HB 76 - Proportional Rep on Key Leg Committees - Passes Out of State Affairs

I know something about this bill, because I was working on this bill for Rep. Gruenberg when I was his staffer.  The purpose of the bill is to make the representation on two key legislative committees - the Legislative Council and the Legislative Budget and Audit Committee - more reflective of the proportion of the political parties in the legislature.

[Photo:  State Affairs Committee members (left to right) Reps. Johnson, Gatto - partly visible - and Seaton on panel.  Minority leader Kerttula and bill sponsor Rep. Gruenberg with backs to the camera testifying.]

Right now there is a requirement that there be at least one member of the minority party on each committee.  HB 76 requires that there be proportionate representation.  The Legislative Council and the Legislative Budget and Audit Committee were established in Statute:

AS 24.20.010. Legislative Council Established.

The Alaska Legislative Council is established as a permanent interim committee and service agency of the legislature. The establishment of the council recognizes the need of the legislature for full-time technical assistance in accomplishing the research, reporting, bill drafting, and examination and revision of statutes, and general administrative services essential to the development of sound legislation in the public interest.

AS 24.20.151. Legislative Budget and Audit Committee Established.

The Legislative Budget and Audit Committee is established as a permanent interim committee of the legislature. The establishment of the committee recognizes the need of the legislature for full-time technical assistance in accomplishing the fiscal analysis, budget review, and post-audit functions.

The standing committees such as State Affairs, Judiciary, etc.  already have proportionally representation.  Rep. Gruenberg has made the point that when the Democrats were in the majority, the Republicans asked for proportional representation on the standing committees and the Democrats agreed and established that.  Standing committees are set up in the Alaska State Legislature Uniform Rules which are established to run the Legislature and are re-established every two years with each new Legislature.

This bill has been introduced regularly since 2003.  It was brought up at an earlier session of the State Affairs Committee when there was some vocal objections.  But at this meeting today, there was some discussion, but it passed out of the committee with no objection.

The questions today focused mainly on the fact that the Senate is divided by a coalition of Democrats and Republicans in the majority and just Republicans in the minority.  (There are ten Democrats and ten Republicans in the Senate.)  Even in the House, where the Republicans have a stronger majority, three of the rural Democrats have formed a coalition with the Republicans, in order, I was told, to have more clout in getting expenditures for their districts.  So, the questions were about the difference between the coalition majority and minority versus the majority and minority political parties.  

The impact in some sense would be more symbolic than substantive.  When I was still a staffer, I ran the numbers, and the way the committees are set up, and with the proportion calculations rounding down (1.9 would be 1 not 2) the most that would be required by this bill would be at most three minority members on the twelve member Leg. Council and two minority member on the ten member Leg. Budget and Audit Committee.

With the coalition of Democrats and Republicans in the Senate, the current Leg Budget and Audit Committee has two minority party (Democratic) members out of ten.  The new legislation wouldn't require more than that.  The current Legislative Council has six minority party (Democratic) members - one on the House side out of six and five on the Senate side out of six.  In the Senate, the Democrats are part of the majority coalition.

In any case, the bill moves out of the State Affairs and is now scheduled to go to Finance, which is a bit unusual because the Fiscal note on this bill was zero. 

Below are my notes from the meeting as it was happening.  As always, take them with a BIG grain of salt.  I think I've got a reasonable representation of what happened as a whole, but I certainly did not catch everything everyone said, and some that I captured is not always their exact words.


[Photo: Bill sponsor Rep.Gruenberg after it was voted out of committee.]


State Affairs Committee
Open 8:05

Gruenberg:  HB 76 Bill which would allow minority representation in the Legislative Council and Legislative Audit and Budget.  This is only fair.  When the Republicans were in the minority, they asked that the standing committees be proportional and the Democrats agreed.  We only have these two committees, which were not proposed [for change] at that time, to change.  It would give us one more seat.  It’s only fair, sometimes it’s hard for the single member to always be there.

Wilson:  Thinking about what could happen.  Used to be majority and minority were parties, but now they are not anymore.  So possible now that one party could fill all the seats, because of our makeup.  We have to be careful.

Gruenberg:  Good question.  Let’s say we are dealing with the Senate.  The minority would be . . .

Seaton:  On page 1 last line.  We didn’t eliminate the parties, we moved it.  I misinterpreted that last time, but it was just moved to section b. 

Gatto:  Reference at least twice here to two major political parties.  An awkward phrase here if we have 15, 15, and ten.  What happens if we don’t have one in the lead.  Does it upset the proportionality if we have a tie.  And then we have a third party that could be clamoring for a seat.

Gruenberg.  No question it the two major parties are Democrats and Republicans…

Gatto:  Excuse me.  Are you speaking for the next 20 years?

Gruenberg:  The only time I can think of we had anyone who was not Dem or Rep, was ??? 

Seaton:  I’d point out that in section 1, that is the existing statute and is being removed, so if the language is problematic, it’s problematic in the existing law. 
It seems like this has come about because the org of the leg has somewhat changed in function of parties and affiliations have changed and recognizing we have mixed majority and minorities in both parties.  While this is offered by the minority, things are really much more even than that.  Things change all the time.  Even if there was a total political split - all Repubs in majority and all Dems in the minority - this doesn’t complicate anything and recognized that it may be mixed or more separate in the future, but this doesn’t complicate appointment by party to committees.

Lynn:  Anyone in Leg Council or LB&A?

[Gatto and Wilson say they are]

Johnson:  You have bill now - HB 288, any party that has 2500 members registered becomes a political party, when it passes, 2500 could sign up for a party.  Suppose they get elected, where wuld they be.  They would not qualify unless they elected enough people to be 25% of the party. 

Gatto:  What if we had 27 and 7 and 7?  If not two major parties.

Gruenber:  Neither would qualify, each would qualify for one, the same as if they were in one party.

Gatto:  It’s existing language, that we have two major parties, we don’t have two parties.

Kerttula:  The way it is, the two major political parties, if you had 25 7 and 7, you’d still have Rep and Dem because the second one hadn’t hit 25%. 

Seaton:  Unless they organized together, they wouldn’t have a rep. 

Gruenberg:  1.  As rep seaton said, no change from current law.  I think when drafted, they didn’t consider the possiblity and it’s not likely.  If there were 26 and two minority parties of 7 each, I suspect they would form together as a minority party and they’d be entitled to two and they would each get one seat.  That’s what I would do. 

Seaton:  I don’t think we should assume that we have the seven joining the majority.  Flexibility for the future and how people decide - we can’t resolve all those questions.

Gatto:  In statute does it mention Democrat and Republican as the two major parties?

Gruenberg:  I don’t think so.

Kerttula:  I appreciate the opportunity to speak here before you vote.  I’ve been the sole minority member on Leg. Budget and Audit, and it is a very difficult task.  It has ten members and I don’t think anyone in this room wants to do without minoirty representation.  It’s valuable.  It’s part of our democracy.  We’ve had a shift to these skewed numbers.  We have coalitions now, which seems more Alaskan anyway.  It seems this brings things a little closer to true representation.  You will never have a skewed vote on the minority size, but they will have a voice.  As a member in the minority, I fantasize that the shoe will be on the other foot.  And you have my word that we’ll recognize the minority. 

Petersen:  could we reword page 1, line 9 and 10, could we just say people from each of the two caucuses?  Would that solve the problem?

Lynn:  I wouldn’t think so.  Caucus more political.  They change all the time. Changing party is like changing religion.

Wilson:  I feel strongly about Leg Council - majority felt it was wrong, and we wanted to come together to fix something.  We were not allwed to go back and rethink a decision and we probably should have.  that’s why I feel strong about it. 

Lynn:  Sometimes difficult to seperate what a particular chair does

Seaton:  It wasn’t that the chair, in that case (to Wilson). Chair was a member of the majority, but it was a coalition and a member of the majority.  We shouldn’t get that confused.

Johnson:  This in no way affects standing committees?  They won’t become statutory?

G:  Correct.

Johnson:  Assume that tomorrow, under this situation.  Finance committee made up of two co-chairs.  Salmon and Joules - would they be the two minority members and then no minority members?

Kerttulla- They would have

Johnson - This has nothing to do with parties, but with coalitions.

Kertulla:  Both. 

Gatto:  Difference between ‘the majority” and “the majority party”?

Kerttulla:  Yes.  They are mixed.  It recognizes Alaska history from before any of us served. 

Gatto:  If we want to be sure the minority party has representation.

Gruenberg:  The way it works now.  Requires that there be at least one member from the Dems and Republicans.  How internal make up is done is up to how the appointments are made.  That is basically from the majority. 
Today the makeup of leg council could be three Democrats.  if the majority wanted to appoint them.  That’s the right of the majority.  The difference is that instead of having only one minority party, there would have to be two. 

