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Redistricting board meets Monday to consider the high court’s takeover of redistricting

Suzanne Downing
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9
Redistricting board meets Monday to consider the high court’s takeover of redistricting

The Alaska Redistricting Board will meet at 1 pm Monday in the Anchorage Legislative Information Office’s Denali Conference room. The building is on the corner of Minnesota Drive and Benson Blvd.

The board will swear in Bethany Marcum as a returning member and then take up the business of the day: to review the Alaska Supreme Court’s ruling, in which the court gerrymandered some of the political lines in Alaska to favor Democrats.

After the redistricting process was completed in 2022, Democrats sued over the map concerning things like the pairing of military voters at JBER with voters in Eagle River. The justices sided with the Democrats on an area of Anchorage and approved a temporary map, including military voters with the most liberal district in Alaska — downtown Anchorage. By doing so, they diluted the conservative vote.

The justices ruled that the Democrats’ map must be used in 2022, and they did not have time, they said, to explain why.

Their explanation came late last month, and now the redistricting board must decide if it will challenge the Supreme Court authority to seize control of the redistricting process.

There is no real choice for the board, because the justices gave them no choice, indicating that any other district lines would face the same fate at their court.

Alaska Supreme Court decides, and gerrymanders for Democrats

Live stream will be available at this link.

Public Testimony will be taken in-person, via dial-in teleconference, and by email to: [email protected] .

Teleconference public listen-in and testimony phone numbers:
 – Anchorage: 563-9085
 – Juneau: 586-9085
 – Other: 844-586-9085

Background: On Feb. 16, 2022, the Superior Court ruled for the board on three of the 5 lawsuits, finding that all 40 of the board’s adopted House districts fully complied with the Alaska Constitution. 

One plaintiff, Calista retired their claims. The remaining plaintiffs and the board petitioned the Alaska Supreme Court to review the Superior Court’s findings and rulings.

The Supreme Court found in favor of the board on four of the five challenges and remanded the board to make changes to Senate District K and to return Cantwell to House District 30 with the remainder of the Denali Borough. 

The Board met eight times between April 2 and April 13, and adopted a 2022 Proclamation Plan.

On April 20, 2022, the East Anchorage Plaintiffs filed a motion for the Superior Court to reject the adopted 2022 Anchorage Senate pairings. 

On April 22, 2022, three Girdwood residents challenged the 2022 Proclamation Senate pairings for Anchorage. 

On May 17, 2022, the Superior Court ruled in favor of the Girdwood plantiffs and directed the Board to adopt Anchorage Senate pairings Option #2 as an Interim plan for the 2022 Statewide elections.  The Redistricting Board appealed to the Supreme Court, which affirmed the Superior Court order and directed that the Board await their full decision before taking any further redistricting action.

On April 21, 2023 the Alaska Supreme Court issued its full 144 page decision on all 2022 Redistricting actions, giving its rationale.

Alex Gimarc: On gerrymandering, the North Carolina decision changes everything
Governor reappoints Bethany Marcum to Alaska Redistricting Board

Peltola kicks can on debt limit; Begich says it’s time to be honest about spending

Suzanne Downing
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50
Peltola kicks can on debt limit; Begich says it’s time to be honest about spending

On May 1, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen notified Congress that the Treasury Department could run out of cash on hand and would have to take even more “extraordinary measures” than simple emergency borrowing.

That comes as soon as June 1 and as late as early August, depending on the amount of payments remitted to the government before June 15 by taxpayers.

With a divided government, normally Americans would expect a deal of some sort between the Republican House and the Democrat-controlled Senate and White House. Polls show that Americans are solidly on the side of Republicans, in wanting to reduce spending and hit the brakes on borrowing. They feel the effects of runaway inflation and understand that federal borrowing is the obvious cause.

Federal spending has increased from $5.1 trillion in 2019 to over $6.3 trillion in 2022. That’s over a 23.5% increase, much of it to fund Green New Deal priorities of the Democrats, who are largely in charge of the direction of the federal government.

The federal budget has also grown from 21% to 25% of gross domestic product in three years, and now stands at over 120% of GDP, greater than even during the Great Depression. Interest payments borne by Americans are set to exceed $1 trillion a year.

