What Constitutes a Native for Determining Native Percentage of a District?

The US Voting Rights Act has so far proven to be the major force guiding the Alaska Redistricting Board's efforts.  There's good reason for this.  Most of the  prior Alaska redistricting plans have been legally challenged and the courts have required changes.  Furthermore, because an earlier challenge showed racial discrimination against Alaska Natives, Alaska is one of 16 states monitored by the Justice Department under the Voting Rights Act.

Staff Attorney Michael White's guidelines for the board say the act requires "no unavoidable retrogression."  (On March 22, Fund for Native American Rights senior staff attorney Natalie Landreth testified that it should be "no retrogression" without the unavoidable.  Later, while White accepted one of Landreth's corrections, he did not accept this one. )

This means, as I understand it, that Native voting strength should not be less than at the last redistricting.   This is measured by how many districts are  'minority-majority' and 'minority-influence.'  Minority-majority districts would have 50% or more Alaska Native population (not necessarily voters).  Minority-influence districts have at least 35% Alaska Native population. 

One of the issues that came up in Tuesday's discussion was whether the plans submitted by various organizations counted Natives the same way the board is counting someone Native.  I thought I was hearing people say 'Native plus one."  But today I heard someone say "Native plus white."  Maybe they used both or maybe my kids are right about my hearing.

This makes a difference.  If a group is using a more lenient definition of Native, then they would count more people as Native than a stricter definition.  Thus they might define a district as Native-Influence because it had, using their numbers, 36% Alaska Natives.  But the way the board is counting, the district might only have 34% Alaska Natives.

But I didn't quite understand what those different ways of counting were.  So I asked Michael White if he could explain it on this video. 




As you can see from the video, the issue is that so far the DOJ has counted, in the past, people identified as Native and people identified as "Native and White."
But NOT other combinations, such as "Native and Black" or "Native and Asian."

At the Wednesday (April 6) meeting, I believe that White told the Board that his understanding was that the Board could only count "Native" and "Native and White" but he's still seeking further clarification. And Chair Torgerson told the staff to find out how the groups that submitted plans to the Board counted someone as a Native. If they used a different way, then the data have to be adjusted to match the way the Board counted them.

And a followup to the question I had about what categories were used prior to 2010 in the video, a February 9, 2011 New York Times article on mixed race says that before the 2000 Census people could mark 'multiracial'.  This raised a myriad of problems. 

"[T]he census in 2000 began allowing respondents to mark as many races as they wanted. . ."

Where You Stand Depends On Where You Sit

I thought of that old maxim as the media discussed the novel idea of Democrats and Republicans sitting together when President Obama gave his State of the Union Speech.

The world looks different depending on where you're viewing it from.  If you are on Flattop looking down at Anchorage you see a city much different from what you see on 4th Avenue and D.  If you're in Anchorage you see a different world than if you're in DC.

So if all the Democrats only sit with fellow Democrats and the Republicans do the same, the party members will see and think about all the legislation differently.  Irving Janis described a serious policy disability called Groupthink which he defined as:

A mode of thinking that people engage in when they are deeply involved in a cohesive in-group, when the members' strivings for unanimity override their motivation to realistically appraise alternative courses of action.

Screen Capture from Facebook Live Coverage

But if they mix parties in the seating and they get to chit chat about their kids, the problems of fund raising, the weather, and all the other non-ideological parts of their lives, they'll recognize each other as fellow human beings, fellow Americans, who, if they disagree on how to do it, all want to make the US a better place.  (I think that's the case with most of them, though there are some who think they can do that while lining their pockets.)

Watching House Speaker Boehner at the State of the Union sitting behind the President and next to the Vice President, looking like a kid forced to behave in church for hours, I couldn't help thinking what a waste this all is.

Here he is sitting near the President of the United States, a man who is eloquent, bright, and clearly committed to making the US a better place.  I'm guessing that future history books will treat him well.  Boehner has this incredible opportunity to be working with this man, being a partner in moving the US to a better future.  And for various reasons, he sees him as 'the enemy' and spends all his time fighting him.

You see that kind of nonsense in organizations all the time.  People preferring to bicker and pick fights rather than find common ground and work together.  And, if the history books do remember him at all, Boehner will be known as that thorn in the side of that great president who did all he did despite small minded people constantly nipping at his heels.  [Hey, I know conservative readers will be rolling their eyes at this.  It's opinion.  It's prediction.  Let's wait 20 or 30 years (It should be longer, but I'm not sure I'll be around even that long.)]

So, I'm making this offer to Rep. Boehner.  I could tell how hard it was for you to look halfway respectful there sitting behind the president.  So I'm volunteering to sit in for you next year.  You can chill out with your friends somewhere.  Deal?

Meanwhile, Back In Juneau

This made me think about how different this is with the legislature in the State of Alaska.  Juneau is so small that you can't help running into the other legislators wherever you go.  They have to talk to each other.

The Alaska Senate is split even - 10 Republicans and 10 Democrats.  Instead of  having a standoff, they've formed a Senate Coalition Majority that has all the Senators except for four Republicans who couldn't work within a coalition majority.  

In the House, there is a pretty big Republican majority - 24 Republicans and 16 Democrats.  But they haven't let party affiliation rule how they set up the House Majority and Minorities.  They have four Democrats joining 22 Republicans in the Majority, a 12 member Democratic Minority, and a two member Republican Minority (don't ask, it's like high school.) 

I'm told their seating is chosen by the legislators themselves. Those with the most seniority getting the first choice.  Here's a chart I got from the Legislature's website and then colored it in to show how they are mixed on the floor.  (For those with problems distinguishing colors, sorry.)

BTW, while writing this, I found the House Republican Majority website.  It lists all three groups, but in the House Democratic Minority page, it leaves out Bob Miller, the new Democratic representative from Fairbanks who beat incumbent Mike Kelly.  It has to be an oversight.  But let's see how long it takes them to fix it.



UPDATE January 29:  I checked today and someone fixed it:

Let's Get This Congressional 'Moderates' and 'Extremists' Stuff Straight

I'm increasingly hearing that there are no moderates left in in Congress as both parties are now made up of extremists.  I'm going to refute that line of reasoning here, by arguing that basically the country has moved way far to the right.  Identifying extreme liberals in Congress is a joke.  There are none.  By 1960's and 1970's political benchmark, this nation is, except on race, gay rights, and marijuana, far, far to the right. 


My example of media 'extremism'  here is a short CBS clip titled "Moderate Senators Disappear." 

Watch the short video and see if you come up with the same questions I had.




Now let's reflect on what was said.  More important, on what was not said. 



The guts of the message are these four diagrams (screen shots from the video) purporting to show the Senate's liberals, moderates, and conservatives. The text next to the images comes from the US Senate website.

Screenshot from CBS YouTube

97th Congress (1981-1983)
Majority Party: Republican (53 seats)
Minority Party: Democrat (46 seats)
Other Parties: 1 Independent
Total Seats: 100 [from US Senate]
[The Senate had just changed to Republican dominance after Reagan swept into office in the 1980 election.]