Seaton:  This bill talks about major political parties and it shouldn’t.  It should talk to majority and minority.  Agree with Rep Gatto. We shouldn’t confuse Parties and majorities and minorities. 

Kerttula:  We want to come a little closer to fairness.  I agree with Rep. Seaton.

Gruenberg:  On behalf of the entire minority.  Aprreciate your hearing it, and hope that regardless of how you personally think about it, I hope you let it advance.  It will show 1.  that the 26th Legislature is fair, and 2. that the parties can work together and so can the minority and majority can work together for the good of the state.  Thank you. 


Lynn:  Thank you very much.  Anyone in audience or online that would like to speak to the bill?  Anyone else on the committee?

Gruenberg:  Rep. Harris says he supports it.

Johnson:  I don’t think. . . I would like to hear that from the Chair himself.

Gruenberg:  I strike that.

Lynn:  We expect that we trust each other.

Johnson:  I don’t mean to impugn Rep. Gruenberg, I’m just uncomfortable hearing someone speak for others.

Lynn:  This has been properly noticed and people could come and testify.

Committee discussion: 

Jonhnson;  Make up of the committees today are 8 - 4 and 8-6. 

Lynn:  I think the bill is looking at the overall picture, not just today.

Johnson:  I just wanted to point out that it’s working today and I don’t want to fix something that isn’t broken. 

Petersen:  There are only ten on the LBA, so the numbers aren’t right.

Johnson:  That includes the alternates.

Gruenberg:  Not fair to lump in alternates, because they can never vote.  They can’t bolster the vote.

Johnson:  Then 8-6 and 7-3.

Petersen:  Alternates are there if one is absent or if appointed to another position and isnt’ filled?

Lynn:  I don’t know, but I would assume if one can’t be there for any reason.

Gruenberg:  We  also have alternate on ethics commiteee - strictly by party - and I had a conflict and stepped aside, and he took my place.

Johnson:  One thing Rep Gruenberg said, and I agree 100%, I’m not saying that a majority member would necessarily vote with the majority.

Petersen:  I would move CS HB76.

Lynn:  No objections?

It moves out.  I would thank the committee for the thoughtfulness of this committee’s discussion. 

Scheduled Tuesday to hear HB 241 - Divestment in Iran, sponsored by Rep. Gatto.  On the 11th, hearing with APOC on the impacts of the Supreme Court.  Not to debate on how we feel, but whether legislation is needed before the August election.

Executive Session Results - New Director, Voting Rights Consultant Tomorrow

Taylor Bickford and Jim Ellis were made Executive Director and Assistant Director respectively when the Alaska Redistricting Board came out of their executive session. (I've left my Macbook at the MacHaus to get a new fan, so this is more a summary than usual. Probably all most of you need anyway.)

The second issue they discussed in the executive sessionb was litigation. What Chair John Torgerson revealed in the open session was:

1. Voting Rights consultant Lisa Handley will be on the phone tomorrow to answer questions about her analysis of the data. (It wasn't clear what time she'd be speaking.)
2. She will be in Anchorage in person next Tuesday, May 24.
3. Her analysis of the voting in Alaska's recent elections changes the percentages of Native population necessary for qualifying as Majority/minority, majority/effective, and majority/influence districts.

After the meeting Attorney Michael White spoke to spectators - namely folks from AFFR and the Rights Coalition who had questions about the numbers mentioned in the meeting. (I have some of this on video, but downloading on my wife's computer is giving me interrupted audio, so I'll rely on what I remember. I'm hoping to be able to pick up my Macbook later this afternoon.)

The notes I have include the following information:
1. The benchmark that the board will be judged against from last time will be:

House:
Minority/Majority Districts - 4
Minority/Effective Districts - 1
Minority/Influence Districts - 1
Sentate:
Minority/Majority Districts - 2
Minority/Effective Districts - 1

2. The House seats are likely to be fine (I understand this to mean it should be possible to draw maps meetng the minimum population requirements), the third effective Senate district is the problem.

3. The threshold for effective districts, statewide, has gone up to 41.?% (up from 35%) statewide, though in some districts it was different. In District 6 (the huge district from McCarthy over Fairbanks down the Yukon) already last time it was 49% - which is just one percent from being a majority district. District 37 - had a lower threshold for being effective.

In fact there were lots of questions about the terms 'influence' and 'effective'. What I understood was that 'effective' is now the DOJ's preferred term but that Lisa Handley should address all this tomorrow.

The other issue that came up was that the DOJ would be looking at voting age population, not total population. From what I understand most of the plans that have been submitted used total population, not voting age population.

4:16pm The MacHaus just called to say my computer is ready. More later

Minority-Majority; Minority-Influence; Native Gerrymandering - Redistricting Board Eyes Voting Rights Act

The Alaska Redistricting Board began its meeting at 2pm today and looked at the Native districts.  They're looking for ways to comply the the Federal Voting Rights Act.  Alaska is one of 16 states of the watch list - their redistricting has to be pre-cleared by the Department of Justice before it is adopted.  There can be no 'retrogression' - meaning, Native representation can't be less than it is.

As I write this and as I google for more information, I can't find anything specific to Alaska on this.  I think I'm on the cusp of understanding this but I need to ask more questions tomorrow to get it right.

In any case, some definitions:


Minority-Majority District means a district where a minority group has a majority - 50% or more is what they said in the meeting.

Minority-Influence (or sometimes Effective) District means a district where a minority has enough people to have a strong influence in the election.

There's lots more to write up, but it will have to wait, otherwise I won't get anything up.  But there is a discussion of the Minority-Majority districts and the Voting Rights Act and these issues here.  It begins with:

Through the VRA, the federal government moved to guarantee access for all citizens to the ballot. Even so, the right to vote did not necessarily translate into electing representatives for voters who were in the minority. In jurisdictions, particularly in the South, voters who historically had faced racial discrimination (African-Americans, Latinos, Asian-Pacific Americans and Native Americans) had been unable to elect candidates of their choice unless they constituted a majority of voters in a given electoral district. In 1982, Congress amended the VRA to include requirements that certain jurisdictions provide minority voters opportunities to elect candidates of their choice

The most interesting part of the meeting today, for me, was when Jim Holm spoke.  He's been pretty quiet and he may have said more in that moment today than he has in all the meetings.

Chair Torgerson had just presented his own proposal (after they'd gone over several others) and said that we can get up to nine Minority-Majority and Minority-Influence districts but it means taking some from the urban areas like Wasilla and Fairbanks.
Holms said this was racial gerrymandering.  Staff attorney White  responded.  You can go down to read it at the bottom of my notes on the session.


[NORMAL DISCLAIMER:  These are my notes during the meeting.  As fast as I can type, I still miss a lot, but this should give a sense of the meeting.  It's pretty rough, I'll try to clean it up later.]

Alaska Redistricting Board  April 5, 2011

2:02 pm  Open meeting
Roll Call - All members here
STaff - Taylor Bickford, Jim Ellis, Eric (new GIS guy) , and Brenda (who is new)
Approve Agenda - yes

Focus on Rural and get the Minority Representation figured out

Torgerson passing out licorice

Starting with Fair and Equitable Plan (Republican Plan) - they have a much better projection system today - it’s much sharper and I can take better photos. 

Torgerson:  Basic flaw in this plan is that the percentages aren’t high enough

They have three majority and one influence and two really close.

Also assumes we would take an influence district that is not contiguous and connect with another to make a Senate district. 

Looking at SE:  Can we change 1 or 3 colors so easier to see different districts.

Chair Torgerson is back in charge after yesterday when Brody took over in the afternoon. 
Torg:  Balance of Baranof island minus Sitka is 2000 people and this plan takes that into consideration.  Eric and I used Indian River as a boundary of the district.  From here to rest of Baranof is 2000. 

McC (McC is for PeggyAnn McConnochie):   A lot I like, but some districts I don’t.  Sitka shouldn’t be split.  The argument that they get to swipes at the apple doesn’t work with more representatives.  It’s too small.
2 looks like Metlakatla - picture -
Torgerson:  Anyone in Hyder?  it says 0.
McC:  A few.  They’re missing opportunities in se.  they came around the left and the back up and jump to get Haines and Skagway and Yakutat and there’s really no population in some of those areas.  Yesterday we went around the left to the west coast that they haven’t been able to include here.  Interesting they went to the east instead of the west. 

