Skagway’s lawsuit vs the state redistricting board is in the cross-examination phase

A trial challenging the state redistricting board’s redrawing of the upper Lynn Canal’s House district to include Juneau’s Mendenhall Valley continues this week. The municipality of Skagway has filed suit alleging that the port community has stronger socio-economic connections with downtown Juneau, a key criteria laid out in Alaska’s constitution.

KHNS’ Mike Swasey spoke to writer Matt Buxton who runs the left-leaning Midnight Sun political blog. He’s been covering the trial from Anchorage.

Swasey – Matt, what was your takeaway from day one? 

Buxton – It’s kind of an unusual trial right now because a lot of the sort of things that you’d imagine as being part of a trial, oral arguments all that stuff, has already been pre-filed. So what we’re getting is kind of a look into the witness testimony here. 

So basically, it’s really challenging the socio-economic connections that Skagway has to other communities in this district. And so the real kind of challenge here that the board is bringing is that, hey, look, they are connected through the ferry system. They’re connected, sort of, through the school network and school districts and sports schedule. So they’re arguing that you know, where they’re at right now in this new district that separates them from downtown Juneau, you know, is legal under the letter of the law. 

Swasey – It seemed like the board’s lawyers made a few connections on day one tying Skagway and Haines to Auke Bay and the valley but Skagway’s attorney made a bunch of connections between Skagway, Haines, and downtown Juneau, way more. And then on day two, they’re cross-examining Republican board member Budd Simpson, one of the main points they’re making is that he and his wife support building a road from Juneau to Skagway. 

Buxton – And sort of talking about that as part of the justification for connecting the Auke Bay, upper Mendenhall Valley district of Juneau, to this region.  So the plaintiff’s argument they’re showing is that, you know, just how much Skagway and downtown Juneau had been opposed to this road, you know, it’s economics sort of changes that, you know, be felt to Skagway. This is a really specific claim that they’re making. And I think that could carry some more weight with the court. 

And it’s, at the very least, there’s a lot more kind of numbers, there’s, you know, resolutions, there’s public votes, there’s all these sort of records that have been created that show just how much the region really opposes the road and how it’s sort of a shared interest with downtown Juneau. 

Swasey – Well, but not with the valley, you know, the valley voted in favor of the road. So is the plaintiff trying to suggest Simpson is trying to kind of stack of a voting district so the road gets built? 

Buxton – You know, that’s the problem with redistricting, right, is that it’s supposed to be, you know, nonpartisan and fair.  But, you know, we’ve obviously seen that that ends up not being the case. And so, you know, I covered the last round of redistricting in 2010, when I worked at the Fairbanks Daily News miner. And it was interesting in that case too, there are some very similar claims about, you know, political leaning and benefit that were sort of being trying to achieve through that mapping and the court ended up not really taking that into too much weight. 

They ended up invalidating the plan on a completely different basis. So, you know, just how much, sort of, partisan influence is allowed in this process is not entirely clear. And, you know, it’s gonna come down to, you know, the there’s sort of four main metrics that they measure districts by. It’s that they are contiguous, they’re compact, they’re relatively socioeconomically integrated. Relative being a really key word there, and then as close as possible to the ideal district size. 

And so there’s kind of a lot of latitude in there. And the process doesn’t specifically say it can’t be politically motivated. They are not supposed to be, you know, taking into account how these districts vote or the number of Republicans or Democrats in any sort of district. But there’s sort of a wink and a nod with a lot of that stuff. I think the politics aside, there’s a pretty compelling case that they’ve talked about when it comes to cruise ship connections between these communities. The concerns, the shared concerns about the Juneau road, I think those are some pretty compelling things that get to these issues of, you know, relative socio-economic integration of these communities. 

Swasey – I guess we’ll see how long this will take. Matt Buxton, thank you so much for the time I appreciate your input. 

Buxton – Yeah. Thank you very much.