       

Screenshot from CBS YouTube

103rd Congress (1993-1995)
Majority Party: Democrat (57 seats)
Minority Party: Republican (43 seats)
Other Parties: 0
Total Seats: 100
Note: Party division changed to 56 Democrats and 44 Republicans after the June 5, 1993 election of Kay B. Hutchison (R-TX).

Screenshot from CBS YouTube

107th Congress (2001-2003)
Majority Party (Jan 3-20, 2001): Democrat (50 seats)
Minority Party: Republican (50 seats)
Other Parties: 0
Total Seats: 100

Screenshot from CBS YouTube

 111th Congress (2009-2011)
Majority Party: Democrat (57 seats)
Minority Party:  Republican (41 seats)
Other Parties: 1 Independent; 1 Independent Democrat
Total Seats: 100
Note: Senator Arlen Specter was reelected in 2004 as a  Republican, and became a Democrat on April 30, 2009. Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut was reelected in 2006 as an independent candidate, and became an Independent Democrat. Senator Bernard Sanders of Vermont was elected in 2006 as an Independent.

1.  How do you define moderate?
1. NJ does it by counting a set of votes on key bills important to each party.
2.  If you aren't moderate, does that imply you are an extremist?
1. NJ gives each Senator a percentage  on how they voted on the key votes.  Most fell somewhere between 98% consistent on key votes to around 50% consistent on key votes
2. But CBS has converted those outside the middle as "most liberal" or "most conservative" and by 2010 everyone is in the 'most' category.  (NJ can identify more precisely - such as the ten most liberal or conservative Senators.)
3. The implication left is that if you aren't moderate, you are, I guess, extreme.
3. Do those votes NJ picked even accurately measure extreme and moderate?

Well, the original definition in the National Journal article was those who fit in between the most conservative Democrat and the most liberal Republican.  Back then, the Democratic party still had leftovers from the South who were very conservative on a number of issues.  There were also 'Rockefeller Republicans" who were very liberal on many issues.  So there was a lot of room.  But if you look at the 1982 picture, you'll see that the 'extremists' were mostly Republicans - 30 Republicans were considered extreme (to the right of the most conservative Democrat) and only 10 Democrats that were extreme (to the left of the most liberal Republican.)

Those numbers keep moving up so the middle eventually disappears.  In all four of the CBS diagrams, there are more red extremists than blue ones.   And I'm not sure where CBS got their numbers for 2010, because there are more conservatives than there were Republicans in the Senate.  They have 55 most conservatives and 45 most liberals.  But that year there were 57 Democrats, 41 Republicans, and 2 Independents who hung with the Democrats.  Are they counting Democrats among the most conservatives?

Game theory - particularly the prisoner's dilemma - tells us why you need to stand firm if your opponent keeps screwing you over.  If Democrats hadn't gotten more 'backbone' and hadn't voted for or against key legislation in reaction to what the Republicans were doing, they would have sold the whole country out by now.  And many liberals already say they have. 

But the CBS clip appears to have already changed the terms from the National Journal article. 

I found what appears to be the chart they worked from.  We're focusing on the lower one - the Senate - in this post.

First, this chart doesn't call them the Senators outside the moderate category "most".  It just identifies a group that is in the middle. 

But I would argue that on almost all important issues, the Republicans moved further and further to the right.  I would ask,  if the Republicans moved way to the right,  and the Democrats didn't move, does that mean the Democrats have become more extreme?  But the truth is the Democrats moved to the right as well.  On almost every major issue, the Congress has moved to the right:

• Environmental issues - The EPA and Clean Water Act were Nixon era creations.  (So was Affirmative Action.) [Conservatives will say that there are more environmental regs now than then.  But I would respond that the environment was a bi-partisan issue then and it isn't now.]
• Abortion - Abortion rights have gotten weaker and weaker every decade
• Taxes - We have now have the lowest income taxes since the 1950s.
• Deregulation - Environmental laws, oversight of banking, you name it and businesses have had less regulation over the years these stats were kept.  Trade barriers have come down - now everything can move freely across borders except for workers.
• Guns - Restrictions on gun ownership have gotten looser and looser.
• War and Defense - we have been at war for longer than any other period in our history.
• Health Care - this was a Heritage Foundation proposal, adopted by Gov Romney in Massachusetts and only because evil to conservatives when Obama latched on to it.

Basically things have moved steadily more business friendly and more worker rights and consumer hostile.

There are only two areas that have significantly moved in what could be called a more liberal direction:
Marijuana laws - but at the state level, not the federal level
Gay rights - again, mostly at the state level, but a little at the national level


When we talk about extreme legislators, I think there are two ways to consider this:
1.  Extreme in their views - such as people who believe that legitimate rape doesn't result in pregnancy, or that every school should have armed guards (though the 'at federal expense' would be something conservatives would say is liberal, even though a conservative proposed it.)

2.  Extreme in their tactics - stonewalling every vote, filibustering huge numbers of  presidential nominee,  and playing chicken with the economy are all things that the Republicans have done consistently in the last decades.
 

When there is talk about losing moderates, we need to be straight about this.  The Republicans have pulled this country so far to the right that Nixon would appear to be an extreme liberal today.  Most Democrats in Congress would be considered conservatives by the 1960 and 1970 benchmarks.  What commentators are calling 'extreme liberals' today would have been considered moderate to conservative back then.  The standards of liberal and conservative have been shifted far to the right.

The only liberals I see these days are out in the streets, because there is no room for them in national elective politics.  Or at least there hasn't been lately.  I have mentioned gay rights.  Rather than say we've moved left on this issue, I'd say we've moved toward the American ideal of equality, helped by science and by education on why people are gay and what it means.  We've stopped demonizing gays and forcing them to hide their sexuality. 

The National Journal issue that has all the stats about the loss of Congress' moderates seems,  deep in the article, to agree with my assessment.

Mann and Ornstein have spent, between them, almost a century studying Congress. They thought long and hard before concluding, in their new book, that the Capitol is in the grip of an “asymmetric polarization”—that the Republicans have moved further right, in greater unity, than the Democrats have shifted toward the left.

Though, again, I would argue that except for gay rights, and to a lesser extent marijuana, the Democrats have moved to the right as well. Not to the left.  They go on:

The tea party’s advent helped make it so, pushing GOP members of Congress in a “right-wing thrust” that is “as extreme as we have seen,” said Theda Skocpol, a Harvard political scientist and the author, with colleague Vanessa Williamson, of a new book, The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism.
Poole agrees. As does Bell. “I agree with the Left,” Bell says. “Social conservativism is keeping polarization alive. And it is keeping the Left from succeeding.”
“Republicans are the insurgent outliers,” Mann says. “They are ideologically extreme and opposed to compromise on principle.” Some tea party members “are prepared to take everything down, like kamikazes,” he says. “It’s the goddamndest thing.” [From National Journal]

Yet, the CBS piece gives us pictures that identify Democrats as not at all moderate, as now all 'most liberal,' with the implication of extreme, even though the very article they cite from the National Journal doesn't come to that conclusion.

So, when people talk about the lack of moderates, be sure to remind them that the Democrats have moderated themselves way to the right and to call them extreme liberals is a joke. 


A Note On How They Determined Who Was Liberal And Who Republican?