Torg:  Focused on rural influence district.  Anyone think we can’t get one in SE?
McC:  Deviance will be bigger.  Smaller communities have lost population, so it’s tougher, but I think we can. 
Holm:  You talking about majority?
Torg:  No, there’s an influence district now.  It’s not going to be pretty.  Always an island district.
White:  Absent something extraordinary, were fairly free in terms of compactness. 
Torg:  We can skip around?
White:  Always odd shape, need to comply with voting act.
Torg:  Is this going to be contiguous?  Using the water?
White:  Always use water.  My concern is using outside ocean for contiguous which is what the ER one does.  State territorial waters.  Saying 2 is contiguous because they cross between 3 and 3 in the middle where Hoonah is.
Torg:  when you say go to the left, would we take Sitka in? 
McC:  yes
Greene:  You say pushing, can you explain.
White:  They’re saying contiguity from Hoonah. 
Mc:  I agree.  You cut at Hydaburg and you can go west, it’s a much cleaner district than doing what they’ve done using the waterway as continuity.
White:  I think they tried to do that to get Hoonah and Sitka together.
Bickford: 
Mc:  You have to look at SE differently.  I tried to get geographic first, then socio-economically linked.  Looked at color of the population.  I made a decision I wouldn’t accept before - Ketchikan, Wrangell, and ??? separate.  But now I do.  It now catches the small communities that are primarily native.  Yeah I’m off by couple 100.  I willing to split up Hoonah, Sitka, Ketchikan.  It’s not reasonable for such small towns to be split.  So I’m ready for a 1% deviation to have more.
White:  And you have an influence district?
Mc:  Yes I do:  35%, just barely. 
White:  Does anyone think we can’t draw an influence district in the se.
You said they claim 37 as a majority.  Not reflected.  But they say by moving 37 up they get a majority-minority. 
Torg:  We have a 6 sort of 42%, 37 is - two senators that’s six, one influence, that’s seven. 
White:  they say that five is. 
Torg:  No, we have a cutoff of 35%, The plan may say it, but our data doesn’t say it.
What do they say 4 has now?  This one has new numbers - it shows 26%
Let’s do it this way:  potential for 2 and 5 and that would give us 9 minorities.
Holm:  Then we’d have non-contiguous Senate
Torg:  We have to change that.  2 is now 4. 
Mc: Whoa!
Torg:  That would work as 9 then, as long as the SE one butts up against 5 - takes in yakutat, whatever this is going to be.  Two influence districts.
White:  In theory it’s there, but I don’t agree with their numbers.
Bickford:  But that leaves three districts in SE and you have to pair one up with someone.
Holm:  South Anchorage.
MC:  Thanks! (sarcastic)
White:  I just don’t think they have the numbers.
Torg:  This shows they don’t.    What’s next?
AFFR plan?  [this is unions, native group plan]

Bickford:  This computer only counts white and native.
1:35pm MC:  SE first?
Torg:  2 is their rural district it looks like, they got to 34%.  This looks like what we did yesterday.
White:  They’re claiming 8.
Torg:  Cut Yakutat in half, I don’t know how many people there.  Made 3
White:  Almost exactly the same as Juneau plan.
Torg:  Kecthikan;  Petersburg with 2, Wrangell goes with Ketchikan. 
Mc:  Economically it makes sense for Wrangell and Ketchikan be split, but the towns themselves should not be split.
Torg:  If we took Saxman out, it would be 35, I think.
Bickford:  They used different categories to calculate natives
White:  What board used last time - Native plus White.
Bickford: I believe if you added it it would take it over 35.  This is just the math and it gets whatever ????
Torg:  You would get 3261?
Bickford:  Both total native and % native is Native and Native and White.  There’s no way to import their data configuration, just the math.  Just can’t do it.  If we knew what categories they used, we can add it to ours.
Torg:  How do we resolve that.
White:  We have to see what DOJ counts as Alaska Native.  Last time only Native and Native + 1.  If we can count more as Native that would help.
Torg:  Will our consultant help?  We’ll have to wait for her to come on Friday.
Bickford:  Not Native + Black, Asian, etc.
Torg:  Our stuff is all consistent right?
Bickford:  Right.
White:  They have three districts at about 50 or above.  12 -  [How did we get to Palmer?] 
Ellis:  It splits Palmer - right down the middle of the valley
Torg:  They have Valdez is 12 and Cordova in 36. 

[Today’s discussion seems more focused and considering more than numbers, but they are trying to get the Native majority and Native influence districts set up.  I’ll try to get some video of this for contrast.]

Torg:  39 is Nome to Border down to McCarthy.
MC:  What do you think about going across State like that. going across for different tribal areas.
Greene:  Would be interested in the testimony we have.  Would definitely be something new.  I’ve lived there for years.  ??? Has communication increased? 
White:  They’re data different again.  They have 50.1
Bickford:  Show 39 53 people over populated.  It takes part of Fairbanks and Tok, but you could take those out and still be within the deviation. 
Brody:  Require a lot of thought to take road system area and connect to roadless.
Torg:  7
Bickford: 7 takes in top of what used to be 12.
Torg:  Valdez went with Kodiak?  So 38 then is Bethel, and went into 6 and picked up their population.  87% Native.  37 is down the chain, fit in all they could - all  - you think that will also be a minority.  It’s 50 or 49.
Bickford:  If not using three races it’s under 50%.
Torg:  This wouldn’t be a bad map if not tied into border from Nome and Wade=Hampton area in Fairbanks.  But other than that, their presentation is good.   Basically four districts and one influence.  39 and 7 tough to swallow.  Hoping we can get the good stuff from different maps.

Torg:  To Bush Caucus Plan - 5 majority - one influence.

Looking at SE - I took some video -
Torg:  We do have our influence district.  Now up 39 - Mother of all mothers, north of McCarthy to Nome, goes down and picks up Unalakleet too.  How do they deal with Fairbanks?  Clear out of there  Did they complete 6?  Also a minority district. 
Bickford:  6 comes over top of North Star Borough. 
Holm:  Leaves out Salcha and picks up Eilson.
Torg:  Put Eilson in with 6? 
Bickford:  Not all, but have base, other areas just farm area, not many people. 
Torg:  37 goes to Dutch I assume, takes in Tyonek.  A lot of plans take in Tyonek.  Kodiak is with Cordova? 
Bickford: yes all the way to Cordova.
Torg:  35?  Kenai Peninsula, including Seward. 
Bickford:  Will probably only gets 4 Matsu seats when their population gives them five.  Splits them 3 ways.
Torg:  Not their intent I don’t think.  Just divide their population by 17,755 isn’t going to get 5.  Zero in on Palmer. 


Torg:  What we’re doing now is racial gerrymandering.  I don’t know how you get around it.  Taking areas so we get the numbers.
Bickford:  The native percentage is really high.  We could give up 4000 here and make it up with population in this area. 
Torg:  Any more on Bush Caucus 4-2? 
Holm:  No 5-1. 
Torg:  I think mine is next.  Load it.  OK, take short break at 3:17pm. 

Torg 3:20:  what I was trying to do.  This is district 4 here, really no one living here, but it touches SE
White: Your plan?
Torg:  dealing with rural only.  Trying to get rid of uglies.  But this is also ugly.  Puts Nome and Kotz together.  6 gets almost to Fairbanks
. . .
Looking at 37 - possibly could drop some villages and get it up to 50%
Torg:  Real goal - can we get 9 districts that don’t take in Fairbanks.  Conclusion - we can but it’s ugly.
Greene:  Why do you have Bethel and Dutch Harbor together.
White:  Continuity issues.
Torg:  Not more than the Kodiak one.  Also Kotzebue and Nome.
White:  DOJ will look beyond just the numbers.  Major SE difference.  Some plans pair native incumbents against non-native incumbents. 
MC:  3 in with Sitka
Miller:  4 in with 5
Torg:  SE what I wanted to do is start in with Nichole???  Idea was to run 1 north and not make it a majority, came out of SE thru Yakutat along Canadian Border, and dropping 40 down - get a skinny 39 down the coast.  But fallout is Kotz and Nome (pairing of incumbents) would this ease the pain of making this 37 go all the way up to Yukon-K area.   I guess where we’re at.  If were going to have 9 majority districts.  we’re going to have to take urban populations.  No other way to do it. 

AFFER does that.  But has other problems.  I like parts of other plans.
Greene:  Have staff work with those plans.  Did you do SE too?
Torg:  What remained?  Anything?  Started with Metlakatla.
Eric:  I believe we got it up to - about 40% - we went all the way to Northway, Eagle, Chicken…
Torg:  ONe time we did that, but didn’t leave that one.  You said you got 46%. 
What you do is eliminate the problem.  Anyway, that’s our look at rural district.  Not sure how to lead us thru the discussion of what to do next.  If our goal is to have nine districts, lets do that and be prepared for them to take large chunks out of the urban areas. 

