Unknown: Public hearings are taking place throughout the state as the Alaska redistricting board presents draft maps for the state's new legislative districts, and the debate over fair representation is underway.

Both of these versions seem really nakedly political, with some very odd zigs and zags, that just so happened to pit, you know, bipartisan majority members against each other.

How will the final map change the Alaska legislature and what do voters need to know?

We're talking about redistricting right now on Alaska insight?

Every 10 years a state board redraws the boundaries of Alaska's legislative districts.

The process is long and technical, but there's a lot at stake it can determine which party controls the state legislature.

Alaska Public Media's Annie Feidt explains.

The Alaska legislature has 20 senators and 40 House members every 10 years, the state redraws the boundaries of those legislative districts to match the latest numbers from the US Census.

After the 2020 census, places in the state that added population like the Mat-Su borough will likely gain part or all of a district while places that lost population like Anchorage will lose all or part of a district.

The redistricting board is charged with drawing the new map.

The board has five members.

Two are appointed by the governor, one by the Senate President, one by the House speaker and one by the Chief Justice of the Alaska Supreme Court.

John Binkley chairs the commission.

The choices are supposed to be nonpartisan.

There are infinite possibilities for drawing lines, but commissioners have to make sure about 18,000 people are in each house district and double that number for each Senate District.

The Alaska Constitution also requires that the districts be contiguous and compact and be integrated socioeconomically as much as possible.

The Constitution says drainage and other prominent geographic features like rivers should be used for boundaries when possible.

The board proposed two maps.

Other interested parties and citizens have proposed their own maps.

The board is holding more than 20 hearings around the state this fall to gather public input.

November 10 is the deadline for commissioners to choose one final map.

Even after the final map is approved, there could be court challenges.

The goal is to have the new district outlines finalized in time for the 2022 election.

For Alaska Public Media, I'm Annie Feidt.

Thanks for breaking down the redistricting process for us, Annie.

It is a complicated but crucial process and understanding how it affects future representation and legislation is clearly important.

My guests this evening understand what's at stake.

Senator Tom Begich is an Anchorage Democrat and part of the senate minority.

Randy Ruedrich is the former chair of the Alaska Republican Party and is now with Alaskans for Fair and Equitable Redistricting.

Welcome both of you.

Thanks so much for being on hand this evening.

So Senator Begich, I want to start with you.

Despite tensions in some of the testimony over the current maps, you said Alaska has one of the best processes in the country.

Talk about that a little bit what sets us apart?

Well, we have a unique situation in that we have a board that has five members that are not appointed by the governor alone.

So there's a mixture of who appoints that board.

Our process is pretty well defined in the constitution.

So we know we only have a 90 day period once we receive the census data to produce the maps, and then a limited time period for when lawsuits can be filed and should be filed.

And then the courts are required to expedite those cases.

So we actually have very clear timeline, the the key of having two appointed by the governor, as Annie Feidt's initial report indicated, and having one from the Speaker of the House, one from the President of the Senate, and one from the Supreme Court Chief Justice ensures that you're going to have a wide variety of choices.

And there's also limits on how many can come from which judicial districts which ensures that you have rural representation, as well as urban representation.

So it's a fairly decent process.

Plus, our court systems have been very clear about outlining what is required and tighten that outline over time.

So consequently, we have a process that's fairly well defined by the courts and fairly well defined in our Constitution.

Great, thank you for that breakdown.

Mr. Ruedrich, I want to turn to you now.

You lamented that few people pay attention to redistricting and their level of understanding of the process is poor.

These maps, as you know, are very important and will be in place for a decade.

What would you say to someone who says, "I really don't get it, and I don't care"?

Well, it's very unfortunate that people say, [inaudible] understand, I think it's every citizens duty to understand the significance of the mapping process.

[inaudible] Added population, you're gonna benefit from a shrinking, [inaudible] but get to the proper representation.

[inaudible] standpoint of one person one vote last.

So it is very important for everyone to understand.

Because if you overlook this, you will have ten full years to deal with the consequences of [inaudible] engaged.

We're having some trouble with your audio not sure what's happening there, but it's dropping out a bit.

So hopefully, we can figure out what's going on there.

Senator Begich, I'll turn back to you now.

How do you describe the importance of this process?

To someone who says they aren't interested in it?

What would you say?

Well, I would say you should be because it's a matter of priorities, it's a matter of, of what you want your future to be.