And to give you an idea what makes someone an extreme Democrat, here are  a couple of the votes they counted to determine liberals and conservatives:

135/HJRes66           
Provide for reauthorization of Federal Aviation Administration programs. Sept. 15. (62-37) L-3
137/HR2887           
Reduce funding for the Federal Aviation Administration to fiscal 2008 levels. Sept. 15. (36-61) L-3

When did funding the FAA become an extreme liberal position?
When did voting against cutting the FAA budget back to 2008 fiscal levels become an extreme liberal position?

When someone thinks labor unions should be forbidden - that's an extreme position.
When someone thinks we should nationalize oil companies - that's an extreme position.

But when someone wants to fund the agency that maintains air safety, that's hardly an extreme position.  

[I may need to come back and make some cosmetic changes in this, but I think I need to get it up so I can move on to other things.]

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.  

Bullsh*t Is A New Netflix Quiz Show That's Useful To Describe AK Redistricting Board Majority Justifications Of Latest Plan

 In this show, the contestant has to answer a multiple choice trivia question. They can win up to $1million.  They have to convince a panel of three other contestants that they know the answer.  It's sort of mishmash between Jeopardy and To Tell The Truth.  

Alaska Redistricting Board Is A Contestant Before the
Alaska Superior and Supreme Court

The strategy, when they don't know the answer, seems to be to take some bits of truth and wrap them up in lies.  They may take a story about their childhood or their job, or education, that tells a story about why they know the answer.  So it's lies wrapped up with bits of truth to make it sound plausible.  

I'd like to propose that this is exactly what the Alaska Redistricting Board majority has done to justify its most recent map.  They've talked about their experiences ("I've lived in Eagle River and it's made up mainly of military and veterans and so it is a natural connection to JBER"), they've made assertion based on anecdotal evidence ("Eagle River High School wouldn't exist if it were not for JBER" or "Pairing downtown and JBER would be political gerrymandering").  

Bits of truth wrapped up in lies. Or lies wrapped up in bits of truth.  It's the same thing.  It's how people win up to $1 million on Bullsh*t and it's how the Redistricting Board's majority is hoping to win an extra Republican seat in the Alaska State Senate which ultimately could be worth way more than $1 million.  

In the next week or so I'm going to lay out the arguments of why I think this is true and how the Board majority have taken two perfectly natural pairings (the two Eagle River house districts (HD22 & HD24 together and JBER/Government Hill (HD 23 and downtown HD 17) and substituted two far less natural and less compatible districts (HD 22 and HD 7 - Hillside to Whittier) and HD 24 with HD 23.  [Note:  I'm using the district numbers in the November 8 plan because these are the numbers that were used in the Board meetings.  Some numbers were changed in the April 13 plan.]

Judge Thomas Matthews - the Superior Court judge who presided over the challenges to the November Proclamation Plan - and the Supreme Court justices who heard the appeal, all called out the majority Board members for gerrymandering in the first plan, which is why they had to revise the map.  

But in the lead up to the first plan, the majority didn't even try to justify their decision.  Political Gerrymandering had never been a reason for a court to reject a previous redistricting plan in Alaska.  They didn't think they had to justify what they were doing.  All they needed was a majority vote.  We even had Board member Marcum say clearly that the plan would give Eagle River an extra Senate seat. 

This time around, they've heard the courts' admonitions and have created elaborate (ie Bullsh*t) explanations to justify their new map.  

Let's pause here and look at where we are in the process now.

Judge Matthews remanded the plan back to the Board and told it to make changes to specific districts.  The Board did that - with a highly vocal minority disagreeing with the majority.  Judge Matthews now has to decide whether to accept the changes.  The original East Anchorage plaintiffs have filed objections to the judge arguing why he should not accept the remanded map.  

In addition, three residents of Girdwood, who have been put into a district with Eagle River in the newest map, have challenged the new plan.  

I know it's confusing.  

• East Anchorage is trying to influence the judge's decision about the remand itself.  
• The Girdwood folks are instead challenging the new plan.  The two are on different timelines.

The judge had originally hoped to get out a decision on the remand by this past Thursday, April 28.  If he agreed with the East Anchorage plaintiffs, then the Girdwood challenge would be moot because he would have disallowed the Eagle River with South Anchorage (including Girdwood.)

Instead of making a decision about the remand on Thursday, the judge offered a time line for people who want to challenge the new maps - he expedited the deadline so there would be time for a decision by the Supreme Court before the June 1 deadline for candidates to file to run for office.

He also ordered the Redistricting Board to give the Girdwood plaintiffs all the Board's emails.  

One possibility is that the Judge wanted something more concrete than the East Anchorage plaintiffs gave him, before ruling gerrymandering again.  It's clear the judge believes the Board majority is capable of gerrymandering, because he ruled they did the first time.  Asking for the emails may be a sign that he's hoping there will be something more explicit that he can base his ruling on.  Meanwhile, he's trying to figure out how to decide.  

I've been following the Board since December 2020.  I've followed all their meetings since then either remotely or in person. I've read the documents, the court cases, the past Supreme Court cases. I've written (not counting this post) 120 posts about this 2020 round of Alaska Redistricting.  (You can see an annotated index of the posts here.  It's also among the tabs at the top of the blog.)  

In the next week or two, I will try to make the argument why I think the Board majority's explanations are Bullsh*t.  Much of the groundwork is already up in previous posts.  I plan to explore the idea of Contiguity briefly.  It's not part of the Bullsh*t claim, but it's something the Courts should think about.  I'll also look at what any non-partisan, objective reviewer would call "natural" in terms of the pairing choices that Board had in remand.  I will look at the arguments made by the majority Board members and show why they don't hold up.  

I'll look at how they used assertions based on bits of truth and puffs of hot air to justify their blatant gerrymandering decisions.  How they didn't make any kind of serious comparisons between competing options, they only used 'arguments' (anecdotes mostly) that supported what they wanted or disparaged what they didn't want.  

And I'll look at the party credentials of the majorityBoard members and the map maker (Randy Ruedrich) whose map was used.  

The Netflix description of Bullsh*t is:

"Contestants strive to correctly answer difficult trivia questions.  And when they can't, they simply move to plan B, lying through their teeth."

That's a pretty good descriptor of the Board's majority:  the strive to justify their new map as fair and not political.  And when they can't, they simply move to plan B, lying through their teeth.

Bullsh*tting goes back at least as far as the Serpent in the Garden of Eden.  The Emperor's New Clothes tells the story of how people can doubt what their own eyes tell them.  The man who tried to overturn the last US presidential election has made the art of deception a key part of the Republican Party.  

Even if the emails don't show us the same sort of explicit evidence that Mark Meadows' text messages are revealing, the circumstantial evidence in this case is more than overwhelming.  

A final note.  People who know me well and people who know me because they read the blog regularly, know that I rarely declare something true or false as baldly as I am doing here.  I only do so when I have reviewed something thoroughly.  When I've looked at all the plausible alternative explanations.  And even then I leave an escape hatch just in case I've overlooked something and it turns out I'm wrong.  I'm sticking my neck out here because I don't see a shred of believable evidence that I'm wrong.  The only concession I'll make is that the majority Board members - particularly Marcum - actually believe the stories they have concocted.  But that doesn't make them true.  