How about tomorrow.  Will you (Mc) have SE ready to go over?  Keep in mind we’ll want two or three plans so folks will have a contrast, something else to look at, so be thinking about that also.  I think I’ll hijack Eric and continue on the rural districts and take … everyone and see if we can come up with something with the rural.  Jim, will we have Fairbanks to rock and roll tomorrow?
Holm:  Depends on how the rural districts take parts of Fairbanks.
Torg:  If we drop down one, we have retrogression.  How to avoid?
White:  Have to show no lesser retrogressive plan can be drawn.
Torg:  I’m struggling with taking Matsu and Fairbanks down a district.
Holm:  I’m not fine with that.  But one man one vote.  If we say they have enough for five districts, then we have to do that.
White:  Not really, there was a Kenai case.  US Constitution trumps state law.  There is some room.  There isn’t going to be violation unless there is intentional discrimination.  If there is the court won’t allow and deviance from proportionality.
Holm:  You’re saying racial gerrymandering is ok.
White:  No, racial gerrymandering is not allowed
Holm:  If you are moving people around aren’t you doing that?
White:  Laughing, If I could answer that I’d been on the SC. 
Holm:  that’s as good an answer as any because I don’t expect you to be a SC justice.  Folks in Willow will have the same concern.  I don’t know how you’re going to draw it.  We can live with these, then this is how you draw your populations to make things whole.  Then the differential between one percent and ten percent, will really make a difference in the size of the districts.  It’s possible we can take less people from the majority area with 16,000 people instead of 18,000.
Torg:  Exactly what Eric and I were doing.
White:  I think you would be justified.  Decide, for the numbers game, in the rural areas we’re going to have larger deviation, under 10%, then I could probably defend that.  If we say we did it because of the voting rights act, they would say it is trumped by one man one vote.  But you could say we need to have 5% deviation in rural areas so that we don't mess with the rural areas.
Brody:  So far we’ve been going north and south.  What if we go east and west.
Torg:  I think taking out of Anchorage is worse than in rural areas. 
Brody:  people are people.
Torg:  I think rural Wasilla is more rural than Anchorage.
White:  There is excess population in Fairbanks you have to do something with. 
Torg:  We grabbed it.  Including Dutch Harbor with bethel was just an experiment.  I just wanted to see what it looked like. 
Brody:  Quarter of the state. 
Torg:  Put NW arctic back in the way it was.
Bickford:  What you did, didn’t save Fairbanks.

[Then I switched to video and I’ll get that up soon {wishful thinking?)] [There's only a couple of minutes and I'll add it later.  Sorry.  Nothing crucial, it's the winding up of the meeting and dividing of work and staff for tomorrow morning, but you get a flavor of the meeting you can't get from the notes.]

UPDATE Midnight:  Here's the video of the end of the meeting. It gives a sense of style of the meetings.

AFFER Presents Revised Plan

Mayfield (l) and Ruedrich

The presenters have gone through lots of details and I couldn't keep up with things, but this should give you at least a sense of what was covered.  I'll take advantage of the break (until 2pm) to clean up the typos and add pictures.  So check back.  The public presentation starts at 2pm.]

[AFFER is Alaskans for Fair and Equitable Redistricting - apparently headed by Republican Party chair Randy Ruedrich.]

Randy Ruedrich with AFFER, Thank you for your incredible work - reports from people all over the state saying you'd been there.
We want to update our basic plan.  David Mayberry will do that.

We've revised our map after hearing public testimony.  Complies with board principles and respect Native and cultural differences.  Cleaned up boundaries to match drainages... and improved some district compactness.  Focus on VRA, which requires us to protect as best we can rights of Natives, converted one district into Majority district - 37 from influence to majority.  Minority District 2 reinforced and is at 35.65% and % of all Natives in 2 is 36.??%

Dist. 37 is blend of Athabascan, Aleut villages?  others stay more homogeneous.

Adding non-Native residence in D6 reduces ???

Specifically SE map
Districts 1-4 - Overall objective to protect Native VRA district in SE.  Reassigned Cordova, D 5 is 6000 short and basis for D2,  Several camps removed to, and from D5, got new 2 with 37.8%, we're calling it the fishhook district, heir to ice worm district.  Adds Juneau airport and Switzer district.
Dis 3 starts at 3400 under, adding Gustavus, Tanakee Springs, ....  gets to 2.2% deviation.
[Can't keep up with all the details.]
For comparison, 1972 map used over 800 miles of water to connect Kodiak and Adak so feel our water connections ok.  SEn A pairs 1 and 2 has AK native% of 28.19%

Interior Dis. 5-10
Reduce District 5 AKMinority to 2?% = Eilson AFB available for NSB district.
6-10 not changed from original AFFER map 3/31.

Matsu
11-16  - they should get five districts  Uses Knik bridge to Link S. Matsu and Anchorage.
Core= Palmer, Big Lake, Houston have been adjusted based on feedback
New 15 - Wasilla - Houston extends down the Knik Bay road to Prt Mc.
Dist. 11 reaches right size by dropping Eilson AFB on N.

Anchorage
Restores ER community to single district.  S Anchorage linkage gone based on complaints.
Campbell, Chester and Fish creeks used as Constitution.  Anchorage used for Assembly districts.  EAFB - added.
Adjusted to conform to CC and Assembly.  Segment of 29 rolled into D 27 - better conformance to fish creek.
29 Taku/Campbell has been simplified.  Irregular boundaries south of Dimond Mall unresolved.
D30 best for matching natural boundaries - n campbell lake, N. assembly boundary,  Western is Seward Highway,  and match D 32
Changed 32 - relatively compact - Girdwood to Huffman Road and Hillside. All remote areas reassigned to more compact options.

Kenai Map - Populations balanced by adding small neighborhood from 33 into 34 and moving 33/35 boundaries northward using local input

Rural and Western map -
D 40 - -4.9%   79??%  changed up to 88%
others reassigned to 38 - N 86.5%
37  has 5.15% deviation ????? -4.?% deviation

AFFER looks forward to answering any questions.

Ruederich:  Aerial photography of Anchorage.  Most CC splits we made captured majority of population.  If look at Campbell Park CC - most is in South, tiny part here - we added this small piece back side of road to Basher to this little area south of Tudor to 95% of the population added to Scenic Park?? 

Precinct here has core of NE CC  - below the rest of NE with Scenic Park and Basher.
Our basic premise early on that a solid 7 district map from VRA expert.  So we came up with plan for our group that covers a nine VRA districts.  One new Senate influence by going in and taking the d5, coming out of SE - different by adding Copper River Ahtna people and combing them with district to only Minority influence gives us 35.3 ANatives in thsi combined Kodiak and Aleutian district.  The people we used before are available to reconstruct the other three historical minority districts.  S1/2 of 39,  added Denali Borough, southern NSBorogh Salcha precint - creates two majority seats and most importantly a Sen majority.  78% in 7  and combined sen seat of 7 and 8 = 69%.  Goes ito NSB to Canadian border - that district when combined with 10 has Sen 68.1%.  We have created a paired Maj/Minority seate,  ??????  three senate seats and 4 majority/minority house seats, and minority influence district and the d2 David talked about earlier.
It's a nine VRA seats - only significant change, taken population out of Western Matsu and given to Eastern Matsu.  Awful fast sorry.

Torg:  We don't have copies.  You must have a non-contiguous Senate seat.

Ruedrich:  Minor House seat in SE not paired for VRA {Voting Rights Act] sen. seat.  Took a 28% seat and paired it with a majority seat to get majority influence Sen. seat.  Only complication is to reach over Salcha.  Went around N and S sides of Fairbanks.

McConnochie:  Which pairings

Ruedrich:
1.  North - 2 house seats and sen majo
2.  Pair of Yupik - both majority house and sen  = 6
3.  Min influence in D6 - the other influence is 2 in SE.
4.  Pairing of 5 and 6 gets Min Senate
Ten districts to get the nine entities.

White:  [Missed this looking for an outlet for the computer]  How Native reps paired?
Ruedrich:  Reason Wrangell is VR district because it has significant Native population.
 Kookesh would be in Sen A by himself

White:  For all groups - have you provide your GIS shape?? files to us.
Torgerson:  Next Fairbanks NS Borough.  From Fairbanks.  Just  a moment.
10:50am

Can the Board Keep to Nine Native Districts? What is Contiguous?

I'm trying to figure out how to write about the Redistricting Board the last couple of days.  They are playing with the software trying to find ways to make maps that meet all the criteria.  I say 'playing' very consciously.  This is very much like a computer game.

The Goal:

Make 40 districts each with 17,755 people, give or take a percent or two.