The current debt-to-GDP ratio is troubling, ratio of the public debt to the country’s gross domestic product, is troubling. The higher the debt-to-GDP ratio, the less likely the country will pay back the debt, leading to a risk of default, which could lead to one of two outcomes: Dramatically increased inflation or extreme austerity measures.

The government’s debt is now 129% of GDP, as of the end of 2022, according to the Office of Management and Budget in the White House.  

“Debt-to-GDP ratios above 77% can hinder economic growth and (in some cases) place a country at risk of defaulting on its debts, which could wreak havoc on its economy and financial markets,” writes World Economic Review.

The warning bells started in January, when the Treasury Department slammed into the $31.4 trillion debt ceiling set by Congress. Janet Yellen’s Treasury employed emergency borrowing authority to pay for government operations and pay for entitlements.

Former Republican congressional candidate Nick Begich shared his thoughts: “The concept of automatically raising the debt ceiling without debate is nothing more than a convenient escape from fiscal responsibility. It paves the way for unchecked government spending, burdening future generations with the weight of our irresponsibility.”

In a letter signed with other Democrats, Rep. Mary Peltola said that failure to raise the debt limit would prevent the federal government from meeting its legal obligations, including Social Security and Medicare benefits, military salaries, and tax refunds.

That’s dodging the real issue, said Begich.

“We must meet our obligations and we will. Averting a short-term crisis by plunging ourselves further into long-term debt is not a solution. It’s time we stop kicking the can down the road and start addressing the root cause of our financial problems — excessive spending,” he said.

As this debt ceiling showdown continues, voices like Begich’s are calling for fiscal sanity. “We must restore fiscal responsibility to Washington. That begins with a serious, responsible conversation about our national debt, not bypassing the debate once again,” he said.

Borrowing for benefits: Peltola says Congress must raise the debt ceiling

Did Anchorage’s superintendent break promise to Family Partnership Charter School community?

SENIOR CONTRIBUTOR
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Did Anchorage’s superintendent break promise to Family Partnership Charter School community?

By DAVID BOYLE

At the April 3 Anchorage School Board meeting, District Superintendent Jharrett Bryantt told the public that the Family Partnership Charter School principal, Jessica Parker, would remain in place.  

He also stated that the dean of students and the business manager would also remain.

David Boyle: Will Anchorage School District keep word on charter school?

He said it is a matter of trust between the district and the FPCS parents.

Here is the exact wording from the Frequently Asked Questions the district provided to Family Partner Charter School parents:

“It is our intent for the Principal, Dean of Students, and Business Manager to remain in their positions. District leadership will support these individuals through the process of transitioning to ASD collective bargaining agreements.”

The district last week sent an email to FPCS parents notifying them that principal Parker will only serve until the end of this school year, which is May 24.

It appears Bryantt has gone back on his word. 

Note that the newly organized “Academic Advisory Council” of the charter school met on May 11, after the decision to replace the current principal had been made by the district.  The district should get the parents’ input on a new principal before the hiring process begins. This suggests that the selection process may be predetermined.

The email to the parents of school also says that the principal position would be posted on May 8.  But that was not true. Here is the post stating the position is advertised beginning May 5, the same date as the parent notification above:

Bureaucrats are incredibly talented at parsing. It appears Superintendent Bryantt’s words were carefully chosen. What parents heard, however, was much different than his intent.  

What other aspects of his promises to the FPCS school parents will be broken or parsed in the future?  

Perhaps it’s time for parents to take their FPCS students to the MatSu School District so they can achieve as they have in the past.  

Trust is a contract. Will we believe Superintendent Bryantt when he says “Trust me” the next time?

DAVID BOYLE is Must Read Alaska’s education writer.

Houston schools taken over by Texas state agency, but Anchorage’s superintendent got out just in time

Glen Biegel: Choose your school wisely

GUEST CONTRIBUTOR
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Glen Biegel: Choose your school wisely

Before I discuss schools, let’s cover some “‘”forbidden topics.”

I have a good family culture, one worth defending. I want my kids to be supported in choosing that. Further, I want my kids to remain children for a good while. I don’t want them to be confronted with adult decisions about sexuality, pornography, life-changing friends or situations. In short, I want them to first learn to resist the false promises of a noisy world that will draw them away from the peace, joy, satisfaction, and ultimate purpose that I have in my life.

