A lie told by partisan Alaska blogger writer Matt Buxton has also made its way as factual evidence into the official court record in a case involving the political redistricting of Anchorage.
Eva Gardner, the lawyer offering the same lie as Buxton has now presented it in her brief to Superior Court Judge Thomas Matthews. It appears the blogger and the lawyer have been coordinating, with the Gardner letting the blogger lead with the lie, and then the Gardner repeating it as fact to the judge.
Buxton, who attacks Must Read Alaska as ones of his main lines of business, wrote in a story this week that a writer for Must Read Alaska had labeled two members of the Alaska Redistricting Board “bitches of the first order” in an email to Alaska Redistricting Board member Budd Simpson.
The record unequivocally shows (story below) that the accused MRAK writer made no such statement, and although the Buxton story was picked up by the recently launched partisan blog Alaska Beacon, and by other mainstream media outlets, the lie has now reached even further — into the courts themselves, via a brief filed by the lawyer opposing the redistricting map that places Eagle River and Girdwood into the same Senate district.
Read: Big Oops: Partisan Alaska Beacon passes on lies from partisan blogger
The lawyer promulgating the Buxton lie to Judge Thomas Matthews concluded from the lie that “Member Simpson appears to have been preoccupied by partisan politics and various political parties’ preferences in a way that improperly influenced his vote for Option 3B.”
In other words, Gardner and Buxton made false allegations, allowing Gardner to draw false conclusions:
The Redistricting Board is defending itself against challenges to its final maps for Anchorage, which it adjusted after Democrats filed a lawsuit against the initial Senate districts that the board had drawn.
Every 10 years, the political boundaries change in Alaska, to even out population areas as they are represented by House and Senate members. The current redistricting process began last August and was finalized in November, but lawsuits have prevented the map from being finalized. Only one remaining dispute is before the court, and it involves Anchorage Senate districts that the Democrats are trying to push toward their own interests.
Judge Matthews is expected to rule by Monday, but is working with an argument that uses a partisan blogger as its foundational document, and who has offered up a lie for the purposes of changing the redistricting outcome.
That in itself will open up a line for the Redistricting Board to take the decision to the Supreme Court and expose the coordination between Buxton and the lawyer for the plaintiffs.