Restrictions:

No Retrogression

That's what they've been struggling with the last two days.

The current districts include NINE native districts.  Let me clarify.  There are 6 House districts that are either minority-majority or minority-influence districts (see this previous post for explanation) and three Senate districts.  These are:

House District	Incumbent	Senate District	Incumbent	Minority Majority*	Minority Influence*
5	Bill Thomas Jr. (R)	C	Albert Kookesh (D)	5?
6	Alan Dick (R)	C	Albert Kookesh (D)		6?
37	Bryce Edgmon (D)	S	Lyman Hoffman (D)	37 - S
38	Bob Herron (D)	S	Lyman Hoffman (D)	38 - S
39	Neal Foster (D)	T	Donny Olson (D)	39 -T
40	Reggie Joule (D)	T	Donny Olson (D)	40 -T

 *I'm not 100% sure about which districts are Minority-Majority and Minority-Influence.  I'll try to get that confirmed tomorrow. [TB, if you read this, please correct it in the comments.]

The question on the Board's mind - at least on Chair Torgerson's - was whether the Board could avoid any retrogression by creating nine Native majority or influence districts and still meet the state's requirements for compact, socially and economically integrated districts.  They had a plan with nice [nine]. but with a Senate seat made up of two non-contiguous House seats.

Because of Alaska's huge area, unique shape (narrow strips - SE between water and Canada, Aleutians, islands spread out 1200 miles across the ocean), and very sparse population, we already have some districts that are hardly compact.

So they were able to come up with a plan that had nine native districts, but in order to do that, they had to pair a House district in Ketchikan in the southeast with one in Kodiak to make a Native senate district.  So, the answer was yes.  You can see that explained in the first video. 



But, could the meaning of 'contiguous' be stretched to cover two house districts (one in Ketchikan and one in Kodiak) over a large expanse of ocean to make a Native senate seat? That's the question Torgerson asks attorney White in the second video.

Wednesday it appeared they were going to really try to get to nine Native districts. Thursday it wasn't so certain, though Eric, the GIS guy, had come up with another way to get nine Native districts, but still 'ugly.'  Yesterday it seemed like they were going to find a way to do get nine.  Today,  it looked liked they were ready to settle for eight Native districts. But it sounds like they'll go forward with a plan for nine and one for eight. 

One thing I noticed was that the staffers who'd worked hard to get at least a Native-influence district out of SE said, "It can't be done." I think a more accurate way of saying it would be, "We couldn't figure out a way to do it." I don't know if it can be done more elegantly than they did it (because they did do it, though, as they said, "it was ugly"). But I suspect people with real skill and more experience with the software could do seemingly impossible things. Afterall, 30 years ago, people never imagined that people could do the stunts we see in sports like extreme skiing. But the board only has about six days to get the draft plan done.

I'm going to miss the Friday meeting because I have the Ole! blogging class at the same time as the board meeting.  But they'll be meeting Saturday and Sunday at 2pm as well.  They have til Friday to get a draft plan, so no time off.  And those of you who can't get there because of work - well, you can see them in action.  In the Yellow mall on 4th Avenue - 411 W. 4th.  Suite 203.

Boundary Setting And Terminology Around Minority Districts

[The doings of the Redistricting Board are not impossibly complicated, but there are lots of details that make it hard to grasp.  I wouldn't claim to grasp more than a small portion.  But in this post I've attempted to explain some of what is going on.  At the end I've posted some communications made to the Board as they got close to approving a map of the Native districts.  They should make a little more sense after you read the first part of the post.  I didn't go to the Saturday meeting and have heard they did approve a Native plan.  If they did, I can't find anything about it on the Board's website.  It would be nice, but I do sympathize with the staff and all the demands on them.]

Friday at the Redistricting Board Meeting, there was more pushing and shoving of pixels here and there in attempts to get nine Native districts that would meet jello-like criteria for standards whose names have also morphed since March.  There was one plan that Board members PeggyAnn McConnochie and Marie Greene worked on.  Another was created by Executive Director Taylor Bickford.

We began in March with the terms 'Majority-minority' and 'Influence' districts.  Majority-minority means districts that have a majority of Native voters in the belief that this would insure that Native Alaskan voters would be able to elect the candidate of their choice in those districts. 


Influence districts were ones that had enough Native Alaskan population that they would likely be able, with enough non-Native cross-over vote, elect candidates of their choice.

At the beginning of this process, based on the 2001 redistricting process, Majority-minority districts had to have 50% or more Native Alaskans.  Influence districts needed 35%.

Well, that wasn't all.  There's Total Native Population and Native Voting Age Population.  Somewhere during the process it was clarified - I think - that the key number was going to be Voting Age Population, known affectionately as VAP.

Think you've got it now?  Well, there's more.  Which Natives on the Census tabulation do we count?  People who just identified themselves as "Native?"

No.  (Actually, I'm not sure what exact label the census forms had, but at the Board they use "Native.")  But there are also options to mark off more than one ethnicity - recognizing mixed ethnicities.  So, there was talk for a while of just counting "Native plus White."  Then the term "Native plus One" meaning someone who chose Native plus one other option.  And then there are those who chose Native plus more than one other ethnicity.

So the private plans that came in, lacking specific guidance, used different terminology and different configurations of what made up a Native.

Then the Board had a phone discussion with Voting Rights Act consultant Lisa Handley after she'd analyzed the data from Alaska.  New guidelines emerged.  Majority-minority was out.  Effective was in.  She said that - and a lot of how the Department of Justice thinks about these things comes from Southern states where the minority population is mainly African-American - a minority could have a majority in a district, but depending on socio-economic conditions, that majority wouldn't be enough to 'effectively' chose the candidate of their choice.  So now the key word was Effective Districts.  And she said a better name for influence district is now Equal Opportunity District. 

And, here comes the kicker, you don't have to have 50% minority in a district to be an Effective District.  Well, what percent do you need?  Hah!  You don't think she's just going to give a number.  Of course not.  "It depends."

It depends on the results of the voting analysis she's done.  Was there block voting?  Did Natives tend to vote in a block for a particular candidate?  Did the non-Natives vote in a block?  Did the blocks vote for the same or different candidates.  If the whites in the district voted for the same candidate that the Natives voted for, then we have Cross-Over voting.  This is good if you're trying to set an acceptable Effective District because you need a lower percentage of Natives because the Native voters get significant help from the non-Native voters.  But if they vote in blocks for different candidates, then you have polarization.  This is bad for the board members because they need a higher percentage of Natives for a district to be Effective or Influence. (Though VRA consultant Handley was pushing Equal Opportunity over Influence, the board has tended to keep using Influence, though they've dropped Majority-minority and moved to Effective.)

Some districts have higher cross-over voting and they need a lower percentage of Natives.  The old District 37 - Aleutians - fit in this category.  The old District 6 - the huge district that loops from the Canadian border over Fairbanks down the Yukon - on the other hand, is polarized, so it needs a higher percentage.

There are more factors.  One is total population in a district.  No district can exceed a 10% deviation in total population from any other district.  That is, the largest district cannot be more than 10% larger than the smallest population.  And that is pushing the what is likely to be accepted under the one person, one vote rule.  And in the urban areas, staying closer to a 1% deviation is more acceptable.  The ideal district is 17,755 people. (The new total population figure divided by 40 House seats.)

As the board tries to make these nine Native districts [the same number of Native districts under the old plan - any less would be 'Retrogression' which is not allowed under the Voting Rights Act] not only do they need enough Native voters to qualify as 'equal-opportunity' or 'Effective' districts, those districts also need enough total voters to be within about 5% of 17,755 people.

But the Native areas of the state don't have quite enough people to get all nine districts up to an acceptable level.  So they need to get people from more populated areas.

So, the image above shows some screen shots of the computer maps changing rapidly as a board member or staffer moves census blocs in and out of districts trying to increase Native population, trying to get the total population high or low enough to stay within a few percent of the ideal 17,755 people per district, while determining if the White population they are moving in to give a Native district enough people are cross-over Whites or polarized Whites.  And Fairbanks has enough people for five whole districts with 8000 'excess' population that can be 'given' to districts needing people. 

And those pink, periwinkle, and green pieces of different districts on the edges of Fairbanks are just a tiny part of the whole picture.    The first Fairbanks maps drawn up by member Jim Holm had lopped off the northwest Fairbanks suburbs of Greenbelt and Ester - known as liberal bastions.  It turned out this put Democratic Rep. David Gutenberg into huge Native influence (now called equal opportunity) district and the old representative of that district (new Republican, Alan Dick) had been mapped out.  That map was being altered Friday.

Friday's justification for people putting the Democratic enclaves into the rural district was, "Since Natives vote Democratic, putting urban Democratic voters into the district would mean these are cross-over voters and thus would lower the percentage of Natives needed to make it an Effective district."