What's Happening with the British Election?

Results:  Election seats/Percent of Parliament/Percent of Vote  (From BBC)



Conservative seats:  306 (47%)-  36% of Vote

Labour seats:  258 (29%)  - 29% of vote

Lib Dem seats:  57 (9%)   - 23% of vote

Other parties:   28  (4%)  - 12%


There is one seat still undecided because of a death that pushed the election back.


Voter turnout is pegged at 65%, up 4% from the 2005 election.


As best as I can figure this out, here's what's happening:

1.  No party has a majority.  The Conservatives got the most votes, but not enough to form a majority government.

2  They can either work out a coalition with another party(ies) that would give them collectively a majority or try to form a minority government.  A minority government would seem to run into problems and there would be a likelihood of a new election within a year. 

3.  The two other main parties, Labour and Liberal Democrats, are ideologically closer together than either is to the Conservatives and if the Conservatives can't form a coalition, Labour and the Lib Dems could, conceivably, form a majority government.

4.  However, the leader of the Lib Dems, Nick Clegg, doesn't like leader of Labour, Gordon Brown, and has even said in the campaign that he couldn't work with Brown.  On the radio today they are talking about a heated phone conversation Friday between Clegg and Brown, which they deny.  Brown does seem to have been a serious problem for many people who might otherwise have voted Labour.

5.  There seem to be some attempts by the Conservatives to work out an agreement with the Lib Dems.  But they have serious ideological differences including integration with Europe (Conservatives against, Lib Dems for) and electoral reform (Conservatives against, Lib Dems for.) 

6.  A major issue for the Lib Dems is proportional representation. You can see why the Lib Dem Party is so strongly for proportional voting  from the numbers at the top.  While they got 27% of the vote, they only got 9% of the seats.   I'll address this issue below. 

7.  Splits seem to be coming out into the open in all the parties.  Conservatives are angry with their leadership for failing to win a majority.  Lib Dems are concerned about their leader making an agreement with the Conservatives.  One Labour MP has called for Gordon Brown to step down.

8.  The first Green Party MP was elected Thursday.

9.  Meanwhile, the Constitution allows the sitting Prime Minister to continue as head of the government until a new government is formed.  So, despite Conservatives calling for him to step down because so many Labour seats have gone to the Conservatives (about 95), Brown is holding his position and looking for ways to work with the Lib Dems.


What about Proportional Representation? 

The Observer has an article on this but I can't find it online.  In the US, primary elections tend to narrow the race to two main parties with minor party candidates who tend not to get many votes.  Here, there are a number of parties and so it can happen that a party like the Lib Dems can get a lot of votes in many districts, but mostly come in second or third.  Conversely, the Conservatives were able to win a lot of seats, but with less than 50% of the vote.  So there are four options that the Observer listed today that are on the table for electoral reform.  Basically they involve more complicated ranking schemes - you vote for more than one candidate ranking them 1, 2, 3, etc.  Then if there is no majority, the bottom candidate is dropped and the second choice for those voters is calculated.   The four options the Observer lists are:
1.  First past the post - the current system.  Each district picks an MP and the MP's pick the Prime Minister.

2.  Alternative vote (AV)  - Rank the candidates


3.  Alternative vote (AV+) - Same as two, with the addition of a list of party candidates.  I don't totally understand this one.


4.  Single transferable vote (STV)  - Bigger constituencies with more than one MP.  Again, this one isn't really clear to me. 


Here's a website that lists these options and a couple more if you want to see more detail.




What's next?  It seems to me, that if Labour got rid of Brown at the top, then there would be a greater chance of forming an alliance with the Lib Dems. 

Outlining The Argument That The Redistricting Board Majority's Last Map Is Gerrymandering

 It seems to me there have been several issues raised, that the judge(s) will have to rule on. [Note: when I use district numbers, I'm using numbers from the November plan, because those are the ones that were used through the court hearings and it's less confusing.]

1.  Does the newest map (and basically we're only looking at four Senate districts at this point) meet the constitutional standards?

This would seem cut and dried, and probably is. But perhaps not.  Here's what the Alaska Constitution says:

§ 6. District Boundaries

The Redistricting Board shall establish the size and area of house districts, subject to the limitations of this article. Each house district shall be formed of contiguous and compact territory containing as nearly as practicable a relatively integrated socio-economic area. Each shall contain a population as near as practicable to the quotient obtained by dividing the population of the state by forty. Each senate district shall be composed as near as practicable of two contiguous house districts. Consideration may be given to local government boundaries. Drainage and other geographic features shall be used in describing boundaries wherever possible.

The Court has at points been pretty clear that if the boundaries of two house districts are touching, then they meet the contiguity requirement.  And while the majority Board members used anecdotes to show their new districts are Socio-Economically Integrated  (SEI), that is not one of the criteria.  Neither is compactness.  But 'communities of interest' is a term that has been mentioned, and 'equal protection'' is also a factor in Senate seats. (For example Judge Thomas Matthews decision pp.31-34 and again on 53-55) 

On page 28, Matthews also wrote: 

"The Alaska supreme Court has defined a “contiguous territory” as one which is bordering or touching.  The Court determined that “[a] district may be defined as contiguous if every part of the district is reachable form [sic] every other part without crossing the district boundary (i.e., the district is not divided into two or more discrete pieces of land)."

In practical terms. HD 22 and HD 9 could be considered two discrete pieces of land.  Except by hiking across miles of unpopulated mountains and valleys, you cannot get from one part of the new Senate district without crossing the district boundary.  Yet that is also the case for the Valdez and Matsu pairing which both the Superior and Supreme Court said was constitutional.  

And while people have argued that 'practicable' should mean that an impassable boundary through the mountains isn't practicable, the other side pointed to court  case language that said having to drive through other districts is not a problem.  The new Senate [House] district that both Courts  approved, pairing Valdez and Mat-Su is a case in point.  

I would argue that in an urban area where there are plenty of much easier boundaries to cross, the courts have left a giant loophole for Boards that want to gerrymander. And the Board's majority walked right through that loophole.

In fact Judge Thomas Matthews quotes from the proceedings of the Constitutional Convention that the Redistricting criteria were meant to make it harder to gerrymander. 

“Addressing the appropriate method of drawing districts, the framers believed that the redistricting criteria of compactness, contiguity, and socio-economic integration were necessary to prevent gerrymandering.  The purpose of utilizing watershed boundaries was to keep communities intact, whereas roads cutting through communities should not serve as boundaries.”  [From Thomas Matthews' decision p. 132]

It would seem that this little paragraph offers a lot to attorneys who want to mine it to argue why the 3B boundaries are bad.  

• the criterion of contiguity as used here assists gerrymandering, it doesn't prevent it
• the joining of people across watershed boundaries unites people not naturally a unit instead of uniting those within those boundaries
• Eagle River's two districts are divided by boundaries that cut through roads.  Pairing them would repair rather than exacerbate this use of roads cutting through communities serving as boundaries

 Making the kind of boundary in the new Senate Seat that combines HD 22 and HD7,  that runs through the mountains and makes residents cross multiple House boundaries to actually get to the other House District in their Senate seat,  makes a mockery of the purpose of contiguity and invites the odd pairing that we get in this case.  Which helps people who want to gerrymander.  