Now, what can I say about schools?

School and educational success is a direct reflection of how fully teachers support or elevate your family culture and educational values.

The harder your school fights your families values, whether they be educational, discipline or religious, the worse the education will be for your child.

If your children have a consistent message from you, from teachers, from the discipline/respect structure of the school and from their friends, the greater the chance that your children will know what you believe, why, and how important it is to a life well-lived.

I have six graduates from Holy Rosary Academy. I have three children who will soon be in the 4th, 9th and 12th grades. When you talk with my kids, you will recognize a part of me in all of them. They are all different, but healthy, happy, productive, unconfused thinkers and believers.

For my children’s education, you could say I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. I have done my part for my children by first living a vibrant faith, and also sacrificing my time, treasure and talent to their school that has ever been my partner in raising children who know me, who I know, and who, most importantly, know themselves.

Tempus Fugit. Choose your school wisely.

Glen Biegel is a technology security professional, Catholic father of nine, husband to a saint, and politically active conservative.

Glen Biegel: Dan Fagan, larger-than-life legacy

Four in a row: Winters in Alaska have been on the colder side

Suzanne Downing
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58
Four in a row: Winters in Alaska have been on the colder side

So much for being the canary in the global warming mine. If the past four winters in Alaska seemed colder than usual, it’s because, well, they were.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the winter of 2023 continued the chill set in 2019, with temperatures in Alaska averaging 11.8 degrees, just .2 degrees above average. The three previous winters were all below the average temperature.

In October, NOAA had predicted warmer-than-average winter for western Alaska. Old Farmer’s Almanac also predicted winter would be “much milder than normal, with the coldest periods in mid- to late November, early December, and late January.” The publication predicted snowfall would be below average. That was wrong. In fact, much of Alaska saw historic snowfall over the winter, and in Anchorage, a new record was set for the snow still remaining on the ground in April. The snow continued into the first week of May, with more than 100 inches falling this past winter.

Although this winter was at about the average temperature, last year’s entire calendar year temperature ended up as only the 17th warmest.

The winter of 2022 stayed -0.7°F below normal, and 2021 was -1.4°F. The last warm winter in Alaska was in 2019, when temperatures were 6.1°F above the norm.

Visit the NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information to explore the data going back to 1977.

One and done: ABC cancels ‘Alaska Daily’

Suzanne Downing
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58
One and done: ABC cancels ‘Alaska Daily’

ABC has canceled the television drama series “Alaska Daily” after one season, according to Variety publication. The series, advised by Anchorage Daily News Publisher Ryan Binkley and leftwing ADN writer Kyle Hopkins, starred Hilary Swank as a reporter who left her New York City reporting job after a “fall from grace” and joined the staff of an Anchorage newspaper “to find both personal and professional redemption.”

The series ran one season, with 11 episodes. Filming was done in British Columbia starting last August and concluding in January of 2023.

The series was loosely inspired by the 2019 Anchorage Daily News and ProPublica series of stories, “Lawless: Sexual Violence in Alaska,” which was an anti-Gov. Dunleavy hit job during Dunleavy’s first term in office that was meant to feed the recall efforts by Democrats. It won the newspaper a Pulitzer Prize.

But the series has flopped with the public, whose understanding of journalism is markedly different than it was during the Watergate era of the 1970s, which spawned the thriller, “All the President’s Men” in 1976, which was about the scandal that brought down President Richard Nixon.

According to a Gallup poll conducted last year, 70% of Democrats, 27% of independents, and 14% of Republicans have a great deal or fair amount of trust in the news media. Thus, the make-believe life of an Alaska reporter may not be as interesting to the public as the Hollywood entertainment class believes it to be.

Texas border counties declare disasters as thousands of migrants seek entry

SENIOR CONTRIBUTOR
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Texas border counties declare disasters as thousands of migrants seek entry

By BETHANY BLANKLEY | THE CENTER SQUARE

 Several South Texas counties issued disaster declarations as the public health authority Title 42 came to close.

The declarations were made as large groups of people, 15,000 Venezuelans and 15,000 Haitians, arrived in the Rio Grande Valley seeking entry to the U.S. An additional 23,000 are reportedly en route to Del Rio.

In the Rio Grande Valley, Hidalgo County Judge Richard Cortez issued a disaster declaration.