If you have children, it's going to be the the state in which your children grow up.

And if you don't have children, but you have, you know, any interest at all to continue to live in Alaska, you're going to want to know how its framed.

Who we elect to office determines how our state functions, whether we have a fiscal plan, whether we ensure that we're going to fund education, or whether we're going to build our roads or fund our university, all of this comes down to redistricting, It is a critical piece of determining what your future is.

I for one want to know that I have had impact and input in my future.

And that's why I'm engaged in the process and have been for three decades.

Continuing on Senator, the the current redistricting board has not allowed continued updates to the maps after testimony and you call that surprising.

Talk about why that's important, and what do you know about why that's not happening this time?

Well, I don't know why it's not happening this time.

I do know that in the past in the 11 cycle, in the 2011 and the 2001 cycle, as questions came up in public testimony, as issues were brought up by the board, those who were making maps were able to provide on time or you know, pretty instantaneous changes and adjustments to maps, which allowed us in real time to kind of move the process forward.

Randy was part of that process, as was I and, and it really was helpful to be able to constantly put a new map out, because it helped the public know that they were being listened to.

But it also allowed for the board to see that there were solutions to problems that that they were facing.

And so I'm a little surprised that we're not doing that this time.

But you know, both Randy and I have put forward new maps recently, you know, to help identify this sort of important part of the process, and to ensure that at least some of these answers to their questions are put on the table.

Mr. Ruedrich, how about for you?

Is this a concern, this lack of constant updating for you?

I find it very troubling.

Our solution was to just push updated maps to the best of our ability [inaudible] website, which is affer.org.

And there's an overlay feature so that you can compare the Alaska fair and equitable redistricting map with Board Options, two, I'm sorry, three and four, as well as other third party maps, so that you have the ability to see the evolution of thought, the of good concepts that are picked up in hearings.

Even in written testimony as submitted to the board.

I regret that we're having some, some audio issues.

I'm not sure what's happening there.

But Senator Begich did you want to follow up?

Yes, I would just add that, you know, part of the process of the evolving maps actually led Randy and I, in the at the end of the 2011 cycle, to find common ground, which is pretty rare coming from a member of the Republican and a member of the Democratic Party.

We actually jointly testified as we came to that common ground over most of the not all, but most of the districts in map that was an evolved map.

And the board accepted most of those suggestions.

And I think that that's part of why the process can work better.

If indeed, there's an evolving process like Randy just described in like I described.

Redrawing the maps is always a challenge, but this year was complicated by the late results of the census.

How much do you think this is affecting the process or is it?

Well, I'll answer first, I guess and say that I'm not sure it has affected the process that much, you know, a lot of us were were put in preliminary drawing maps in anticipating anticipation of the census numbers, and the board jumped right on it.

In fact, they caught us all flat footed, we had to get maps together and ready by the early part of September, you know, to meet the Board's own post 30 day deadline for third party maps to be considered.

And then, and then the process has been made clear, we still know it's going to be fast tracked.

What it could affect in terms of, you know, the extra time, it'll affect both, where a person lives for filing will be affected by this to some degree, but also potentially, it will force a protracted use of a map that may not be constitutional in the next election until it can be repaired.

So we don't know yet.

But right now, I'd say that the board has worked pretty diligently at trying to overcome the deficit of a five month delay in the census numbers.

You I think the only issue that I had.

Let's go back to Mr. Reudrich here.

Hopefully the audio is working better now.

Go ahead.

Oh, my comment, largely parallels [inaudible] who just said.

I would add, in addition, since we [inaudible], regardless, when we get the data the board has to do is the same.

The impact is on future filings.

When people discover the district they thought they were living in when they were looking at board option X become the flavor of selection.

So you wind up with having to rethink or do you want to run in that district?

Do you alight well with those people?

Or is this something that you just don't fit?

The lateness really affects the candidates more than it affects our process.

We continue to have audio problems.

It's most unfortunate.

Senator Begich.

I want to go back to you.

You said that map three and four will end up in court.

What's going on there?

Why do you think that'll happen?

Well, there are a couple of reasons why those two maps and I actually was able to testify to the board about this as well, but a couple of reasons why those maps will likely be ruled unconstitutional.

In the case of both maps, they really have egregious violations of what's called deviation, which is one person one votes based on the federal law, but we have an acknowledgement of it as well.

They over populate or under populate significantly, districts in southeast Alaska.

