Racism Exposed by Redistricting Board
One of the terms we often hear lately is “agenda.” This politician has an “agenda” or that group has an “agenda.” Mostly we mere mortals are left to speculate what an “agenda” might be among the players in the rarified climes of politics. Thanks to the just concluded trial over the lines of the political districts drawn by the redistricting board, we get an actual glance into one of these “agendas,” the agenda of the Republican Party of Alaska.
By way of background let me explain that every decennial census requires adjustments of political boundaries based on the “one man one vote” decision by the Supreme Court in Reynolds vs. Sims — that is — each district must have an equivalent base which, in Alaska, is around 17,500 per representative. In sparsely populated areas, the districts can be very large. The districts need to conform to some standard of compactness, continuity and socioeconomic integration of the population. You can imagine that each 10 years, depending on who is in power, the party out of power will be suspicious of a political “agenda” in the drawing of the election map.
The board faced a difficult situation. Since statehood, Alaska required voters to read and write English, which was a common device used in southern states to limit Black voting. In Alaska it limited Native voting, and continued a controversial process that began in territorial days. More recently, Alaska has enacted “English-only” laws which prohibit use of ballots in any other language, and has not provided translators in Native communities where English is not the predominate language in use. These laws have been found to be discriminatory, and they have subjected Alaska to federal oversight intended to stop discrimination against Black voters in the south.
In the recent redistricting trial, Judge McConahy observed that talking about race and politics in Alaska is difficult. As Alaskans we often want to delude ourselves and pretend that we are better than the rest of the country and that we have progressed to the point that as a society we recognize and honor the humanity in all people. The recent litigation over the new plan redrawing Alaska’s legislative districts provided an ugly reminder that our smugness is probably not well earned.
The redistricting plan upset many because it created a district that included the Ester/Goldstream precincts in Fairbanks and the Yupik villages at the mouth of the Yukon River. Most Alaskans had difficulty understanding this plan, because the redistricting board didn’t publicly articulate why it was creating such a district. When the reasons came out in the trial, the press, unfortunately, focused on the easy and obvious: the partisan battle between Republicans and Democrats, and largely ignored the redistricting board’s stated reasons.
Under the federal Voting Rights Act, the U.S. Justice Department must review changes in Alaska’s election laws to insure that changes, such as redistricting, does not dilute the strength of Native voters. Some would like to characterize this as one more layer of senseless federal regulation, but as Alaska’s redistricting board started their work, they discovered Alaska’s dirty little secret.
The board found that racial block voting was increasing in Alaska. More specifically, they discovered that white Republican voters will generally not cross over to vote for a candidate preferred by Alaska Native voters. They discovered that white Democratic voters were more willing to cross over and vote for a candidate preferred by Alaska Native voters. The board claimed that the relative decline in Alaska Native population in rural Alaska required that a district combining some rural Native area and some “urban” non-Native area needed to be created. Thus, in order to not dilute Native voting strength, “urban” white Democrats needed to be added to this new “rural/urban” district. The theory is that urban white Republicans would never cross over to vote for a Native preferred candidate. Of course, the obvious unstated assumption is that white Republicans exhibit racist voting behaviors. The sensitivity of this unstated assumption is why the Republican-dominated board never publicly explained its decision, as well as the discomfort experienced by the press covering in the trial.
The challenge to the redistricting plan generated the predictable knee-jerk reaction by the Alaskan political and media establishment. “The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner,” for instance, has just called for an end to the federal Voting Rights Act review. They characterize the problem as unnecessary federal regulation. And they argue that Alaska should seek to end federal oversight of our election processes. But ignoring racism in our society only provides comfort for racists. It is in such comfort that racism gestates.
We Alaskans see ourselves as a tolerant multi-ethic society. We share that vision not because we are a tolerant multi-ethic society but because we want to be that tolerant multi-ethic society. But we will never achieve our dream if we do not confront the reality in which we find ourselves. We will not, nor should we, escape the need for federal oversight aimed at combating racism at the ballot box, until we take the necessary steps to purge racism from the soul of our society. Sadly, that cannot be accomplished by the Democrats in Ester/Goldstream. Rather the task is a challenge to the Alaska Republican party.