At the Supreme Court hearing on the 2021 plan, Justice Warren Matthews asked if the Board's attorney, Matt Singer, was saying that the ruling that all parts of a borough are SEI means that the Court couldn't rule that there was gerrymandering in Anchorage?  The judge did acknowledge that there were different neighborhoods with different interests within the Anchorage bowl.  

I'd also point out that the Court has endorsed different standards for compactness and deviation for rural and urban districts.  It's easier, in areas with  high population density, to create more compact districts and districts with lower deviations.  I would argue that the courts should breathe life into the words "as near as practicable" in urban areas. 

Ultimately, I think the most likely possibility of contiguity playing a role in overturning the Senate pairings, is if contiguity is just one of many other pieces of evidence that points to political gerrymandering.  

2.  Is the final plan the result of partisan gerrymandering?  

This would seem the more likely reason for the Courts to overturn the final map. In the next week I will flesh out this section.  For now let me outline the kinds of evidence that could be used to demonstrate that gerrymandering is what happened.

A.  The results of the new map - NOT pairing the two Eagle River house seats results in an extra Republican seat in the Alaska Senate.  It also pits two Republican incumbents against each other - both of whom have not cooperated with the Governor as much as he would like. 

B.  The makeup and track record of the Board majority that voted for this map over the vocal opposition of the other two members.   Not only were these Board members chosen - unconstitutionally because they were Republicans - they are also actively involved in Republican party politics and on the side of the Governor within the party.  Both the Superior Court and the Supreme Court have found them guilty of political gerrymandering already in the first map, and so there is already a track record.  Furthermore, the map that was approved was drawn by long time Republican redistricting strategist and former State Republican Party leader Randy Ruedrich.  There is no more partisan player in Alaska.  And then you can compare the majority to the two minority Board members who were appointed by people not affiliated with any party and have no past history of party activities.  

The majority Board members also adopted - in November - a plan for determining rotation of Senate seats that mainly favored Republicans who supported the Governor and punished those who didn't.  While the Board members involved insisted they had no idea who the incumbents of the seats were, it has since come out that they had the names from Randy Ruedrich who had apparently devised the plan. They did this insisting it was random.  When the minority members said, "If it's random, then let's switch the order."  The majority refused.  It wasn't random.  

C.  An objective look at the two proposed maps shows that Option 2 made perfectly natural pairings of House Districts.  The proponents of  Option 3B (the one chosen) had to use the most twisted logic  to justify the maps,  an indication that the reasons they did use were simply cover for the real reason they wanted these pairings - gerrymandering.  

D.  The decision-making process used by the majority was a sham. Judge Thomas Matthews pointed out in his remand order, that the Board members were not subject matter experts on Redistricting.  Unlike a Board with doctors or engineers who have subject matter expertise, the Redistricting Board members were essentially lay persons.  While they did hire area experts for the mapping and for working the census data, and also to review the VRA implications, they did not  hire decision making experts to help them determine what was the best pairing of Senate seats.

That is not to say that they couldn't have done this reasonably themselves.  But they never ever made even an attempt to impartially compare the alternative pairings available to them:  HD 22 and HD 24 versus HD 22 and HD 9.  Instead, they declared HD 24 off limits and only used anecdotal and unverified assertions to justify what they wanted (pairing HD 24 with HD 23 and HD22 with HD 9) and to disparage what they didn't want (pairing HD 23 with HD 17).  This was not an objective decision making process.  This was the justification of what they had already decided on.  And that was pairing D24 with D23 to create an extra Republican Senate seat.    I've covered this at length here.

E.  Public testimony was strongly in favor of Option 2.  Testimony for Option 3B was mostly canned phrases while testimony for Option 2 were more personal explanations of why people preferred Option 2 over Option 3B -  The Board's attorney argued in the Supreme Court that weighing public testimony would turn Redistricting into a political process where parties would rally their forces to show up to testify.  That did happen.  The Republican Board members Singer represented did have their allies rally the Republicans troops.  I've preliminarily reviewed the comments.  Most of the comments in favor of Option 3B fall into three sets of comments that are virtually the same. One set - "I support Option 3B" was sent in by about 40 people.  Another set had about 20 or 30 examples.  

The point of Judge Thomas Matthews' comments about public testimony was not that the Board should count the comments and then do what the majority 'voted' for, as  Singer argued, but rather was for the Board to hear the concerns of the people and take them into consideration as they created their maps. Then in their explanation of their decision they could explain why certain requests were not followed.  But the Board majority did what their attorney warned about - treated the public testimony as a vote.  When a slew of testimony came in the first day favoring the Bahnke testimony (which was Option 1 and paired the key Senate districts the same way that Option 2 did) then the Republican party sent out emails and social media messages and drummed up testimony that specifically said "I oppose the Bahnke plan".  There was even call-in testimony from Fairbanks saying they opposed the Bahnke plan but that they really didn't know anything about it so they couldn't answer any questions.

Detailed comments - pages long with very specific data that countered the majority Board members' assertions and preferred plan - were ignored.  Such clearly reasoned and fact based testimony was the noticeable exception for Option 3B.  Testimony by the sitting Senators in the districts involved was ignored.  Testimony by former Senators in the district involved was ignored.  Well, not totally ignored.  They twisted that testimony to 'prove' their decision wasn't partisan gerrymandering. Only testimony that favored their predetermined pairings was attended to.  

F.  The Board listened to what the courts said about how they were supposed to act.   They adopted the appearance of following the courts' orders, but only to cover up their actual intentions.  While I covered some of these issues in the points above - things do overlap - I think this is another key point.  The Courts need to see through the facade of following the Court's orders and of false justifications that merely mask the actual intent - in this case gerrymandering to garner another Republican Senate seat.  

G.  Do modern communications technologies make contiguity moot?  This point was argued to downplay the distance between Eagle River and Girdwood and Whittier.  People no longer need to drive the long distances, they argued, because we now can meet via zoom.  People can talk to their Senator by phone or meet with them and others via Zoom.  Perhaps this should be in the contiguity sections because it came up in those debates.  I have several observations:

• There's a significant difference between online participation and in-person participation.  In person you get to talk to the Senator or Representative one-on-one before and after a meeting.  You can also talk with other participants, exchange contact info, form bonds, and connect human being to human being.  That's much harder online and is much less likely to happen.
• Not everyone has reliable, good enough internet service for meeting this way to be viable.
• People argued this only because the Board created an Anchorage borough Senate seat that stretches the distance of the Borough - 87 miles several people testified - and so this argument came up to say it didn't matter.  Not because it doesn't matter, but to bolster the ridiculous pairing of HD22 and HD9 rather than natural pairing of HD 22 and 24.  If we can substitute online meetings for in person meetings as they claimed, then the criteria of compactness and contiguity could be dropped altogether.  One could argue that certain people who live far apart are communities of shared interest and should be allowed to form House and Senate districts.  

One of the people who argued that the various online meeting technologies made the need for geographic proximity moot was Randy Ruedrich.  He made that argument while physically present at the Anchorage Legislative Information Office.  Walking is a little hard for him these days, yet he made the effort to be at most meetings in person, not online.  Because being there in person does matter.  