And in the case of map three, they significantly overpopulate Fairbanks, and they actually violated a finding of prior courts by not using what's called the excess population.

So Fairbanks gets 5.23 seats, but they take that to three and they jam that two three that 23% into those five districts.

The courts have said you can't do that with an excess population, you have to actually distribute it at least to one other district.

So those are two of the really outstanding reasons why those two maps would not go forward - the deviation question, and then violating some of the state standards that have already been established.

I want to stay with you for just a moment before we go back to Randy Ruedrich.

The Federal Voting Rights Act required Alaska to have district maps reviewed by the Department of Justice for 40 years because of the potential for discrimination against Alaska Native voters.

But after the US Supreme Court invalidated parts of that law, that review won't happen this year.

Does that concern you?

Yes, it does concern me that that review is not occurring.

But I'm pleased to say that there is there are two Alaska Native members on this board and a third member who has represented in the State House and State Senate Rule Alaska, and then a fourth member who's enough counsel to an Alaska Native organization.

So you have at least some impact to be, you know, at least some awareness.

But I've been troubled by the fact that we have not had made available to us the Alaska Native census numbers.

So we have not been able to truly identify in our maps, whether or not these whether or not these maps actually do even meet the bare criteria of not of actually lowering the number of Alaska Native districts, especially in light of the increase proportionally of the Alaska Native population, according to the census.

Most maps, though, do have at least four districts that would be represented by a majority Alaska Native population, and then two at least influence districts which have 35% or greater population that's Alaska Native.

So that's at least a good sign.

I just really think the gutting of the Voting Rights Act, sections two and five was a mistake.

And I think it may in the long run have detrimental impacts.

But this board seems to be aware that they have to take that into account.

Mr. Ruedrich, your thoughts on that - Are you concerned both with the maps that may end up in court and also the fact that the Department of Justice will not be reviewing the process this year?

Well, the Department of Justice did not review the process and 13.

[inaudible] From that map, to today, the best news for all of us is that we see an increase in population on the north slope in the Northwest Arctic borough in the Bristol Bay region and in the Calista region.

So, the best solution to protect our native districts simply by having more population [inaudible] did in those districts so that we wound up being able to release 13 map a significant number of Doyon villages, which does two things.

It makes the western and northern districts more compact.

But more importantly, it returns [inaudible] village population to the large district that wraps around Fairbanks from [inaudible] down into Holy Cross.

Ideally, if we have enough population would be one district for the shareholders in the Doyon [inaudible].

Now we are not quite we don't quite have that many, but at least Doyon gets to be represented.

[inaudible] Districts not for as we were in the 13 map, so we made a progress.

thing, maybe voting rights came from the right place in maybe regions.

All right.

The audio is a little better, but we're still having a little bit of drop out there.

I want to stay with you though, sir.

You said gerrymandering is misunderstood and gave an example of a big population shift between 2000 and 2010 in a region where one area declined and another gained.

And you said that redistricting needs to fix this misalignment.

Talk about that correction.

And I don't imagine you would call that gerrymandering.

Well, clearly it's not gerrymandering, when you have a [inaudible], that referring to is we had one district between 2010 and [inaudible] 2002 1010. grow 36%.

In this election, we had similar growth in the Mat-Su Valley where the southwest part of the Valley had a population increase of over 5,400 people.

So by the time we got to the census, Southwest Mat-Su Borough was severely underrepresented or [inaudible] populated, so you have to redraw the map accommodate those changes, and that takes the Mat-Su borough from five House seats to nearly six, wind up having to add some population to get to a full six, but the Mat-Su borough added eight-tenths of a district.

Correspondingly, we saw Anchorage lose almost .6 and we saw the the Northstar Borough lose nearly .3.

The other place that grew besides rural Alaska was Kenai.

And so Kenai has surplus population over their three House seats [inaudible] used to help build a full representation map for all Alaskans.

Senator Begich, how do you describe when someone asks you if they ask you what gerrymandering is what it means?

Well, there's two Yeah, gerrymandering is the the inappropriate, you know, creation of districts that are designed to actually create a harm that isn't necessary and certainly isn't applied to by the, by our constitution to the courts themselves.

And I'll quote from a court hearing in Hickel, which is one of the lawsuits from the past, it's, quote, the division of a borough, which otherwise has enough population to support an election district will be an indication of gerrymandering.

That's what our court says.