Taylor Bickford, Parnell and Reudrich’s anointed of the Redistricting Board arrived in Alaska in December of 2009 after serving this man as an aide….
http://www.citizensforethics.org/pages/representative-ken-calvert-california/.
Parnell is at the heart of this as with so many other things that are wrong under Republicans these days.
Bickford, with his longevity and sourdough status was the obvious choice to lead we Alaskans into the new decade with his in-depth and intimate knowledge of the Alaskan people’s culture/geography and our aspirations as a free people.
I knew Sean Parnell was one skeevy little operator, this is but one more example of his version of “ethics” that are apparently taught in law school these days.
Republicans are asking for things they will regret in their presumed hubris, i.e. the law of unintended consequences.
Now their leader Reince Preibus (what kind of twisted people would name their “accident” that?) is proposing direct corporate financing to candidates as the answer to Citizens United.
You Republicans are pushing some very hot buttons.
May the “law of unintended consequences” rule.
Taylor Bickford?? Frank Bickford’s son?? Isn’t he only about 25 years old?
I thought voting was a thing of the past now that they pick who is to be before hand.
Perhaps it is my reading skills but I am at a loss to quite comprehend how this situation is deployed. It might also have something to do with my browser not displaying the image properly but all I glean from the post and the map is that Nome and Ester are quite far apart. Also, given the population distribution in AK I would think that gerrymandering of districts was pretty simply confined to locating concentrations of republicans. That should be simple. I seriously doubt any republicans of any importance live in villages.
KN-
Each of the House districts must have approx 17.7 K citizens of voting age.
If you look at the map, there are some huge districts in rural Alaska even when you factor in the inclusion of some bits and pieces of more urban areas to get to the 17.7 requirement. Factoring in one such urban area ( a town of 40+k isn’t urban anywhere else but here) and making some skeeky lines to get enough Dems in the proposed VAR acceptable configuration has put 2 Dem state senators in the same district, amongst other issues.
None of this is pretty.
http://www.akredistricting.org/GIS%20STORAGE/June21/Statewide.pdf
It is unclear to me why they had to move any part of the District out of Wade Hampton.
I never did get hold of what and why they felt they had to do exactly what they did but the Wade Hampton doesn’t have enough population on its own to make a district though it is one of the few rural areas which showed a population gain in the last census.
The adjacent Yukon-Koyukuk census area has lost 1000 people (14.7% drop in population ) since the last redistricting- part of the overall drop in population in rural Alaska .
A whole lot of the contortions to meet the VAR rules has to do with declining populations in the bush and having to come up with the 17.7K per district.
“Under Section 5 of the federal Voting Rights Act, a number of states – including Alaska – are required to submit new redistricting plans to the U.S. Department of Justice for review in order to ensure that the proposed change is free from discriminatory purpose or effect and will not result in retrogression. An Alaska redistricting plan is retrogressive if it is drawn in a manner that worsens Alaska Native voting strength as compared to the previous district configurations.”
http://akredistricting.org/
There are state requirements about contiguity and relative compactness which must be met. The requirement that House districts be of relatively socio-economically integrated areas seems to be the squishiest area to me in all this attaching rural areas to Dem urban areas to meet VAR rules stuff.
We lost a very good chance to have avoided a great deal of this by voting down the expansion of number of Reps and Senators .
Yes, urban Alaska would still have more folks in the Leg, more districts etc. but rural Alaska, with its unique issues and the largest Native population, would have unique voice in its representation in the Leg by having dumped the 17.7K requirement to better meet the reality of distribution of population across vast areas of the state.
oh- apologies for consistently writing VAR when it should be VRA- dadgum alphabet soup stuff anyway.
So, we have to gerrymand districts because Republicans are incapable of setting aside their racial prejudice. And the solution recommended by the News Minor is we stop the federal oversight that brings this racist attitude to light?
Way to ferret out the meat of it all.
Great,informative post,sir. I see Texas is having somewhat similar problems and the Scotus stepped in and Texas has real problems,but they don’t want the Feds to force them to do right by all citizens.
4 million in new population; 65% Hispanic. I wonder how the Redistricting Board will get anti-immigrant Republicans elected with the new seats created by these new Texans.