On the other hand, they justified taking a couple thousand mostly White, not Democratic, voters from Eilson on the grounds that only 20% of them vote.   So while they are probably not voting Democratic - and thus would be a 'polarized bloc' - since most don't vote, this too could be used to justify a lower needed Native percentage.  (What happens if Republicans do a serious 'get-out-the-vote' campaign at Eilson?)

Those little pieces on the edge of Fairbanks are just one tiny part of Alaska and the job of the Board.  The maps in the image up above fit inside the red circle on this map that Board executive director Taylor Bickford presented on Friday.

And this is just a big chunk of central Alaska.  I'm writing all this with the maps to give you a sense of what was happening the last several days at the board.  Moving different colored pixels trying to get Native VAP and Deviation percentages lined up among six House districts and three Senate districts, while keeping them in some sense of defensible socio-economic coherence.


I didn't go to the meeting on Saturday.  I just couldn't will myself to do it.  The board's website offers an agenda and an Executive Director's report for Saturday's meeting, but unfortunately, the links both take me here:

 
Hey, I make plenty of errors on my blog and the short-handed staff is making maps, doing the board members' bidding, and all the house-keeping of the website.  That's a lot of work.  But this is sort of important and maybe the Board should have hired someone to make sure the website was both up-to-date AND all the links were working.  I certainly don't blame the overworked staff for this.

But there are three attachments whose links do work.  These lead to PDFs from the Northwest Arctic Borough, the Calista Corporation, and the Bering Straits Borough.

In response to the two Board plans that looked like the most likely to be adopted, the Northwest Borough wrote (in part):

. . . Grouping Northwest Alaska with more urban communities near Fairbanks, tip [sic] the voting balance away from rural Alaska Native voters.  Consdier that the Northwest Arctic Borough by itself has a total population of just over 7,500 people, 6,548 of those voters are Alaska Native or part Alaska Native and only 4,868 people in the Borough ar over the age of 18.  The number of voers that our area is grouped with from a more urban area tied to Fairbanks includes 4,000 people.  Data shows that the communities in Northwest Alaska do not vote as frequently as those in urban areas, therefore the plan prepared by Taylor Bickford may show a majority Alaska Native district in Northwest Alaska, it does not actually represent a majority Alaska Native district . . .

Marcia Davis,  as General Council for Calista Corporation, writes (again, in part):

With regard to the two choices before the board, Calista prefers the Greene-McConnachie [sic] map. It is our understanding that this map places the majority of Calista's region within two house districts 37 and 38. We appreciate the recent change in the map that restored to District 37 the coastal towns of Kipnuk, Kwigilingok, and Kongiganak, and exchanged the high growth areas of Matsu and replaced them with Talkeetna, a slower growth community. It is important to Calista that District 37 remains strong as it is important that our incumbent Native , Senator Hoffman, who has high seniority be able to maintain strong Native support in this district. We also support the inclusion of the Native villages northwest of Kodiak along the coastline as this maintains the alignment of Native coastal communities in District 35. It is extremely important to Calista that the Alaska Native voting population not be reduced any further in District 38 (currently 46.98%) as this district does not have the favorable characteristics that Dr. Handley found to exist in the Bristol Bay Region, now part of District 36, that enabled the effective Native voting population percentage to be in the 38-41% range. In addition, because District 38 picks up some of the areas surrounding Fairbanks, this non-native population could grow and therefore dilute the Native population of District 38 over time, so the Native Voting Age percentage of District 38 needs to start off higher than the minimum needed for benchmarking it as an effective district.    Finally, we support leaving the NANA region and ASRC in the same house district 40.

Finally, Gail R. Schubert, President & CEO Bering Straits Native Corp, writes:

We understand that one of the plans under consideration expands the current District 39 to the South and SE, incorporating some of the middle and lower Yukon villages (Anvik, Grayling, Shageluk, and Holy Cross, among others), and also includes McGrath and Lime Village. This proposed district, while avoiding the East-West stretch BSNC has consistently opposed, has a significant and unacceptable flaw. We understand that it stretches the district to the south to incorporate Kodiak Island, and pairs the Bering Strait district with this southern district for a seat in the Alaska Senate. Given the Native/non- Native ratio in the Kodiak district, and the tremendous differences in subsistence lifestyles, economic scope and development between Kodiak and Bering Strait, BSNC cannot support this plan. We believe this plan threatens the continued, fair representation for the residents of the Bering Strait region, and significantly dilutes the Native population and our vote. We also believe that, over time, the non-Native population in the Kodiak district will grow, further diluting the Native population of District 39, and our Native voice and influence. For these reasons, we strongly oppose any redistricting map that pairs the Bering Strait district with the Kodiak district.

This is way too long and only covers a bit of what's going on.  But, enough's enough. 

Board Talks to Voting Rights Consultant Lisa Handley Calling from Afghanistan

This morning the board finally got to talk to the Voting Rights Act consultant, Lisa Handley, whose proposal they selected to analyze their plan before sending it for pre-clearance from the Department of Justice.  Handley is currently in Afghanistan.  I put some of the audio onto a video tape so you can get a sense of this consultant.  She literally wrote the book, or at least one book, on Voting Rights, which was published in 1992, and she was the 2001 Board's consultant as well.

For those with a technical bent, here are some notes on what Dr. Handley told  the NCSL National Redistricting Seminar on Measuring Minority Vote Dilution.






The audio covers some technical file information, the how to count Native who identify was multiracial where staff attorney White is able to get the consultant up to speed.  I edited the audio where board staff was hard to hear and to shorten it a bit. 





Here are my notes from the rest of the conversation.

[USUAL WARNING:  This was typed on the fly at the meeting and I'm putting it up with only rudimentary proof reading.  It doesn't capture everything and could be inaccurate.  The Board should have the audio up on their website soon.]

Redistricting  Board - April 11, 2011

Talking via phone to Consultant Lisa Handley who called from Afghanistan. 

Discussion fairly technical about the kind of data she needs to do her analysis. 

I came in a bit late and then recorded about 8 minutes.  Then I edited out some of it because the audio quality was terrible (worse than some parts I left - sorry, this is documentation, not art.)  Then I just started typing with the recording going as well.

Handley:  If one is white and one minority - count as a minority
If more than two, wonder what we do then.  DoJ may have given us some guidelines in recent weeks.  A lot of people will be captured by this.

Mike White:  in February 9th - will do their retrogression analysis
1.  Native and Native + white
2.  Native and Native + all

Required because of footnote in - Georgia v. Ashcroft  - SC said if you only have one race at issue, you should do what people self identify. 

OK, that answers that question. 

Something slightly different - I’m talking a data base for analysis of racial block voting analysis. 

In Chicago, much more complicated because different minority groups.  But here it’s much less complicated. 

Mike White:  35% number.  Board would like to know how you arrived at 35%

C:  I don’t know it will be 35% this time.  I think you are asking, what % of Natives needed to elect a Native.  Differential in minoirty and white turnout, how much white crossover vote can we expect for Native candidate.
Ten years ago, we found enough white cross-over, a 35% district might cut it.  aaysls has to be redone.  Might not be 35% this time round. 

White:  Could be higher or lower.

C:  That’s right. 

Actually, this turnaround, not only magic 35%, but since you’ve had minority candidates running statewide, so we can look at that data as well. 

Eric:  You want a column of total # of Cauc and column for Native - this would be anyone who checks the Native box on Census.

Handley:  Yes.  Some who marked just Native, but also Native and white, Hispanic, black. 

Eric:  Someone who marked all six races?

Handley:  That’s my understanding. 

Torgerson:  relating to 35% how might voting age population affect that?

Handley:  35% offers Native an opportunity to elect a candidate of choice.  Relates to turnout rates of whites and minorities, cohesion of Natives, how much white support for Natives?  35%

White:  Last time based on total population and not 35% voting age population.

Handley:  REALLY??!!!  If it says total rather than voting, that’s what it is.

White:  Assuming that you considered voting age in determining 35%.  S

Handley:  Since we focused on total population, the voting age is in there.  Did I do that for both?

Torg:  Can I talk to you about timeline?  We’ll be drawing final plan sometime in the second week of May.  When do you think we’ll have your analysis.  Not trying to nail you down, but get a general idea.

Handley:  Given your tight time line.  Probably not sufficient for section V submission, but for drawing purposes, why don’t I analysis just those districts that involve native candidates.
Then the 3 statewide Native candidates.
Then maybe 15 races. 

Somthing like that would take a couple of weeks to analysis.  Given that the data base is ready when I get back, I can start immediately.

Torg:  That would fit in our timeline.

