JUNEAU (AP) — A state court judge said a majority of members on the board tasked with redrawing Alaska’s legislative district boundaries appeared to have adopted a map that splits the Eagle River area into two Senate districts for “political reasons,” and he ordered a new map to be used for this year’s elections.
The rejected plan put Eagle River, north of Anchorage, and Girdwood, south of Anchorage, into the same Senate district, separated by about 25 miles of uninhabited Chugach State Park.
The judge said he found the board “intentionally discriminated against the communities” in order to maximize Senate representation for Eagle River and the Republican party.” The board’s plan would have given Eagle River voters significant influence in filling two Senate seats.
Superior Court Judge Thomas Matthews in a decision made public May 16 ordered the Alaska Redistricting Board to adopt on an interim basis a map that in part pairs the two Eagle River area House districts into one Senate district. The decision comes in a second round of redistricting challenges. The map that the judge ordered adopted was the other option the board had considered but rejected when weighing a revised map.
Matthews said he expected a quick review of his decision by the Alaska Supreme Court. The candidate filing deadline for the August primary is June 1.
The redistricting litigation does not affect Wrangell, which will remain in a House district with Ketchikan.
The Alaska Supreme Court in March found constitutional issues with elements of a map drawn by the board last fall. In one of the instances, the court ruled that a state Senate district pairing part of east Anchorage and the Eagle River area constituted an “unconstitutional political gerrymander.”
The board went back to work but later adopted in a 3-2 vote last month essentially the same districts that the court had rejected, linking part of the Eagle River area with south Anchorage and Girdwood for a Senate district and another part of the Eagle River area to an area that includes Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson for another Senate district. The three board members who voted in favor were appointed by Republicans.
In Alaska, each state Senate district is comprised of two state House districts.
Peter Torkelson, the board’s executive director, in a statement May 17 said the board will seek an expedited review of the decision by the state Supreme Court.
Matthews’ decision came in response to a challenge filed by Girdwood area residents.
Girdwood residents had testified “that the pairing made no sense, was untenable, that the two areas were politically, culturally and economically different, and that the pairing would benefit Eagle River only while depriving Girdwood of its voice,” their attorneys said in court documents.
Matthews wrote that after the matter was sent back to the board, the “majority of the board appears to have assumed it could reach the same result — two reliably conservative senate seats for Eagle River — if only it submitted the senate pairings to additional public comment, regardless of what the public actually preferred.”
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