State Supreme Court rejects electoral map

MAT-SU — A split decision handed down from the Alaska Supreme Court Friday sent the state’s redistricting board’s efforts back to square one.

“Because the board failed to follow the process that we ordered … we affirm the decision of the superior court and require the board to draft a new plan for the 2014 elections,” Justice Walter Carpeneti says in the decision.

Just to recap — redistricting meant a lot of things for Mat-Su. The Valley did see a new House seat added, but it also now shares Senate seats with Anchorage and North Pole. The 2012 election was conducted under one of the board’s previous maps.

That election stands. But, given that all but one House seat was up for re-election due to redistricting this year, it seems likely that the same scenario will play out in 2014.

As for the board’s reasoning, at issue is the way that the board went about redrawing the lines.

In a previous ruling, Hickel v. Southeast Conference, the state’s highest court set out a process for redistricting. Called the “Hickel process,” it attempts to strike a balance between state and federal laws.

Basically, the board has to draw lines based on the criteria laid out in the state’s constitution, then tweak and fix those to come into federal Voting Rights Act. That act applies to Alaska and to southern states where there has been trouble in the past with disenfranchisement of minorities. In the case of Alaska, it proscribes that the number of districts in which a Native Alaskan is likely to win election not reduce due to redistricting beyond what one would expect based on how much of the population is Native.

Or, in legalistic terms from Carpeneti’s ruling: “A reapportionment plan is invalid under section 5 of the Act if it leads to ‘retrogression’ in the relative position of racial minorities with respect to their effective exercise of the electoral franchise.”

As for the state, the constitution requires that districts be compact, contiguous, contain a “relatively integrated socio-economic area” and be drawn along natural boundaries as much as possible.

When those two rules are in conflict and it is state law that has to bend.

“Because the federal Act has priority, sometimes the Alaska redistricting criteria must be compromised in order to avoid retrogression,” Justice Warren Matthews writes in a dissenting opinion, summing up the process.

But when the board sat down to draw districts, Carpeneti writes, it started out trying to make the requisite number of Native-dominant districts, rather than starting out drawing a plan based on state rules.

The courts kicked it back to the board, directing it to adhere to the Hickel process, but the board just redrew districts people had found cause to challenge them on, leaving 36 districts unchanged.

“Although these districts went unchallenged, that does not change the fact that they were drawn with VRA considerations as the first priority. We do not know if these districts will meet the Alaska Constitution’s requirements of compactness, contiguity and socio-economic integration, but they were not drawn with this purpose as the primary consideration,” Carpeneti writes.

Two dissenting opinions were attached to the ruling. One, from Justices Daniel Winfree and Craig Stowers, disagrees with Carpeneti’s claim that the board doesn’t have to justify, district-by-district, how the map complies with the state constitution. Winfree and Stowers would like to see that justification.

The other dissention comes from justices Matthews and Dana Fabe.

“Today’s opinion concludes that a fresh start was required. I disagree and believe that the Board’s approach was practical and reasonable,” Matthews writes in that opinion.

Contact reporter Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.