Handley:  Another measure - the disaggregted results of minoirity candidates ????

White:  Lisa can provide us with a working number, but that wouldn’t be the pre-clearance analysis.

Handley:  But then I would do more races.  But first shot would be all races including minority candidates. 

Torg:  I realize you’ll have to do final analysis

Handley:  Do you have election results in the data base you’re using to draw the districts.

Eric:  NO
Handley:  It might be useful to show ??? that are minority preferred to include in your data base.  I’ll begin my analysis with those districts.

McConnochie:  We’re using 35% to make a minority district.  I realize we need to also look at voting age.  Possible to give us a number of voting age for us?

Handley:  Not necessarily the number we’ll use this time.  That’s only part of it.  The DOJ is going to do another analsysis.  If you have a district that are sitting at 50% that are vastly underpopulated.  You’ll say, I couldn’t draw this at 50%  I drew it at 35%.  If you CAN draw it above 35% but only do 35% you could be in trouble.

McConnochie:  The other way.  Areas that lost a lot of population and trying to get it to and above 35%.

Handley:  Looking at districts as currently composed. And you have some minority that is really underpopulated right?

White:  We have one that was minority-majority but is now 2% underpopulated and trying to move it around

Handley:  You can do that DOJ doesn’t insist these are the same districts, but the same number of districts. 

White:  We have some that are minority-majority and they will remain majority, but reduced because of out migration.

Handley:  DOJ will look at the data, if they see the numbers went down.  If they see you just couldn’t do it, they’ll be fine. 

Torg:  When are you going to be back from Afghanistan?

Handley:  April 24 - Easter Sunday. 

Torg:  Well have you up, sometime in Mid-May. 

Handley:  who is compliling the data base - Eric - email me on my aol account, better luck that g-mail account here. 
11:45am
Hang up.

McConnochie - very important that we buy the map, so when they redraw important not to redraw - it will be helpful to them to understand our minority districts.  They could come up with other districts but destroy what we’ve tried to do.

White:  Some of the other ones - not 40 - part of the justification to DOJ.

Torgerson:  Memo from City Manager of Cordova.  The board may have adopted Valdez plan that includes Cordova, based on my comments that we were ok with going with Valdez, well, we aren’t. 
So, if any member of the board wishes to bring this issue back up, then a motion would be in order to revise this. 

Brody:  I would lean toward leaving it the way it is until we can visit Cordova until we can tell them what our options were.  See if they prefer other options.  Message is vague.

Torg:  I didn’t wnat any accusations that the board adopted this based on interpretation of what I said in error.    OK, that will stand as adopted.
We’’ll recess then technically to call of chair, but probably at 2.

Brody:  Could we do this at 2pm? 

Torg:  Not sure we’ll be ready.   When would you be ready McConnochie?  You aren’t going to have lunch then?

McConnochie:  Apparently not. 

Torg:  We’ll recess until 2pm
11:54am

Here's the first page of the Table of Contents of the book Handley coauthored on Voting Equality.  You can read some of it online here.

Redistricting Board's Submission to DOJ - Part 1

The Alaska Redistricting Board submitted its plan for approval from the Department of Justice (DOJ) on August 9, 2011.  DOJ has 60 days to approve or not - which gets us to about October 10 or 11.  It's taken me a while to get to posting about this, but I do think people should know about it.  So I'm finally getting Part 1 up.

Alaska is one of 16 states (I've seen different numbers, but this seems to be the most common) that are required to have their decennial redistricting plans cleared by the DOJ.  I haven't tracked down the specifics of what got Alaska onto the list.  You can read more on the Voting Rights Act on Wikipedia.  Here's a bit from the Minnesota Senate website on preclearance under the Voting Rights Act:

In 1975, Congress extended the preclearance requirements for an additional seven years (through the 1980 redistricting cycle). The 1975 amendments added to the list of tests and devices the conduct of registration and elections in only the English language in those states or political subdivisions where more than 5 percent of the voting age population belonged to a single language minority group (including Alaskan natives, Native Americans, Asian Americans and people of Spanish heritage). The 1975 amendments also required the use of bilingual election materials and assistance if 5 percent of the jurisdiction's voting age citizens were of a single language minority and the illiteracy rate of that language minority group was greater than the national average. Finally, the coverage formula was extended to include jurisdictions that maintained any test or device and had less than half of their voting age population either registered on November 1, 1972, or casting votes in the 1972 presidential election. In all, 16 states or parts of states now are covered by Section 5 preclearance requirements, as shown in table 6.  [red font added]

You can get a .pdf copy of the Alaska Redistricting Board's  submission at the Redistricting Board's website. (See DOJ Submissions on the right at the Board's website) They sent in lots of material. 

A key part is the Submission Statement.  The statement is 18 pages long and essentially goes through the steps of how the plan was developed.  It's relatively straightforward, though it is written by an attorney for attorneys in the Department of Justice and uses a lot of terms of art that people familiar with the topic will understand, but others might find hard to get through.  This isn't a criticism, just a warning.

As I understand this, the key thing the DOJ must do is determine that there has been no retrogression - or as the board's attorney would assert, "No unjustifiable retrogression."  The Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965, shortly after the Civil Rights Act was passed to ensure that barriers to voting under segregation in the South would be removed and that African-Americans would be able to not only vote, but have meaningful votes.  Part of this means that they wouldn't be gerrymandered into districts that diluted their voting strength.  But this applies to other minorities whose voting strength is diluted by the way districts are drawn.

Alaska is one of the 16 states because the courts, in the past, found discrimination against Alaska Natives.  Part of the test of the fairness of the districts is whether the votes of Alaska Natives can make a difference, whether their percentage in the population is reflected in the voting results.  Past law suits have resulted in what are called Native Districts.  From the Board's submission:

Alaska Natives are the only minority group covered under the Voting Rights Act (“VRA” or “Act”) of sufficient size and geographic concentration in Alaska that qualify as a language minority of potential concern for purposes of redistricting. The proposed redistricting plan is free from discriminatory purpose and will not result in retrogression in the position of Alaska Natives with respect to their exercise of the electoral franchise because it maintains the same number of effective Alaska Native legislative districts as the Benchmark plan.

"Same number of effective districts" is the key phrase here. 

The Benchmark Plan reflects the current legislative districts with the 2010 Census population data. Using the target “effectiveness’ standard derived by Dr. Handley, the Benchmark Plan contains four “effective” Alaska Native House districts (Districts 37, 38, 39 and 40) and three “effective” Alaska Native Senate districts (Districts R, S and T) that consistently elect Alaska Native-preferred candidates even when voting is polarized. Additionally, there is one “equal opportunity” House district (District 6) that contains substantial Alaska Native voting age populations but did not always elect the minority-preferred candidate, and one “influence” district (District 5) that has consistently elected an Alaska Native even though not always the Alaska Native-preferred candidate.

What does that mean?

Benchmark plan, as I understand this, is the plan the new one is evaluated against.  It's the final 2001 plan which was the basis for the existing Alaska legislative districts which, until the new plan is adopted, is still in effect.  The VRA requires that there be no 'retrogression,' that is, no decrease in the number of Native districts from the benchmark plan.

It turns out there are different kinds of "Native" districts:

Effective districts - consistently elect Alaska Native-preferred candidates even when voting is polarized. [Polarized voting means that non-Natives vote as a bloc against the candidates the Native voters favor.]

Equal opportunity districts -  contain substantial Alaska Native voting age populations but did not always elect the minority-preferred candidate,  [Minority here means Native]


Influence districts - consistently elected an Alaska Native even though not always the Alaska Native-preferred candidate.  [The key example used here was District 5 where a Republican Native was elected over the Native preferred Native.]

Actually, the terminology used last time and at the beginning of the process this time included "majority" and "influence" districts.  I discussed the old terms - Majority-minority and Minority-influence districts- in a post last April for those who need more than this post to get to sleep.

In any case, no retrogression means maintaining nine Native districts at least six of which are, in the new lingo, "Effective Districts" plus three "Influence Districts." 

The Board's submission explains to the DOJ - which of course understands the terminology since they created it - how things had changed in Alaska (ie. many rural Alaska Natives had moved into the cities thus decreasing the populations of the previous Native districts) and how the Board adapted to the changes.  I would note that the census indicates there are enough Alaska Natives living in Anchorage to make a Native Majority district, but since they are scattered throughout the Anchorage area and not 'geographically concentrated,'  it's probably impossible to create such a district.



Why is it likely to be approved?

I'm not an expert on this and I'm simply going on what I absorbed watching the Board meetings.   On the whole, I'm guessing the DOJ will approve the plan even though one of the districts (38) is very large and combines suburbs of Fairbanks with Yupik speaking coastal villages off the road system.

