The Alaska Board of Redistricting unanimously approved the state final political map Monday after he was twice found to have engaged in unconstitutional partisan gerrymandering.
In a landmark decision in April, the Alaska Supreme Court explicitly ruled for the first time that partisan gerrymandering violates the state constitution. The court had twice struck down political maps that sought to give Eagle River, which is solidly Republican, more political representation with two Senate seats. A provisional map the court ordered used for last November’s general election kept Eagle River intact with one Senate seat. The board approved that version at its Monday meeting.
The five-member board met at the Legislative Information Office in Anchorage to discuss whether another attempt should be made to redraw Alaska’s 40 House and 20 Senate districts. But Republican appointees, who supported splitting Eagle River in two, said it would likely be futile.
John Binkley, chairman of the redistricting board, said he didn’t agree with everything in the Supreme Court. 144 page opinion, but that he respected the authority of the court. Binkley was appointed by then-Senate President Cathy Giessel, a Republican. He encouraged his fellow board members to approve the tentative map, saying, “I think it will cause the least disruption to the public.”
Budd Simpson, a board member appointed by Alaska Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy, echoed Binkley, adding, “I think it would be disruptive and an exercise in futility to try to make substantive changes, so I think the proclamation proposed is appropriate at this time.”
The board’s final map, approved Monday, can be challenged in Superior Court by any Alaskan voter within 30 days.
Bethany Marcum, CEO of the conservative Alaska Policy Forum and another Dunleavy appointee, said the court made it clear that Eagle River should not be split, but she didn’t think it would be a “heavy lift” to arguing whether there was a better way. to comply with the decision.
“I just fear that by adopting the court-ordered plan that the board, the constitutional board, is ceding our discretion to the courts,” he said. “If we just accept this interim plan that the court ordered us to use, they’re going to become the redistricting authority for this cycle, and I think that sets tons of bad precedent.”
Marcum, a former aide to then-Sen. Dunleavy, was re-elected to the board last week by the governor. A day earlier, the Legislature narrowly rejected her to serve on the University of Alaska Board of Regents.
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Melanie Bahnke, president and CEO of Kawerak, Inc., was one of two redistricting board members who opposed giving Eagle River two Senate seats. Bahnke, an independent who was appointed by former chairman Bolger, said Monday that the courts had given the redistricting board a second chance last year to draw the state’s political boundaries, but that a majority of members had reapproved a map that was found to be unconstitutional.
“So I don’t think that’s going to be forced down our throats,” he said of the board’s final map.
There was a partisan divide in responses to the court’s April redistricting decision. Lindsay Kavanaugh, executive director of the Alaska Democratic Party, said the explicit ban on partisan gerrymandering in the state constitution would create a fair and equitable redistricting process for decades to come.
“I think the implications here are extraordinarily significant,” Kavanaugh said.
Meanwhile, Ann Brown, chairwoman of the Alaska Republican Party, said in a prepared statement at the time that it appeared the Alaska Supreme Court “relied on a new standard of evidence” in issuing its ruling. decision: “That of the inference rather than the objective fact. .”
“The Court inferred that because the three Republican appointees voted the same way, they must have had some improper agreement in advance rather than the logical inference that each of them individually reached the same conclusion.” he said via text message.
Brown added that the court apparently ignored that the two independent board members voted together to oppose the political maps and that the justices “found nothing improper in their agreement.”
The state’s highest court described the “secret procedures” used to draw two Eagle River Senate districts to benefit Republicans and admonished the board for making key decisions behind closed doors.
After the April decision, Alaska became the 13th state that its highest court interpret the state constitution to prohibit partisan gerrymandering. Seven other states have a legal ban on partisan gerrymandering, according to Dan Vicuña, national redistricting manager for Common Cause, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that campaigns to end gerrymandering across the country.
“Whether it happens in a red or blue state, a constitutional ban on partisan gerrymandering is always a historic victory for the people,” Vicuña said in an interview. “The Alaska Supreme Court is recognizing, as many state courts recognize, that they simply must step in when voting rights are under attack through gerrymandering.”
