Thread by @mattbuxton

Alaska Redistricting Board is underway. They're currently discussing the Anchorage-area maps. Changes this morning:

-East Anchorage/Muldoon no longer tied to Eagle River
-Split Mountain View out of the Downtown Anchorage district

#akleg

Watch here: zoom.us/j/9074062894?p…

Marcum, kinda switching tone from last meetings, says that there needs to be a balance between compactness and population deviation. There had been a lot of focus on getting deviation down to .5% when counsel has said as high as 2% would be unlikely to be overturned.

#akleg

Muldoon/East Anchorage would be more paired with JBER population than Eagle River by the looks of it.

Still hard to really see what's going on with this form of presentation.

Borromeo says by looking at it, her version of the Anchorage-area map is "a lot more compact than this."

She also notes that the deviation levels they're pushing for are not even mandated by law.

#akleg

Marcum relying heavily on "one person one vote" she says she can't imagine having a district with 400 more people than another.

Borromeo asks how 21 is a compact district when it snakes around "in a shape I don't understand."

#akleg

Borromeo says she doesn't care about purpose, she wants to know why it's compact.

Marcum: I didn't say it was compact, I said it's the proper balance between compactness and one person one vote.

(Again, the precedent does not mandate such a strict population deviation)

Now there's some back and forth over the reasoning behind these. Seems like Marcum took some questions yesterday as direction to pull Mt. View out of the downtown area.

Bahnke says she was largely just concerned because these are densely populated minority communities.

"If I have to stay here all I weekend, I don't mind."

Borromeo says they've already given Marcum plenty of opportunity to get the maps done. She says though that they can't give her forever and will need to call the question (force a vote) on this.

Budd Simpson even agrees that "the hook" in Marcum's proposed map "looks kinda weird."

As they send them back to the drawing board, Borromeo says she's got a problem with 21, 16 and 15.

They're basically giving Marcum 30 minutes to come up with a better proposal. Those dog legs are really wild but were her attempt to try to meet what she thought was a request to remove Mountain View out of the Downtown district.

45 minutes later, Marcum has a revised map. She's talking first about the failure to put Valdez anywhere other than with the Mat-Su. (She had tried to put it with Anchorage, apparently)

Here's the new map:

Here's the revision of the wacky gerrymanders.

She's still all-in on the "one-person-one vote requirement we have" (which, again, isn't an actual strict requirement)

#akleg

Also there's district 11.

Marcum: "I have zero idea who lives any of those bump changes."

Bahnke basically says that still the Board's version 4 map put together by Borromeo is still better. More compact with smaller deviations than what Marcum put forward.

Borromeo says that she's still concerned by the over-emphasis on the deviations. She says the duty is to look at compact and contiguous over the deviations.

Says that her effort (which hasn't been on display much this morning) is better than the one put forward by Marcum.

Borromeo: "In good conscience I cannot vote for a brand-new line of Anchorage that the public has not had an opportunity to review and weigh in on our last day. It seems disingenuous. ... This is not better work than the board version."

#akleg

Marcum claims this is not a substantially different map than the one that the board drew. (Not really true)

Bahnke says it's substantially different.

Marcum says, well, yeah but that's only in a few places. "One very specific area in change."

Borromeo says she thought Marcum was still trying to cram Valdez into Anchorage... not trying to continue to tweak the Anchorage districts. Says if she knew that was what was going on right now, then she'd have called the question (forced a vote) a long time ago.

So, basically, Marcum got another swing at hastily redrawing the Anchorage maps under the guise of trying to get Valdez paired with Anchorage.

Bahnke and Borromeo aren't thrilled (mostly because it's wasting time). Budd Simpson says he'd like to hear some public testimony.

Marcum says that they SHOULDN'T take public testimony before making a decision on her map. Says they didn't take public testimony before making decisions (which weren't particularly controversial) on other areas of the state maps.

Binkley is on the fence with the whole thing. He says he's gonna go with public testimony first and says that they should get a better compare and contrast between the two maps.

Here's the two maps. The first one is the hastily rewritten one by Marcum (v3). The second is the one by Borromeo (v4). They're going to be taking public testimony shortly.

#akleg.

They'll be taking in-person and on-phone testimony, limited to two minutes per person:

From Anchorage: 907-563-9085
From Juneau: 907-586-9085
Anywhere else: 844-586-9085

#akleg

Yarrow Silvers, of the Scenic Foothills community council, says they are calling on them to respect local neighborhood boundaries. Both they and Silvers in her personal capacity support the map by Borromeo.

Silvers says the only reason to go with Marcum's map is to dilute East Anchorage's voice in its representation. She says her district would be "chunked up strangely" that would require her to drive through four to reach the other side of the district.