• The old plan contained a similarly large district (but without such an urban area)
• None of the private groups that submitted alternative plans were able to come up with more than nine Native districts - though perhaps DOJ might find that they have better districts
• There have been no court challenges regarding the Voting Rights Act districts (the deadline for suing is long past) and 
• the Voting Rights Act consultant, Lisa Handley, is someone who works closely with the Department of Justice on these sorts of issues.   As she presented herself to the Board, she's pretty current on the standards they use to approve and she herself approved the plan before it got sent in.  

But it's much less expensive to send in comments to the DOJ than to file a law suit, so perhaps people who think the VRA standards were not met have sent their comments to DOJ.


There are three law suits - two from Fairbanks  about District 38 and one from Petersburg.  District 38, which splits relatively close Yupik villages from Bethel and connects them to Fairbanks, may be of interest to DOJ as well, but I wouldn't hold my breath.  The Board had a difficult job crafting a plan with nine Native districts which also following the other standards set forth in the Alaska Constitution and statutes - particularly having compact and socio-economically integrated districts.  It's hard getting districts the right size (close to 17,755 people each) and meeting all the criteria.  And, as the Board's attorney told the Board, Federal law supersedes the State Constitution and Statutes.


Coming Soon

What I've discussed above is the important part of the Submission.  But my time has been spent recently focused on the section of the Submission called "Publicity and Participation."  It's the part I have the most expertise in and the part I encountered daily as I blogged the Board.  It's also the part where I think the board did poorly.   I spent a fair amount of time comparing what the Submission says to what I experienced.  I've sent a lengthy comment on that to the DOJ and am figuring out how to make that into a reasonably sized post.  I'll get something up on that soon.

Alaska Redistricting Board: Waiting For The Judge's Decisions

 When my grad students had semester (or longer) papers/projects, there would come a time when many of the students were done.  That is, they didn't want to see the project any longer. They were mentally finished.  I would have to tell them, "Yes, I understand you are done with this, but unfortunately, the project itself is not done yet.  Go ahead a take a couple of days off, but then get back to work."

I'm sort of in that place myself when it comes to the Redistricting Board.  I'm finished.  But the project is not over yet. I do find it fascinating, but the work to sift through everything and try to come up with something meaningful AND easy for others to understand, becomes more and more difficult.   

I've had some notes that I've been writing in response to the recent hearing Thursday, but there are so many pages of documents, that I feel somewhat overwhelmed.  I want to do it right, but my being is protesting.

So, while we're waiting for the judge's decisions - due today - let me make some more specific comments.  Many of my reactions here today, are minor additions to things I've already elaborated on.  So, just some not too organized thoughts as I listened and read.  

I have to say, from the oral hearing, that the Board's attorney, Matt Singer, is a pretty good attorney.  He's put a good spin on a terrible case.  And there may be enough doubt sowed that he could prevail.

Contiguity  

Given what the judge and justices have said on contiguity, I don't think the contiguity argument will win this for the plaintiffs.  As much as I would like the Court to reconsider the absolute, either/or, nature of contiguity, particularly in an urban setting where there are plenty of 'better' ways to make two House Districts contiguous, than through a relatively wild and roadless state park.  

A member of  the constitutional convention wrote that compactness, deviation, socio-economic integration, and contiguity were criteria that helped to prevent gerrymandering. But in a Senate district, there is only one criterion - contiguity.  To accept it as either/or, regardless of there being many other far more practical options, is to take off the only protection these criteria give against gerrymandering.  And in this case, the contiguity between D22 and D9 is a joke.  An example the Board majority was trying to find a way to gerrymander.  

So, the only way I think contiguity might play a factor here is if the judge and the justices see the crazy physical connection drawn between D22 and D9 as a piece of evidence that the map was gerrymandered.  On its own, it won't hold water. 

Gerrymandering

It's clear to anyone objectively viewing this, the Board majority made all the contortions they made, all the violations of common sense and natural order, to squeeze out another Republican Senate seat.  (In addition to the unfortunately uncontested - in court anyway - slicing out of Goldstream from Fairbanks.)  I've discussed how they gerrymandered at various times.  You can look here, for example.  People who conspire to do things that are outlawed, tend not to broadcast that. So it will be up to the judge and justices to weight the Board majority's explanations for their decision against the preponderance of evidence that those are just empty assertions and excuses.  That it was political performance art to ritually satisfy the courts' orders to listen to public testimony and explain why they are deciding to do what went against that testimony.  

"Everybody Is Partisan" Accusing the Other Side of What They Clearly Did

Board's attorney, Matt Singer,  rather than put up a strong factual argument to counter the various charges made, instead starts charging the Board minority with doing what the Board majority clearly did.

Singer argued that pairing JBER with Downtown was the gerrymander. 

"This lawsuit is not about Girdwood at all. It is about attempting to force Eagle River/Chugiak/Eklutna voters into a single senate district and thus submerge the voice of JBER under a majority of Downtown Anchorage voters who strongly favor opposing candidates. This Court should reject the Girdwood Plaintiffs’ redistricting and equal- protection claims. This process is not about giving any particular political party or labor union exactly what it wants, but instead about adopting a constitutional plan and obtaining finality for all Alaskans."

Actually, 1/3 of District 23 live off base and though they are a minority of voters, the voting data I've seen shows that more of the off-base voters show up to vote than the on-base voters.  That's not unexpected.  A number of active-duty military vote in their home states, not in their temporary assignment.  And as Dr. Hensel pointed out in his testimony, local government issues - roads, housing, etc - are  taking care of by the military hierarchy and not through elections.  

And the lack of testimony from people on-base saying they prefer to be with Eagle River/Chugiak demonstrates that these are not issues of interest to them.  It is, in fact, the non-base voters of District 23 who will be swallowed up by Eagle River voters.  Furthermore,  the people who live on base, economically and ethnically, are a closer match to the folks who live in downtown than to the folks who live in Chugiak.  And, they have lots of direct street connections to go from one district to another.  There aren't any from base to Chugiak without going through other districts.

Eagle River And Hillside Voters All Vote Republican Anyway

Singer also argued that HD 22 and HD 9 were politically the same - they voted Republican.  But if you look at the Alaska State legislature, "Republican" is a simplification.  The previous Alaska Senate majority was a coalition of Republicans and Democrats with a minority Republican caucus.  And that is true today of the State House.  There are Republicans who are more comfortable working with Democrats than with their fellow Republicans.  ER tends to elect people who end up in the minority Republican caucuses.  

Contesting District L is Time Barred

That's the assertion that Matt Singer made.  No one contested the Senate pairing of District 24 (Chugiak) and District 23 (JBER/Govt Hill/North Anchorage) after the November 2021 Proclamation Plan in the 30 day time limit, so that is approved by the Board.  

That's a good try, but ignores the facts.  Once the Board was told to detach ER from South Muldoon, the Board had to solve the problem of who to pair HD22 with.  The obvious pairing was to pair ER with ER.  The two house districts are split across neighborhoods.  You can walk across the street from one district to the other.  They are clearly a community of interest.  They are called Chugiak-Eagle River by the people that live there.  

The arguments the Board majority made to lock in Chugiak/JBER pairing were - like most of what they said on this - fact-free assertions of their version of reality - the close ties of the military in both districts,  and the Base kids going to high school in district 24.  (But that turns out to be totally untrue.  ER High School is in District 22, not in District 24.  And if pairing JBER with downtown was as sacrilegious as members Simpson, Binkley, and Marcum kept declaring, then why did the Board create a House district (23) that was 2/3 JBER and 1/3 downtown?  And if the high school assertions they made about base kids going to school in D24 were so relevant, then why did Singer now argue that it's irrelevant where kids go to school?  The fact that  South Anchorage kids don't go to school in ER and vice versa is now evidence against Option 3B. Now we hear that they are all in one school district.  It was fine to argue schools when the Board majority thought it bolstered their argument, but when it doesn't, school attendance is suddenly irrelevant.)

Once District 22 became again a free agent,  District 24 becomes the obvious District for pairing.  Much more obvious than District 9.  In fact, District 9 was already paired with District 10 and by the Board's reasoning, it should be just as off limits to tinkering as was District 24.  

So, actually, the Board majority, by pairing D22 with D9 and NOT even comparing that option to combining D22 with D24, themselves reopened the clock to disputing the Chugiak/JBER-Govt Hill district.    But Singer does a good job of creating an argument that might be given credence by some.  Just as the Board majority created fictions to justify their preference for Option 3B.  

Enough.  There will be lots fo talk about later tonight or perhaps tomorrow morning.  I do recall the Judge's original decision came out late at night or early in the morning.