State judge rules redistricting board must redraw political map that includes Skagway and Haines

A state judge has ordered the redistricting board to redraw political maps that lump Haines and Skagway with Juneau’s Mendenhall Valley. Wednesday’s ruling came following legal challenges brought by the Municipality of Skagway and others that had objected to the pairing. Following the trial is political writer Matt Buxton who runs the left-leaning Midnight Sun blog. KHNS’ Corinne Smith spoke to him hours after the ruling that found the new political maps didn’t meet the standard for public process set by Alaska’s constitution. Read the full court ruling here.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. 

KHNS: So on Tuesday, well, technically, Wednesday morning early, the Court sided with Skagway sort of – can you walk us through the judge’s ruling?

Buxton: Yeah, so I think it’s really interesting because there was so much attention at the trial that was put on the socio-economic connections between Skagway and downtown Juneau, you know, really arguing about the cruise ship connection and all this other stuff. And it ended up not mattering at all. And that’s because under the law, the court kind of views communities as all the same. So if you’re connected to Juneau, one part of Juneau, you’re connected to all of it. And it kind of doesn’t make a difference in the eyes of the law. And we could go into a deep rabbit hole why that is, but for the sake of it, that wasn’t a convincing case. And so what was really interesting here is that Judge Matthews looked instead at the public the process by which they resulted in these maps. And so during the public testimony portion, there was a lot of testimony from both Skagway and Juneau, that were really arguing in favor of these pairings that were arguing, basically in favor of the status quo. And that really wasn’t taken into much account by board member Budd Simpson. He’s a Republican from Juneau, picked because he’s a Republican from Southeast. Even said at the trial, there’s a very short list of those Southeast Republicans. And at the trial, he even said, he just sort of bothered by how the maps looked, how the current maps looked, and he was really set out to change them in this way. And really, and so be it with public testimony. That’s where the judge really came down hard on him, basically wrote that the board is acting as if they knew better than the public on these decisions. And so, the decision here throws out this district specifically, because they didn’t take into account public testimony. And it’s not to say that the public gets to decide these districts on their own, but it is that the board at least has to take a very good shot. I think the judge calls it a “hard look” at trying to accommodate those concerns. And he just didn’t find any evidence of that here. And so that’s why he threw it out.

KHNS: Yeah, the judge wrote that they failed to hold meaningful public hearings, and failed to make a good faith effort to accommodate public testimony. So what does this mean moving forward? What’s next in the process?

Buxton: So there were basically two things going on moving forward. The big thing is that every redistricting trial ends up in the Alaska Supreme Court. So they’re gonna try to have that done, I think by April, and with a month, basically before the filing deadline for state elections. So there’s going to be an appeal, everything could change with the (Alaska) Supreme Court weighing in on it. If Judge Matthews’ order stands, though, what it means is that the redistricting board will be sent back to the drawing board to either incorporate public testimony into the decision making process or at least come up with a very convincing argument as to why it doesn’t need to be incorporated, or why they could ignore it. And so it’s interesting because the two areas where the Court struck down the board are both areas that are relatively easy to fix, where you know, so where some of the other decisions would have required a full redraw of almost entire state. East Anchorage, their case deals with Senate pairing, so it doesn’t require any new maps. The Skagway case is specifically about where you draw the lines in between that downtown Juneau, to Haines and Skagway area. So you can kind of redraw that line without affecting everything else. And in previous cases, the court sort of stopped short of ordering full redraws, sort of understanding that you got to hold an election at some point. In both of these cases, there is a total possibility that the Board should get this work done before June 1 and create new plans that would go into effect in this year’s elections.

KHNS: Interesting. So they have until April to finalize these maps. And then elections, like you said, the proof is in the pudding with the election, which candidates have until June 1 to file.

Buxton: Yeah.

KHNS: Well, Matt thanks for all your hard work covering this court case so closely, and we look forward to future coverage, thank you.

Buxton: Thank you very much, it’s been a pleasure.