Conclusions

I expected that there would be a lot of gaps, and there clearly is room for filling in details. For example in this post I haven't discussed how the majority insists that Senate Seat L is a holy union of military interests and that pairing JBER with downtown is sacrilegious.   Even though the Board must have already committed such sacrilege by creating House District 23, which has already paired most of JBER with a big chunk of downtown. There are many more such examples of duplicity in the Board majority's arguments.  Many of those details are in previous posts.  But I did a better job than I expected of outlining the key points that need to be made to prove gerrymandering.  

While it's possible the Board members' emails will show something more explicit, the circumstantial evidence of gerrymandering is overwhelming.  The Board majority put on a show to develop arguments that fit member Budd Simpson's definition of reasonable:  "Reasonable means they had a reason."  A show for the Court that they were following the Court's orders.  Presenting reasons that were factually or logically faulty, or as I argued in the previous post, that bits of facts were wrapped up in lies, didn't matter to them. 

I will try to add more detail in future posts to further support the points I've raised.  And I'll add links to previous posts.  But consider this an executive summary that these additional posts will refer to and add evidence for.    

Anyone who has immediate needs for examples and details, just email me and I'll try to help you out.  

My Guess Is That The Board Majority Torpedoed Their Case In Today's Meeting

[NOTE:  May 22, 2022 7:45pm:    I cleaned up the worst of my rough notes of the meetings - though there are still gaps that I didn't catch, and made a few changes to the post.  This fits within my blogger equivalent of the 2 second rule for eating food that falls on the floor.]

 Basically, the Board met.  It voted (3-2) to 

1. approve Board response to the Girdwood Appeal (which was already submitted the other day)
2. affirm that the litigation subcommittee, made up of John Binkley and Budd Simpson, were delegated authority to consult with the Board's attorney and approve all legal actions now and into the future

The meeting went from just after 3pm to 4:30

The two minority members repeatedly objected on the grounds that the original delegation of authority to the litigation committee was limited to 'routine decisions' but did not include the final decision whether the Board should file appeals and on what.  They also argued that the litigation committee was supposed to be open to all Board members and they had not been noticed about any meetings,  that essentially the Board decisions were now delegated to two Board members and the attorney.  

The two dissenting Board members said they had repeatedly asked to be included as observers in the litigation committee and had not been responded to.  

There were also allegations about what Simpson had told Bahnke after he voted with Borromeo and Bahnke on the House Districts back in November and things that Singer told Borromeo about his views on Marcum, which Chair Binkley worked hard but in vain to suppress and which Simpson strongly denied.  

My Take On This

If the Board had actually voted to delegate full authority to the litigation committee back in December, then this last minute, Sunday Board meeting wouldn't have been necessary.  They would have already had the authority.  There was no need to vote again first to approve the litigation (which was due Friday) and second to reauthorize the litigation committee's authority, which they seemed to have expanded indefinitely into the future.  If all their rhetoric about this already having been approved were true, there was no need for this meeting.

This subcommittee was given extraordinary power.  Two Board members, meeting in secret, were given the power to determine legal strategies and to approve whether the Board was going to appeal challenges and what aspect of the challenges they would appeal.  Two Board members complained they were blocked from all information from this committee.  And that all actual decisions needed to be made publicly - by the Board as a whole.  From the Governor's memo of the Open Meetings Act:

"Is secret ballot voting allowed under the act?

Almost always, no. In addition to requiring that deliberations of a governing body be open to the public, the act also requires that the vote shall be conducted in such a manner that the public may know the vote of each person entitled to vote, including meetings conducted by teleconference. The one exception is organizational meetings of a governing body to elect members to various offices, which are exempted from the requirement that the vote of each member be made public (AS 44.62. 310(a))."

Subcommittees in the State legislature and on the Anchorage Assembly are required to notice their meetings and make them public.  While this issue didn't explicitly come up, I suspect that these were all illegal meetings.  They can argue that they were discussing litigation and that that can be covered in Executive Session.  But these subcommittee meetings were, de facto Executive Session meetings without any notice to the public, as required, on why they were going into ES.  And the final vote is required to be taken in public.  

I'm guessing that the Board majority members got together and decided that they did not want to share their discussions about legal strategy with the minority members.  They strongly disagree with the minority members.  Minority members have publicly disagreed with the Board and charged them on several occasions with partisan political gerrymandering.  I'm guessing the majority Board members were afraid the minority members would spill their strategies to opposing counsel and hurt the Board's case - I understand the logic, but there are some problems this action would have created.  They didn't declare this publicly.  They didn't confront the minority members with their concerns.  But it goes beyond that.  

The exemptions for Executive Session for legal discussions are not open ended.  They are quite limited.  

From the Governor's Guide to the Public Meetings Acy [page 3]:

"(c) The following subjects may be considered in an executive session:

 (1) matters, the immediate knowledge of which would clearly have an adverse effect upon the finances of the public entity;

(2) subjects that tend to prejudice the reputation and character of any person, provided the person may request a public discussion;

(3) matters which by law, municipal charter, or ordinance are required to be confidential;

(4) matters involving consideration of government records that by law are not subject to public disclosure."  [page 6]

Only option 1 here is a possibility.  But exactly how would the Board majority show that what they discuss would "clearly have an adverse effect upon the finances of the public entity"?  In this situation the minority Board members pointed out that the Board has already spent about $1 million in attorney fees.  The Superior Court has twice concluded that the Board had engaged in partisan gerrymandering. The Supreme Court has already determined that once and will decide on that allegation a second time soon. The Board minority could argue that the majority  decisions have already had an adverse effect on the finances of a public entity.  Had they followed the minority's recommendations, this would have all been over already.  But there is really no cost to the Board majority to push their cause.  The Board pays the attorney fees, and there is no personal cost to the members for going in this direction.  Even if the court finds against them again.  

I would note that I have pointed out several times on this blog that I didn't think the Board had gone into Executive Session properly and that the Superior Court also cited that as a problem.  

My sense is that this meeting clearly shows that two Board members held regular secret meetings with the Board attorney to decide how to proceed with the legal case.  These meetings were not noticed to the public or to all the Board members.  They were essentially meeting in Executive Session without ever explaining why they were in ES (and it would be hard for them to demonstrate any legitimate reason to be in ES), AND they then voted outside the public view.  Even outside the view of other Board members.  

This meeting seems to be an attempt to:

1. Get a majority vote in public to proceed with litigation, though the Court could, potentially find that the decision to respond was not properly voted on, but I'm guessing they'll overlook that and simply vote against the Board on the merits, not on a technicality.  
2. To delegate authority to the Litigation Subcommittee so that it clearly allows them to meet and vote in secret.  

I don't see how the members of the Supreme Court can't see this as more evidence of political gerrymandering through secret meetings of the Board.  This time the meetings were even secret from two of the Board members.  

If the Board had a chance of winning their case before the Supreme Court before today, I'm pretty sure they've completely ruined it with today's actions.  They demonstrated in plain sight, to everyone, that they are willing to ignore the law to continue fighting for two Senate seats for Eagle River.  And to spend $1 million of public money to do that.  