“We Alaskans see ourselves as a tolerant multi-ethic society. We share that vision not because we are a tolerant multi-ethic society but because we want to be that tolerant multi-ethic society.”
I am pretty sure you meant multi-ethnic rather than mutli-ethic, but on the other hand, multi ethic kind of works, too!!
)
Hah! Thank you, Writing! Bravo! (For both your discerning eye and discerning observation)
I have a proposal for you: proportional representation.
Instead of every little district being gerrymandered to the gills, you have fewer, larger districts, and elect multiple representatives from each one, in proportion to their popularity, so that minority viewpoints have a much easier time of getting some representation.
For instance: the state senate districts are just pairs of house districts, right? Okay; instead, stick them together in groups of, let’s say, 6. But each of those super-districts elects 3 senators. The senate is the same size as before, but if a dedicated minority of a super-district fervently supports one particular candidate, they get representation, whereas if they’d been distributed among among three separate districts, they’d have nothing.
Technical Mumbo-Jumbo: There are a lot of different forms of proportional representation (PR). A common one is “party lists” (where parties provide a list of candidates and voters vote for a party to support) and many people think party list is synonymous with PR, but *it is not*, and I think party-list PR would be a non-starter in Alaska; we want to vote for a PERSON not a PARTY. But there are forms of PR where voters still vote for people. My personal favorite is re-weighted approval voting.
With re-weighted approval voting, on your ballot you can select (“approve of”) as many or as few candidates as you want. The candidate with the most approvals is elected, but then the weight of all the ballots that selected that candidate is halved. Then you again elect the candidate with the highest (re-weighted) total, and again the weight of ballots that “get their way” is reduced; halved if they’ve gotten their way once, cut to a third if twice. Etc. etc., repeat until you’ve filled all the seats.
Proportional representation lets the people decide, election to election, what’s important to them, instead of arguing with the legislature every time there’s a redistricting. It resists gerrymandering, making it harder for the line-drawers to cut out winning districts for themselves or buy favor from certain constituencies. Just something you could look at.
I propose a Unicameral proportional representative parliament. We would have Greens, Libertarians, Alaska Independence Party reps along with Republicans and Democrats. They would form coalitions; create consensus. Have open debate. And once a week Prime Minister Parnell would have to stand up in the well and debate his policies personally and not hide behind a bureaucracy…
This comment brought a giant smile to my face. Thank you.
I’d pay money to see that debate.
Thank you for the informative post. I understand the “agenda” a little better now.
Thank you Mr Lauesen!
I was startled and somewhat alarmed at the Newsminer editorial you reference.
The position that we have moved to a more integrated and urban way of life here fails on so many levels I want to pull my hair out.
Integrated AND urban?
The position that we should be released from the VRA oversight dealie by the feds because we have come so far?
The report by NARF, et al, to Congress about problems here had a fair amount to do with Congress reauthorizing the oversight thing for 25 more years in 2006.
States have a fair amount of latitude for making their own voting/registration/election, etc rules but the fed has and always will have the ultimate authority to measure whether the rights of Americans, including Americans in minority populations, are truly upheld under state laws- including redistricting laws.
The tendency to dismiss racial issues as done and over with because of things like abolishing Jim crow and so on is a happy blindness . Unless we actually try to measure success , we’re just spitting in the wind declaring it.
Thank you, Pi. The NARF report should be on every public bookshelf. Being lumped in with a bunch of former salve states may not be what we want, but it is what we deserve.
And then there are the corporations.
This was an amazing story to report on. Thanks to the Seward Phoenix Log, the Tundra Drums and Mudflats for having the courage to run it.
As always, Elstun, great post. Without The Mudflats, it would be difficult to get a nuanced picture of Alaska. This country’s treatment of its First Peoples has been shameful historically, and it continues. Thanks for shining a light on this.
Spot on, Elstun.
Quyana
Quyana
Quyana
Wow. It’s true that this take was never really revealed.
The system still seems flawed by allowing it to be made by the party in power. Unless redistricting is a bipartisan endeavor, there will always be suspicion of political motivation.
Thanks for the great post.
A great comment on a great post.