Thread by @mattbuxton

"I'm really married to these deviations," says Alaska Redistricting Board member Bethany Marcum during today's meeting. All less than 1%.

At a previous one, staff warned such a focus creates loads of other problems with compactness, socioeconomic integration, etc.

#akleg

You can watch along here:

https://twitter.com/robinodak/status/1455953329029222400

It's frankly kinda hard to track any of this in real-time, but there's a lot of work right now about smoothing out the district boundaries. Marcum says she wants "straight lines and tight deviations."

Highest deviation for the Anchorage area, per Marcum, is .55%. Which is, admittedly, pretty low. She says she can go even tighter, though, with "zig zags" that pop out of one district, across Tudor or other major roads, and grab a few houses.

She says, though, that those little "zig zag" fingers that grab across the boundaries aren't worth the marginal increase in the deviation numbers. Also notes that they look suspicious (which, true).

The big thing today really looks like Eagle River stuff. The plan they're currently looking at looks like it moves some Eagle River voters into the Anchorage-area districts. They had been trying to avoid that but it's now back on the table apparently.

Now there's questions whether they need to consider the socioeconomic integration of Anch.

Matt Singer says the courts have ruled that considering neighborhood boundaries is "noble" but not at the cost of compact districts. "The socioeconomics in Anchorage takes a backburner."

Now, with less than 10 days before their self-imposed deadline Board Member Budd Simpson asks how they're supposed to balance compactness and deviation against each other.

Singer, the counsel, says basically that anything under 1% is fine. He says even 2% would be fine.

He says there's no legal challenges to his knowledge that have successfully found anything like 1% to 2% would be unacceptable.

(Currently, they're working with about .5% and want to push lower for some reason.)

A lot of crosstalk with a "but LISTEN"

Almost like drawing big complex maps with five human brains in 2021 is kinda hard.

Singer: "The courts don't like bump-outs, fingers or strange shapes."

He says they automatically see them as fishy, creating cause for discovery, and that there must be an ulterior motive here.

Singer then raises the specter of the 2010 round's "Kawasaki Appendage."

"There was an appendage that appeared for an odd reason."

(I covered the lawsuit on that one. It was a big deal designed to go after then-Rep. Kawasaki to put him in Rep. Thompson's district.)

#akleg

Here's more detail on the bait-and-switch for the Anchorage plan, yanking a bunch of Muldoon and East Anchorage into Eagle River:

https://twitter.com/robinodak/status/1455969706217672705

#akleg

And now Marcum seems pretty jazzed that the last round's kinda fishy Anchorage mapping wasn't challenged.

Board Dir. Peter Torkelson says just because it wasn't challenged, doesn't mean it's court-approved.

Marcum says it should be fine, then.

#akleg

Also love a Alaska Redistricting Board hearing where someone says "Randy Ruedrich is waving at us."

I have a memory of Ruedrich waving at the board being a pretty key thing in the 2010 round.

#akleg

Randy keeping an eye on things:

Can't imagine courts are going to love maps that sacrificed compactness and socioeconomic integration in favor of a population deviation that's about 1/4 of what counsel just said was acceptable.

But, ya know, is it really redistricting if the courts don't blow up the maps?

Bahnke, reading prior court rulings: "It's clear to me that we can't sacrifice compactness in an effort to achieve less than 2 percent population deviation."

Marcum: "I don't believe that sacrifice compactness, it has many extremely straight lines."

#akleg

Bahnke says the court rulings are clear that "compactness trumps deviation when we're down to such low numbers as even lower than 2 percent."

Singer's advice: Use your eyes.

Bahnke says that, basically, increasing perimeters (as was the case with Eagle River expansion) "for the sake of reducing deviation is going to have us run afoul of our constitutional mandate."

#akleg

Everyone's fed up with Anchorage (an eternally true statement) so they're moving on down to the Kenai Peninsula and Gulf Coast areas.

Blanked a bit, but Singer summing things up: "I don't think there's a case that tells us what the answer is here."

They agree to something (I missed precisely what)

Bahnke: "There should be fireworks that go off each time we agree on something."

Bahnke, who is from Kotzebue, raises some concerns about the boundaries for the Western rural districts. She says she's concerned it would "compromise socioeconomic integrity."