I would note that Board Chair John Binkley said that the previous Board spent over $3 million in legal fees.  (Though they were still in court in 2014, and we're only in the first round this time.)  Further, Board member Borromeo said at the meeting that her and member Bahnke' legal fees are NOT being paid by the state.  The two are paying for it and hoping to raise money to cover it all.  Just that alone - their willingness to spend their own money on this - should give some evidence of their sincerity.  

I realize this post reveals that I've made a judgment on this issue.  I usually try to articulate the various sides of any situation objectively and fairly.  I've been covering the Redistricting Board since December 2020.  I do believe that I am still covering it objectively.  I've been an eyewitness to all this.  I'm just telling you what I've seen publicly and what I see as the reasonable conclusions about what happened behind the scenes.  And the Supreme Court decision will determine if I was right or wrong.  

My Rough Meeting Notes

Below are my rough notes of the meeting.  I haven't gone through to edit them yet.  But I'll put them up now - this time there is no video of the meeting. There will probably be an audio recording.  I'll try to go through and clean up the typos.  BUT REMEMBER these are my amateur attempts to record what I heard and there are gaps, typos, missing moments, but it's as reasonable a written record as is probably available now.  [I have since edited some of this.]

ARB Meeting May 22, 2022 

3pm Board Meeting to approve appeal to Supreme Court.  

John Binkley, Nicole Borromeo, Bethany Marcum,  Melanie Bahnke, 

Peter Torkelson, staff, working to get Budd Simpson

Apparently they are all just dialing in - no Zoom, no video??

Talking to each other with exaggerated politeness - at least Binkley and Borromeo are.  Bahnke is recovering from COVID.

3:06pm still waiting for Simpson to be hooked in

3:07 - Budd’s on

Binkley:  calling to order 3:06 pm 

Calling roll - all present

Binkley:  move to adopt agenda.

So moved

Borromeo:  point 

Marcum:  Second

Borromeo:  I would like to add public testimony to the agenda  We have long standing custom of accepting public testimony at meetings.  

Bahnke also has another amendment.

Binkley:  Motion to amend:  Nicole?  

Bahnke:  Can’t video or let public testify because a last minute meeting, even though we’ve been calling for a meeting since appeals.  We have always had public testimony.  Support

Simpson:  I agree there’s a role for public testimony, but probably not at this meeting.  But we have rulings from the court that gives us guidance but don’t need start this meeting.

Marcum:  I see this as procedural matter.  We haven’t taken public testimony at all meetings, if we were mapping, different.  Meeting is open to the public and have not given public notice about testimony, so not fair.  

Borromeo:  Checked with Peter yesterday because couldn’t get the streaming.  This is the only time we haven’t had public testimony.  

Bahnke:  Decision we make here could be important to final map.  That this will have consequences for the state for the next ten years.  Could impact state elections for ten years.

Simpson:  As I understand it, the website remains open for written public testimony all along and can continue to take that 24/7 and people can use that.

Bahnke:  Roll call vote please

Binkley:  We can have a roll call vote.  Motion to amend agenda to add public participation.

Peter:  Bahnke: yes  Borromeo:  yes, Marcum, Simpson, Binkley all three no

Bahnke:  Add, add Board member comments and 

Marcum:  Two or one amendment?

Bahnke:  Something about legislation committee.  Want opportunity to make closing comment as you’ve allowed.  Scope of litigation committee’s authority.  Need to discuss before 

Binkley:  I thought we would talk about litigation committee in #4, and no problem with comments at the end.

Objections:  

Simpson:  Assumed it was covered in number 4, so no problem.

Marcum:  same

Bahnke:  

Binkley:  I see there is only one issue, member comment.  

Unanimous consent.

 Item one - ok, adopt the agenda which has been amended

Add litigation committee authority in 4 and add member comments at end

Matt, I assume you’re on the line.

Singer:  There were two more recent legal challenges 

 East Anchorage said violated Superior court’s prior order

Girdwood moved to intervene, said violated VI and Equal Rep.

Judge dealt with that quickly 

Found Senate District E violated Equal Protection clause.  All aware of filing deadline for candidates.  Board appointed a litigation committee in December and has been supervision Board council and directed me to file a petition for review which we did, May 17, one day after Court decision and then at SC direction submitted a substantive brief on the 18th.  Girdwood Plaintiffs filed opposition 20th.  That matter is probably fully briefed.  This weekend the SC is probably working hard.

Two Board members argued that Board acted without authority.  I want to address that and make recommendation.

December committee gave the committee full authority, but changes to maps was held for whole Board.  Acknowledged that courts would be fast moving and that was the case.  Fastest pace of my career.  

I understood if settlement to be made or day to day made by the Board, management were decisions delegated to the committee.

Constitution requires 3 votes, but aware of Alaska case that would preclude a delegation of authority to staff.  We hired an Ex Dir, he’s performing an action of the Board.  Been a public entity attorney my entire career.  I find no problem.  10 years ago a single member was responsible.  

Understand the litigation committee only set up for a prior lawsuit, but now we are doing a different case.  But incorrect.  Girdwood moved to intervene, same case, judge, same case number.  

No respect to alternative points of view.  One Board member said they would not abide by the litigation committee.  But just as one member cannot adopt a new district without the colleagues.  As your lawyer.  I have to follow directions to me by the Board.  Any collection of at least three of you.  And if three of you delegate authority to a committee, then I do that.

Two Board members disagreed and hired a separate lawyer.  It’s appropriate the Board met today in respect to those concerns and to address them.

Consider and vote and ratify the decision and that the litigation committee will continue with authority.  While I disagree the committee acted inappropriate , I have no issue with raising this today.  

Also institutional issues.  Constitution gives us very little guidance about Senate district.  I have looked at past SC decisions for guidance.  We may not like this process, but final direction and clarity for people sitting in my seat ten years from now.

Judge Matthews also telegraphing it would help him too.  He’s asking for guidance from the SC.  

Last note, everyone involved is mindful of June 1 candidate filing deadline.  By all indicators the SC appreciates that deadline.  I think they are working over the weekend so I guess they are working today too.  I expect that will decide.  Either we are done or more work.  

Thank all the Board.  I know you are all very good people.  May need another public meeting if Court directs.

Marcum:  Note for the record, I’m prepared to make a motion.

Bahnke:  Request that we discuss this before motions made

Bahnke:  Thank you Matt for the update.  Unfortunately we had to go that route because we have been continually ignored when requested meeting to review the claims.  No chance to review.  Didn’t even vote. Back in February we did that process.  We were outvoted then.  And probably will again today.  We did not abrogate our authority to litigation committee.  When ordered to make final map, that map was voided.  Any action we take that can impact the final map needs to be voted on by the whole Board.  Thought we could discuss those final.  I asked to be able to observe litigation committee.  That was ignored.  Never notified about litigation meetings.  Appeal pretty weak.  Doesn’t address superior court findings.  It did not allow litigation committee to usurp the Board decision.  We may be outvoted again, but process matters.  Sounds like we won’t even vote on whether there was an appeal.  Filings unauthorized.  CAn’t retroactively do it today. 

Marcum:  Roberts Rules - no notion so far.

Bahnke:  It’s part of the issue

Binkley:  That’s ok, no further discussion?

