - Bill Wielechowski - Democrat
20 - Andrew Gray - Democrat
21 - Donna Mears - Democrat
22 - Stanley Wright - Republican

2.  Why are these the only ones in play?  Because the rest of the map was approved.  The only changes were to pair the two Eagle River house districts into one Senate district.  That left district 18 an orphan and it was paired with downtown district 17. And an orphan South Anchorage district. If they do any changes it would be to the Senate pairings in the circle - and maybe with a ripple effect beyond - because everything else was locked down and approved.  (District 9 was also an orphan district, when the two Eagle River districts were paired, but I haven't even considered that the Board might want to mess around with that district.) (Actually, my description suggests the court changed Map 3B.  In fact, they adopted Map 2, the map the Board did not choose.  So these were the pairings on that map.)

3.  As you can see, the Senate seats in this area are held by Democrats.  And the six key House seats are held by five Democrats and one Republican.  

4.  The Board majority argued long and loud, but short of actual facts or data, that JBER, the military base shouldn't be paired with 'liberal' downtown. 

"The Board cited no evidence, aside from its own speculation, that JBER is a community of interest; in any case, there was no showing that the House district encompassing the populated portion of the military base as a whole would tend to share political preferences more closely with an Eagle River House district than with the downtown Anchorage House district. We thus reject the Board’s argument that concerns about JBER justify splitting Eagle River."  (Opinion p. 105)

In fact, the Board had already put  JBER in a house district with much more liberal Government Hill and other north and northeast Anchorage neighborhoods.  

Edited from Elections page to fit in one image

Note:  This was a ranked choice vote.  Most, if not all of Franks' votes had Groh as second choice.  Also, only 6% of the registered voters on JBER even voted.  

In the 2022 House District 18 house election, the Democrats got 55% of the vote and the Republican got 44%.  HD 18 voted for Democrat Mary Peltola for US House and for Democrat Zak Fields for state Senate.  

So all the arguments that Board members Marcum and Simpson made about how terrible it would be to combine the JBER district (as they called District 18) with liberal downtown was hot air.  They'd already put JBER into a House district that was more liberal than the Base.  And that elected a Democrat.  

5.  But they may think that pairing House District 22, which did elect a Republican to the state House, with their so called JBER district (18) would result in a Republican Senate seat.  And so they may want to try to do that.  This would also mean finding other Senate pairings for the orphaned House seats - 18 and 21, which aren't contiguous, so it would force even more changes.  

6.  But the District 22 Republican only won by 72 votes out of 3700 votes.  Not really a GOP stronghold.  And with the electoral reality of District 18 (the one including JBER) as a strong Democratic district.  The resultant Senate seat would still be held by a Democrat. 

7.  But the other new Senate pairings that pairing 18 with 22 would force, they could force a two or more Democratic Senate incumbents to run against each other.  

8.  But this would all be so transparently partisan gerrymandering again that neither the superior nor the supreme court would accept it.  

9.  They only reason the Board majority might do something like this would be brazen shamelessness.  After all with Trump and Santos and DeSantis as models and the rest of the Republicans either supporting them or at least staying quiet, this would not be a big step for the Alaskan GOP to take.  

It wouldn't cost them anything, and there's the possibility it would work.  

10.  But I think it's just too obvious.  Even if Marcum and Simpson were willing to try this, I suspect the third Republican on the board, Chair John Binkley has more integrity than that.  He's had time to think this over and see it would merely waste even more public funds.  While he went along the first rounds, now it's pretty clear that the courts won't support this.  

11.  And their 'cause' also needs to show why any new plan is worth the disruption to voters and elected officials having to adjust themselves to new electoral districts.

12.  I'd also draw your attention to these words in the court's "Final Remedy" quoted above:  

"Indeed, by clear implication article VI, section 11 authorizes courts to mandate a redistricting plan when, after a remand, the Board develops a new plan that is declared invalid.241 But we will remand out of respect for the Board’s constitutional role in redistricting."

The court is saying, "We have the power to simply mandate a plan.  But out of respect for the institution of the Board (not necessarily for this particular Board) we'll give the Board one more shot to do this right."

That's my take on what will happen Monday.  There could be some other scheme Randy Ruederich has hatched for the Board to try.  But ultimately, the courts will be looking very carefully and I don't see any justifications the Board could make to oppose making the Interim Plan the Permanent Plan that the courts would accept.  

But even if the Board votes to make the Interim Plan the Permanent Plan, the public will still have thirty days to challenge it in court.  But this wouldn't be on the State's dime, and with the Board joining the superior and supreme courts, it would take some ingenious soul to find a loophole here.