Binkley: "Well, I would disagree."

Bahnke notes that her grandma is from Crooked Creek. She says it's more closely related to the coastal communities than the Interior. She's talking about connections with health care connections, which is also coming up with Good News Bay (which is more connected to Dillingham)

TJ Presley, the board's deputy director, interjects as things get a little feisty between the board members: "I really think we should eat lunch. Strongly support it."

They break for lunch.

They've been back for a bit (I just got back from walking the dog). Still discussing the boundaries of the coastal House districts.

It's been interesting to hear Board Member Bahnke (who's from Nome, not Kotzebue as I tweeted earlier) is really bringing a lot of the local knowledge and preferences for which communities are closer.

Binkley is currently doubting she actually speaks for the communities.

Bahnke, in an exchange with Binkley (who's dismissing what's she's saying about the community connections): "Show me."

Bahnke is works/lives in Nome but is from Savoonga*

Apologies for the mis-tweet earlier.

There's a lot of back and forth over which regional ANCs should have preference over the others.

Borromeo: This weighted preference to Calista is very uncomfortable to me.

Binkley: "I see it as just the opposite." He says they've been just as involved as Doyon, etc.

Bahnke says it seems like Binkley's trying to "negotiate" with her on the layout of the district in order to keep something in place regarding Fairbanks.

He says that's not the case.

It sounds like they're not exactly sure what he's proposing here. Staff's helping sort it out.

Bahnke really gets into it with Binkley over some of the apparent socioeconomic connections in the areas covered by this map. She's asking him how what he's defending is better-connected than her proposal.

Binkley: I just can't answer that, to be honest with you.

Bahnke: ... It takes us a step backward."

Binkley: I'm not certain about that, I think Calista has a different opinion about that.

Bahnke: Well it doesn't improve the socioeconomic integrity.

Binkley looks at his proposal and says it's fine because Calista likes it.

Bahnke: But what about Doyon's request?

Binkley says they're in conflict and you can't ignore Calista.

Bahnke is now proposing an alternative that she says does a better job at meeting everyone's needs.

Binkley says again that it's all fine. Isn't it what Doyon wants after all? (Being spread across two as opposed to four districts)

Bahnke: It's not what they requested.

Binkley: It's what Calista requested.

Just from the perspective of someone who covered the last redistricting lawsuit, it's sure gonna be interesting to have this kind of record to work off of.

Bahnke: "I get that everyone's got their preferences, but we've constitutional mandates."

Binkley: "That may be their opinion on the constitutional mandate of it."

They're huddling over some physical maps right now (audio is halfway decent) over the Calista-preference maps.

Bahnke: "We don't share a ceremony, we don't share a language."

Marcum and Binkley really going to bat for Calista here. Bahnke and Borromeo argue that everyone should be able to get a little of what they want instead of someone (Calista) getting everything they want.

Really boils down to whether or not such a preference is allowable.

This is getting kinda ugly.

Borromeo now getting into it with Binkley about why he's continuing to seemingly favor Calista over everyone else. He says it's fine cuz they gave Doyon a lot of what they wanted, why shouldn't Calista get everything they wanted?

I think a lot of this is a fight because decisions made over the rural Interior district is gonna have a big impact on how the Fairbanks districts (Binkley's home turf) plays out.

Borromeo says the proposed changes that Binkley's favoring (the ones that Calista likes) is that it doesn't make it better than what the board has already drawn as a group.

Binkley: "I would disagree with you."

Marcum says basically agree to disagree and let's move onto Fairbanks. Whatever they end up doing there will also impact these other areas.

Onto Fairbanks. Binkley sums up his view: Will they break the boundaries of the Fairbanks North Star Borough and where do they send the excess population if they do?

It sounds like it'd go in with HD36, which is the Interior, then Valdez would go w Mat-Su (which neither want).

The Valdez Question: Does Valdez go in with Mat-Su or the Interior?

Marcum says Valdez should go with the Interior, referencing boat registrations, and that Denali should go with the Mat-Su.

If they've gotta knock out about 4,000 people from the district, which ones are more socioeconomically integrated with the destined district of HD36 (rural Interior). Binkley says the Northern area of the borough.