“I received credible information from officials with Customs and Border Protection that large groups of migrants are probing our international border in search of crossing points,” he said. Declaring an emergency is the “first step in securing all available resources.”

It follows a state disaster declaration issued by Gov. Greg Abbott on May 31, 2021, which followed the first disaster declaration filed by Kinney County on April 21, 2021. Roughly 30 counties issued disaster declarations in 2021, most of which are still in effect. Abbott amended the state disaster declaration on April 21, 2023, and also issued subsequent proclamations and executive orders over the border crisis.

Cortez issued the emergency citing a Mexican government estimate that roughly 10,000 people are camped directly across from the border county in Reynosa, Tamaulipas, Mexico, waiting to cross.

“A surge in migrant crossings is a significant public safety and security concern,” he said, “including but not limited to the risk of injury or loss of life and property.”

He also said he “determined that extraordinary measures must be taken to protect all people in and coming through the county.”

Neighboring Cameron County Judge Eddie Trevino also issued a disaster declaration “in response to the imminent threat of widespread or severe damage, injury, or loss of life or property resulting from the Border Security Disaster.”

His declaration cites the Texas declaration stating, “the surge of individuals unlawfully crossing the Texas-Mexico border posed an imminent threat of disaster for a number of Texas counties.”

He did so after the city of Brownsville issued a disaster declaration over a week ago and after 15,000 mostly Venezuelans illegally crossed into the U.S. in one week overwhelming Border Patrol in the last week of April.

Since then, RGV Sector Chief Gloria Chavez reported that agents encountered 8,078 illegal foreign nationals the first weekend in May, including 16 smuggling cases. The last weekend in April, they apprehended 6,371 people, including 10 smuggling cases. And this was before the public health authority Title 42 ended May 11.

By May 9, CBP was holding in custody over 27,000 foreign nationals who’d just illegally entered the RGV in Texas from Mexico, a Border Patrol agent stationed there told The Center Square.

“Of that 27,000, a little over 5,000 are processed waiting for their next phase in the process,” the agent said. “Every sector is near 150% capacity,” the agent said, referring to nine U.S. Customs and Border Protection sectors along the southwest border, five of which are in Texas.

Since then, on May 11, the agent told The Center Square that 15,000 Haitians were expected to breach the Anzalduas Bridge Port of Entry. The Army National Guard, Texas Department of Public Safety, Border Patrol and Office of Field Operations staff were all “staging” and processing had stopped. When asked what staging meant, the agent replied they were preparing for “violence.”

Further west, Del Rio is also bracing for impact. Its police department issued an alert on May 11 stating that apprehensions in one day increased from 800 to 1,400, with 800 in custody. “Unconfirmed intel reports are stating that there are approximately 23,000 migrants possibly heading towards Del Rio, however, they are traveling in groups of 1,000 or less.”

These announcements came after the El Paso mayor declared a state of emergency as mostly single military age men remain homeless in its downtown streets and Texas DPS continues to combat cartel and gang-related crime stemming from the border.

Gov. Greg Abbott deployed the Texas National Guard to the RGV and El Paso, blaming President Joe Biden for creating the crisis.

He said Texas was “being overrun by our own federal government. Texas is being undermined by our own federal government and our efforts to secure our border. It’s only Joe Biden and his open border policies that’s hindered our ability to secure the border.”

“President Biden wants to roll out the welcome mat for illegal immigrants. The elite Texas National Guard soldiers and DPS troopers I deployed will be there to stop them,” Abbott said.

“Texas is doing more than any other state in the United States of America to defend the southern border,” the governor said.

Flash floods are expected in border counties on Saturday as heavy weather moves through the area.

Service High School principal resigns

Suzanne Downing
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18
Service High School principal resigns

Robert Service High School Principal Allen Wardlaw has resigned from his position, the Anchorage School District reported on Friday.

Wardlaw had been placed on administrative leave last month after a series of salacious text messages allegedly to and from him began circulating among students and staff across the district.

As the drama unfolded, the school district sent a team to meet with faculty and staff at the high school about the sexually crude messages that called into question the principal’s character. Wardlaw was sent home and did not return.

The text messages indicated that a love relationship went south on Wardlaw, and that one or more women were going to exact revenge on him.

