Editorial

The math is simple. Take the 2020 Census for Alaska and divide by 40, so that each state House district represents the same number of residents - 18,335.

But then nothing beyond the math is easy.

It's impossible to carve up the state into 40 districts of exactly the same population. A battle ensues every 10 years over where the lines should be drawn for legislative seats, taking into account areas of population growth and population shrinkage.

The job of the Alaska Redistricting Board is to follow the constitutional requirement, which is to come as close as possible on population numbers while making each district "contiguous and compact." The goal is not to divide communities, not to clump unrelated communities together, and not to draw the lines in such a way as to benefit one political party over another.

All the while knowing that the map will end up in court.

Dividing the last piece of holiday pie among a table of disagreeable relatives probably would be easier.

The Redistricting Board has released its draft maps, while others have taken computer mouses in hand to draw their own maps. The board will travel around the state next month to gather public comment in advance of the Nov. 10 deadline to adopt a final map.

Wrangell is tangled up in an example of how hard it can be to draw a district that comes close to 18,335 residents in communities that share economic interests. The current House district of Wrangell and Ketchikan doesn't have enough residents to keep its seat. So, the redistricting board added Petersburg, which pushed the district over population by about 1,100 people.

And though Metlakatla and Prince of Wales Island have more in common with Ketchikan, they would stay part of the district that includes Sitka and stretches north to Yakutat. Putting all of Prince of Wales Island and Metlakatla into the Wrangell-Ketchikan district, even if you pull out Petersburg, would far exceed the population target. Not easy, is it?

Of course, nothing to do with legislative power would be complete without politics, or at least the appearance of a partisan tilt. The Redistricting Board used a jigsaw to cross a street in Juneau, which put the community's two incumbent Democrats into the same House district. If left unchanged, one would have to retire - or move to run in another district.

In Anchorage, the board drew a map that put three incumbent Democrats all in the same district.

Carving up the state into right-size districts could decide the direction of legislative action for the next decade. While there is no perfect solution, the Redistricting Board should redraw some of its squiggly lines to make them better.

-Wrangell Sentinel