So they're basically saying a deliberate efforts to break socio economic integration without any practical reason to do so would be a sign of gerrymandering.

There's other elements if you see a dramatic matching of incumbents against each other, that would be a sign of it.

I think back in the '01 cycle and Randy, you can correct me on this, but I think 20+ incumbents were pitted against each other in that cycle and, you know, that could bring up issues or questions about gerrymandering, you know, and you look to seek balance - are there more of one party or another party.

People look at incumbency as maybe an indicator that.

If you do the map right, and you do the process the courts outlined, then there's really no reason for you to cross the lines the court has drawn in what they define as gerrymandering.

And I've said that to people before, just because you don't win districts doesn't mean it's been gerrymandered.

And through the decades, there have been big distinctions in this process.

2002, there was 27 of 40 districts, I think there was some conversation about this, had to be redrawn.

13 entities sued over it, what a big mess, but in 2012, not much had to be redrawn.

So what was going on between those two, not much population shift, or was there partisan politics involved?

No, it was determination by the court really.

So Anchorage had 16 House districts at that time.

And the original map that was drawn in 2001, 2002, was a map that had used a plus 5% from the median number minus 5% to the median number, which is what was we thought allowed by the law.

The court said no, and and they actually said very specifically, that, that newly available technology, technological advances will often make it practical to achieve deviation substantially below the 10% federal threshold, particularly in urban areas, when they said that they remanded all 16 of those districts back to the board for redrawing and they redrew it instead of 10% plus or minus 5%, plus or minus down to 1.35% plus or minus.

That's the main reason and then we knew that going into the 2011 cycle.

So we drew really tight deviations from Fairbanks all the way down to Anchorage, consequently, avoiding that particular argument.

So that really was part of our courts tightening to avoid gerrymandering, so there wouldn't even be the appearance of it.

I would parenthetically add that the reason for those high deviations in Anchorage really was because the districts were built around community council boundaries.

And the court said no neighborhoods within a socio economically integrated area like a municipality don't matter.

What matters is that the municipality is socioeconomically integrated.

And that was really important, because those are distinctions that had never occurred before 2002.

Mr. Ruedrich, I want to get back to you now, talking about these concerns over how the lines are drawn, the political climate has been really overheated in recent years.

Does this make redistricting more difficult?

And have you seen comparisons to what we're seeing right now in the past?

Well, the political [inaudible] is charged but the level of activity about the maps does not reflect that level of intensity.

[inaudible] just engaged in trying to draw maps that will survive the test of time, like people who serve respectively 18,000 plus people for a decade, so an environment that does not reach to the redistricting.

Local issues in Anchorage or some of the burden for special sessions in Juneau, have a voter interest in redistricting that I would have anticipated.

All right, Mr. Begich.

I'm sorry.

Senator Begich, back to you your thoughts about the difficulties in the current political climate, does that matter?

We've got about a minute here for your response.

Sure, I agree with Randy on this one, that we thought it might matter, but it really hasn't.

The board is well insulated from that.

And the maps reflect that.

I mean, there are some maps I prefer over others, you know, from my partisan hat.

But when you look at the maps as a whole, they're all just variations on a theme.

So I think that the real key here is is the integrity of the process seems to have been maintained despite the acrimony and our political dialogue today.

An example of that is the fact that Randy and I are here talking with you, and we don't have a lot of animosity on these maps.

We have preferences, but not a lot of animosities.

I think the reapportionment process in Alaska is not broken.

And we need to continue to support that process to ensure that we have a fair map that's equitable for all Alaskans.

Well, it does seem like a breath of fresh air that we have people from opposing parties that are able to work together and help bring some clarity to Alaskans.

So thank you both so much.

Senator Tom Begich and Mr. Randy Ruedrich for being with me this evening.

There is no question that redistricting is a complicated process, but it's also crucial to fair political representation.

And if people feel they can trust how the maps are drawn, they'll likely be more engaged with voting and the election process.

And that civic engagement is critical to shaping the future of our state.

Alaskans can testify to the board again on October 30.

The final map deadline is November 10.

That's it for this edition of Alaska insight.

Be sure to tune in daily to your local public radio station for Alaska Morning News, and Alaska News Nightly every weeknight.

Be part of important conversations happening on Talk of Alaska every Tuesday morning, and visit our website Alaskapublic.org for breaking news and reports from across the state.

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We'll be back next Friday.

Thanks for joining us this evening.

I'm Lori Townsend.

Good night.