The Alaska Redistricting Board will appeal a decision by Anchorage Superior Court Judge Thomas Matthews, who on Tuesday rejected two parts of the new political boundaries set by the board for Alaska’s Senate and House districts.
The board deliberated in executive session and then voted 3-2 to challenge Matthews’ ruling, which ordered the panel to “take a hard look” at a Senate district that has a piece of Anchorage’s Muldoon neighborhood in the same Senate seat as Eagle River. Matthews also said the board had not given enough weight to the public testimony in Skagway and downtown Juneau — those two neighborhoods want to be paired together and exclude the apparently unhip Mendenhall Valley, a Juneau residential community. Skagway’s mayor said the people in the Valley could not possibly understand the tourism concerns that they share with downtown Juneau. Ironically, most who live in downtown Juneau work in government jobs, and the alignment of Skagway with north Juneau is geographically more compact.
The board’s lawyer, Matt Singer will challenge the rulings on key points of argument.
- The judge gave more weight to public testimony than to the informed decision-making by the Redistricting Board, and in doing so sets a huge precedent. If it stands, whichever group can pack a public hearing room will win, under this logic.
- The ruling by the judge was overly political, because he ignored the political boundary challenges of conservatives in the Mat-Su and Valdez, and ruled in favor of liberal challenges in East Anchorage and Skagway/Downtown Juneau.
- The judge also placed more emphasis on in-person testimony, to the disadvantage of working members of the pubic who cannot attend the public hearings, but send in their written comments.
- The board was not given due process during the court challenge. The judge set the rules of procedure, which only allowed the board to respond to the accusations of the challenging attorneys, and did not afford them the opportunity to explain why they made the decisions.
The board’s challenge to the Alaska Supreme Court must be filed by Thursday, Feb. 17.
Voting against the legal challenge were the two leftists on the board, Nicole Borromeo and Melanie Bahnke. Borromeo was appointed to the board by then-House Speaker Bryce Edgmon, and Bahnke was appointed by then-Supreme Court Justice Joel Bolger. The two women align with Democrats and favor Matthews’ ruling because it gives more power to Democrats.
More information about the redistricting process can be found at this link.
The mayor of Skagway is full of Schiff.
The residents of downtown Juneau would love to cripple or end tourism.
It’s the people who live in “the valley” or “out the road” who are far more likely to make a living directly or indirectly via tourism.
While there is no conservative part of Juneau, the valley north is only liberal opposed to psychotically socialist downtown.
The mayor of Skagway should just admit he doesn’t want to be tied to miners and fishermen politically. Only when they are working for him.
Well, THAT certainly clears things up. It’s so obvious that even a old hippie can understand it. Unfortunately we still need to get back to the issue at hand; how properly to map the voting districts.
Any guesses on how the 5-0 Socialist Alaska Supreme Court will rule?
The elites have spoken! Obey ! This exactly what I’ve expected from activest judges, rank choice voting, dominion computer software , exclusives groups, this is a failed Republic folks.
It’s refreshing to note that someone on this blog finally realizes that the Republic-ans are failing. And who is this Alex Jones person who is so right? The leader of the PAC?
I thought the elites were suppose to be the good guys, the ones who knew how properly to do things. The smart ones.
The decision to make an appeal was made in executive session. This smacks of an attempt to keep deliberations out of the public eye. Why? Doesn’t seem to involve personnel issues, which are the usual subjects of executive sessions, along with anything that might have to do with monetary chicanery.
The decision by Walker to keep Byron Mallott’s pedophilia adventures was also made behind closed doors, in executive session, Homo. Walker wrecked himself.
Homo He Wrecked Us, thanks for the honorable mention. I owe you a coffee.
You are, of course, correct. Until verification, there was reason to keep the accusations of misconduct within executive session to protect the Gov Lite from false accusation, but once they had been verified, Mallott’s misadventures should have been, and eventually were, exposed to the full light of day.
The problems seem to arise with the gap between knowing misconduct has occurred and acknowledging it (see Roman Catholic Church pedophilia).
Concur
Sad state of affairs when political jurisprudence is conducted behind closed doors. This feeds directly into the reasoning behind a growing majority of non participating voters. It matters not who wins taxes, stupid spending and regulations will increase even through the judges.
Now that the Democrats have been exposed for election rigging, they will go to the courts for cover and further their fraud attempts. Look to the pending situation up in Fairbanks involving the little snot-nosed, child-like Representative Grier Hopkins, who needs his entire family to keep him in office. His brother Scott Kendall to pull dirty election tricks, his mommy and daddy to pull their pot-smoking hippy friends together, and now his uncle who used to hold Hopkin’s house seat, now assisting from the Assembly, getting ready to use the Assembly to go to Court and file a redistricting lawsuit……….all in an effort to let the little child keep his job as a representative. This is a sicko family who still rely on 60’s radicals, marijuana parties, graft from Bill Walker’s regime, extreme wokeism, and the left-over influences of a broke Hopkins Cabal.
Specifically regarding the lines drawn that place part of eagle River with a gap connection to an east side neighborhood … justify how those two very seperate areas in two different cities should be 1 district?
You can’t justify it can you?
Our own AK constitution states districts WILL BE continuous, meaning you can’t splice two seperate areas together especially with another district in between.
These gerrymandering redistricting wad done by REPUBLICANS, so do NOT blame liberals for these right-wing failure to draw lines correctly. We know why they drew those lines the way they did, and it was to gather up as much republican voters into a single district.
Next time respect the law and a judge won’t throw out your politically skewed map.
Comments are closed.