Assistant Principal Imtiaz Azzam was named acting principal through the end of the school year.

The school district has only described the incidence as a “community concern,” and is handling it as a personnel matter with the requisite privacy for Wardlaw being observed.

“As a result of Mr. Wardlaw’s resignation, ASD will move forward with hiring a new principal for the 2023-24 school year and would like to invite you to be a part of this process,” Kersten Johnson-Struempler, the district’s senior director of secondary education, wrote in an email to families.

Stories in Must Read Alaska about the incident fill in some of the unsavory details:

What is going on at Service High? Salacious text messages implicate administration, but ASD is mum
Service High principal on administrative leave as students learn of scandalous text messages
Behaving Badly: Service High edition

Fraud: Peltola votes against crack down on Nigerian, Chinese, and prison-based Covid scams

Suzanne Downing
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35
Fraud: Peltola votes against crack down on Nigerian, Chinese, and prison-based Covid scams

Rep. Mary Peltola voted against H.R. 1163, an act designed to help recover fraudulent unemployment claims from highly sophisticated scammers and criminal enterprises. As much as 50% of the $655 billion in Covid unemployment payments that were issued were based on fraudulent claims, federal officials believe.

For example, in 2022, a Nigerian citizen pleaded guilty to Covid-19 unemployment fraud in Washington and 17 other states, with amounts in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Abidemi Rufai, who at the time of his arrest was the special assistant to the governor of Nigeria’s Ogan State, used stolen identities to claim hundreds of thousands of dollars in pandemic-related unemployment benefits, according to U.S. Attorney Nick Brown. He was arrested at New York’s JFK airport in May 2021.

In another example, the Department of Justice indicted eight individuals – two who are prisoners – for conspiring to scam $25 million worth of unemployment benefits from California.

It’s unclear how much Covid unemployment fraud occurred in Alaska, and none appears on the map at the federal Pandemic Oversight Office, but California’s share of Covid unemployment insurance fraud is estimated to be between $18.7 billion, according to the the federal oversight agency, and $32.6 billion, according to Republican Congressman Doug LaMalfa of Northern California, who voted for the bill.

Congress created three programs to provide unemployment insurance benefits to individuals who lost their jobs because of the pandemic. The programs expanded eligibility, extended the length of time someone could claim benefits, and added a weekly supplement to existing state UI benefits.

Together, the three programs issued nearly $655 billion in benefits.

But federal and state oversight work in recent months revealed that fraud in pandemic-related UI programs is rampant, with 22 states reporting incidences of fraud.

Fraud was so rampant that even Rep. George Santos of New York was indicted on Wednesday on 13 criminal counts, including fraudulently applying for and receiving unemployment benefits during the Covid pandemic, during a time when he had a $120,000 yearly salary working at an investment company.

Business owners are currently shouldering the burden of this fraud, as they are compelled to pay higher taxes to restore the funds that have been scammed. At present, states lack sufficient motivation to pursue cases of unemployment insurance fraud or recover illicit payments, since they do not retain any of the funds they manage to reclaim.

The Protecting Taxpayers and Victims of Unemployment Fraud Act, which passed with the votes of the Republican majority, permits states to keep 25% of recovered fraudulent Covid funds and 5% of fraudulent regular unemployment funds.

Not a single Democrat in Congress voted for the bill. Peltola stuck with the Democrats.

The Protecting Taxpayers and Victims of Unemployment Fraud Act is intended to remove the liability from business owners who are having to foot the bill and place the responsibility for fixing their own mistakes on state governments that mishandled the federal unemployment money in the first place. 

“Business owners should not be on the hook for money that states allowed to be fraudulently paid out to people who did not deserve it,” Congressman Doug LaMalfa of Northern California said. 

“Billions of dollars in Covid money was lost to fraud, including to Russian, Chinese and Nigerian foreign scammers and even prisoners in prison for life. I support this legislation that will incentivize states to start taking this problem seriously and prosecute this fraud. Business owners have enough trouble trying to make ends meet and meet payroll without being financially penalized for the incompetence of bureaucrats,” said the Republican representative from California’s 1st District, which includes Butte, Colusa, Glenn, Lassen, Modoc, Shasta, Siskiyou, Sutter, Tehama and Yuba Counties.

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