Borromeo:  Address Matt’s comments, but first back to Matt’s motion.  I’m talking about the Dec. 15 motion.  I’ll read it:  Came from Matt Singer:  reading:  In coordination with staff will be responsible for day to day, but any final decisions that affect our proclamation plan will be voted on by the whole Board.  Just the pending litigation.  Qualifier here.  “routine, day to day strategy”  nothing 

Hardly any decisions came before the whole Board.  As the drafter, Matt should have known that litigation committee usurps the whole Board’s authority.  

As really as 11 April, I started messaging you about concerns about the Board abdicating to committee.  I challenged you at least ten times.  It wasn’t just something out of the blue.  I asked who gave this authority.  You said you see nothing about delegation.  If go that way, what would have prevented us from a mapping subcommittee.

3.  Factually incorrect that this is not a new lawsuit.  Girdwood was not involved in early part.  You yourself say “  Any party agreed by a new, should be entitled to judicial review.  Your assertion that you are the Board’s lawyer, that needed when you became the litigation committee’s lawyer.  

You have exercised your duty to litigation committee.  Thank you very much.

Simpson:  I’ll keep short.  I agree with Mr. Singer’s analysis and interpretation of powers delegated to litigation committee.

Marcum:  can I make a motion?

Binkley:  go ahead

Marcum:  I move to approve and ratify the decision of the litigation committee to appeal theGirdwood appeal and affirm the delegation to the litigation committee until all appeals are final.  

Simpson:  Second

Marcum:  

Borromeo:  ???  

Marcum:  I believe the committee had full power for litigation, not map making.  We should ask for court’s guidance for this and important for future Boards.  Agree with what the committee has done and their authority to do so.

Bahnke:  If that were the case we wouldn’t have had the February meeting.  In Feb we took a vote to appeal to supreme court.  We haven’t had a chance to review the court’s findings and whether we should proceed.  

He told me his wife was angry and would go to the Governor when he voted for the House map.

We don’t have the power to delegate authority to member committee of the Board that will make decisions that will impact the elections for the set of Alaska

Simpson:  Once again, my wife has been brought into the discussion.  Melanie made a factual comment that is inaccurate.  My wife was not angry.  No one in the governor’s office never said anything.  However I voted was based on my own judge.  No one tried to change that.  No other Republican spoke to me angry about it or objected to it.  ONly negative comments have been the other party that has been extremely angry, personal, that upset the Democrats who are watching this process.  I reject the assertion my wife had any impact or pressured me in any way.

Bahnke:  Caution members to be professional and not question motives

Bahnke:  You told me that I don’t make stuff up.  I have no idea about the governor’s office.  I’m repeating what you told me.  When findings of secretive messages.  I’m not brining up party issues.  

Binkley:  Let’s keep it to the issue before us.  Not relevant

Borromeo:  Friendly amendment.  I would like to amend the motion in one of two ways.  If majority feels so strongly about this appeal that they should pay for it or that Matt’s team does it pro bono.  We are over $1million.  

Binkley:  If you want to make a motion and get a second.  

Your motion is an amendment to the motion on the floor.

Melanie:  I second the motion to amend.

Borromeo:  Back in Dec.  we were incurring a legal debt of $80,000.  Now we are near $1million.   We are abusing  the public trust and treasury.  If you don’t want to pay for it then Schawbe [Singer’s law firm] should do it pro bono.

Roll all:  Bahnke Borromeo:  yes  Marcum, Simpson, Binkley: no

Binkley:  We have the original message before.

Bahnke:  Clarity from Matt.  Read aloud about the Board having to vote to take action of the whole Board.

Singer:  Let me find it.  Section 9 concurrence of 3 members is required for actions of the Board, but 2 to conduct hearings.  

Simpson:  Any member who thinks it’s unconstitutional should vote against it.  There’s a filing about this from dissenting Board members.  The court can decide on that.  I think we should continue to vote on the motion.

Marcum:  Appeal and delegate to the litigation committee until there is final court approval.  

Borromeo:  I thought the motion had to be one topic only in Robert’s Rules of Order.  Would she be amenable to first vote to approve the appeal,  

Binkley:  I understand that.  Legitimate motion and the chair accepts it as such.  

Bahnke:  Seems we are taking several actions on one motion.  Just as Simpson wanted to separate SE issues into two motions.  And I think we separate them into two motions.  

Marcum:  I would note that it was mischaracterized.  Not treading new allowances for the litigation committee.  It’s just confirming what we already gave the committee.  Nothing has changed and they can continue operating.  So I’ll  vote against.

Simpson:  My understanding that this is affirmation.

Borromeo:  Then why are we holding this meeting?  If the majority’s opinion is right, there is no need for this meeting.  

Binkley:  The filing by the dissenters caused some confusion and hope this clarifies it for the SC.

Bahnke:  Yes, Borromeo Yes - Others all no

Motion to amend fails.

Discussion on main motion.

Borromeo:  Want to know what litigation committee is being advised.  It was agreed back then  that others could listen in and we have never been noticed of meetings.  Singer has characterized Marcum as nuts but goes along with the splitting of ER.

Binkley:  Not relevant

Borromeo:  It is relevant

Bahnke:  I think we’re asking something new.  Expanding it to allow for continued secrecy that excludes member of the Board from being privy to strategy.  Creating a mechanism to cloak the secrecy and outcome based work Board was accused of.  Hiding it by keeping it secret and exclude other Board members.

Binkley:  Call the roll

Bahnke no Borromeo no  Marcum  yes  Simpson yes   Binkley yes.  

3-2 motion carries

4:19  Board member comments

Bahnke:  Glad we are finally having a meeting.  Even if outvoted, it at least happened open to the public.  We took proper procedural actions in February to appeal the case.  That didn’t happen this time.  Appeal not properly sanctioned, we missed the deadline.  The Courts will maki a decision we will have to abide by.  Board process has silenced those of us against the Supreme Court.  Baffled by lack of respect of the process.  Probably last time.  $1million later.  

We did not have a vote to appeal.  The appeal is not valid.

Borromeo:  I do want to thank the Board for noticing and holding a board.  While we don’t have the votes to stop the appeal,  But not about that, about having our meetings in public.  If we could have met as a Board, two of us wouldn’t have had to hire counsel to have a public meeting.  Hopefully the next Board will do it better.

I noticed the Board two days before filing, but Board ignored us.  We filed - we are paying for that attorney ourselves, not the public.  I’m ready to work with the Board, but won’t rubber stamp the Board and wait to find out the decisions when the public does.

Marcum:  Note for the record we are not silencing the public.  They can still use the portal and I welcome comments the public and encourage them to comment.  

Bahnke:  Once again request that we be kept informed of the litigation committee.  We’ve been completely cut out by the litigation committee is going to happen and I have the same info shared with me as with the rest of the board.  

Binkley:  There has been about $1million in litigation so far.  Previous Board spent about $3.5 million.  That went over a number of years.  That went over a couple of years.  This may too.  Not unusual.  Sometimes adversarial.  No secrete that two Board members differed and that’s the situation we find ourselves in.  It makes sense to confirm the authority of the litigation committee.

4:28  -  Adjourned