Silvers says the whole idea of "one person one vote" isn't even all that well represented by Marcum's map. She says it dilutes the voices of communities at the expense of others.

Now up is Joelle Hall, she says it's clearly wrong to be blending East Anchorage with Eagle River. She also stresses that Borromeo's is "clearly more compact" than Marcum's proposal.

Felisa Wilson testifies in favor of Plan v.4 Best (Borromeo's plan). Says it does a good job at maintaining the minority majority voices in the area as well as the military population.

Testifier representing the Spenard neighborhood council says the v.3 (Marcum's plan) is an obvious attempt at gerrymandering. She also is critical of the board's last-minute shenanigans. She says it undermines the process.

Northeast Community Council representative also testifies in support of Plan v.4 Best (Borromeo's plan). She says that deviation is nice but it's better for communities to have clear and reliable access to their representatives.

David Dunsmore, with Alaskans for Fair Redistricting, testifies in support of v4 Best (Borromeo's plan). He says it's most closely in line with the constitutional mandates.

Dunsmore says this district is particularly inappropriate. It looks fine but it's connecting south Muldoon homes with the wealthy South Anchorage through unoccupied areas in between. Says it's likely not legal.

Chris Nelson, who lives in North Muldoon, is testifying in support of the East Anchorage/Eagle River connection, which would be Marcum's version 3.

He says it "best suits the retiree community and the military families" in East Anchorage.

Now we're into testimony from Fairbanks, where folks are testifying against taking Goldstream Valley out and pairing it with the rural Interior.

Some back and forth with a Fairbanks resident and Binkley. The testifier says that it's wrong to split off Goldstream Valley when it's connected most closely to the Uniersity.

Binkley hides behind the FNSB's resolution that called for the excess population to be removed in bulk.

Testifier says that Salcha areas of the borough have more in common with Delta, which is in the rural Interior district, than Goldstream Valley.

Been a lot of testimony in support of V4 if the map. A lot of shade toward Marcum's V3 as an "egregious gerrymander" that would dilute minority votes.

#akleg

Now up is Luke Hopkins, former mayor of FNSB. He's testifying against the Goldstream Valley slice-off into the rural district. He says it's more closely linked to the UAF/Ester areas. He says that's the real connectino.

After some more testimony that is largely blasting the board for its public testimony process (largely about Marcum getting to revise her maps right up to when they took public testimony, thereby making it hard to really evaluate the maps), it sounds like they're taking a break.

FSNB Assemblymember Guttenberg (a former rep) is now testifying in favor of keeping Goldstream Valley together with the borough. He had represented a district tying the area to the coast.

"You're repeating the same unconstitutional mistakes."

Rep. Fields now phones, echoing the concerns Borromeo raised about public process around the v.3 map. He says it's a clear attempt to gerrymander in favor of the Republicans.

He says the v.4 map is fairer and more accurate.

Fields notes that v.4 is truly representative of the local areas and neighborhoods, while still pairing some incumbents together (Fields would be in with another incumbent).

He said "to be blind to partisanship but cognizant of our neighborhoods is an achievement."

As a refresher, here's the updated Anchorage-area maps: akredistrict.org/files/6816/361…

We just heard the second person in favor of Marcum's V.3 map. It comes from Kelli Toth, who just so happens to be Sen. Reinbold's chief of staff.

#akleg

Now up is Anchorage Assemblywoman Jamie Allard, who says that East Anchorage and Eagle River is totally cool. She also says that no one should be impugning the motives of the volunteer board (which would be accusations of "egregious gerrymandering.")

Allard also claims that she lives in Eagle River because of its diversity.

Allard says EaglExit "will not pose any threat" to the plan. She also says they're clearly all fit together because Eagle River residents get dinner and shop in East Anchorage sometimes (also it's home to a huge shopping center where I also shop sometimes).

Now Randy Ruedrich is the final testimony. He's focused first on some rural pairings regarding the Calista village decisions.

That's the end of hte public testimony for today. Sounds like they may take a roughly 30-minute break to eat lunch (it's 3 p.m.) and rearrange the room.

It sounds like they'll take a run at settling the Anchorage-area maps. Testimony has almost universally been for v.4.

Settling would, I think, equal a vote on whether to take the v.3 or the v.4 version of the Anchorage-area maps. I don't think it'd go beyond that quite yet.

That along with Fairbanks and some of the rural pairings seem to be the biggest issues in front of the board.

While testimony has been overwhelmingly in favor of V.4 for the Anchorage-area maps, the overtly conservative testimony has been in favor of V.3 by Marcum (of the conservative Alaska Policy Forum).

Thread continues over here:

https://twitter.com/mattbuxton/status/1456769956889051141