Anchorage Superior Court Judge Thomas Matthews says the new political map for Alaska is imperfect, and some of the process for drawing it was also flawed, violating the Alaska Open Meetings Act by going into executive sessions. He said in his late Tuesday night ruling that the Senate map needs to be redone and one House district involving Skagway and Juneau also needs different lines.

His decision will most certainly be appealed to the Alaska Supreme Court. Matthews based much of his reasoning on the misuse of executive sessions by the Alaska Redistricting Board.

Five various lawsuits were brought against the board by interests ranging from the City of Skagway to the Doyon Native corporation and Tanana Chiefs Conference. Most were not mentioned in the judge’s decision, but he focused on the Skagway-Juneau and Eagle River-Muldoon areas.

“This Court finds that the Board’s refusal to consider and make a good-faith effort to incorporate public feedback relating to the placement of Skagway and the dividing line in Juneau was arbitrary and capricious, and thus unreasonable. The same holds true for the East Anchorage senate pairings. if the Board could simply ignore the preponderance of public testimony and make decisions based on a single Member’s personal views, then Section 10 would be rendered superfluous.

“This Court therefore orders a remand of the final plan to the Board with instructions to take a “hard look” at House Districts 3 and 4 and Senate Districts K in light of public testimony. On remand, the Board must either redraw these districts to incorporate the reasonable requests supported by the clear weight of public testimony, or the Board must offer an explanation as to why it believes the constitution, federal law, or other traditional redistricting criteria make it impossible to achieve those results,” Matthews wrote.

Skagway didn’t want to be paired with the Mendenhall Valley and Auke Bay, but wanted to jump over those more contiguous neighbors and be paired with the very liberal downtown Juneau. Others in that area — Haines and Gustavus — didn’t object to being paired with the area where a large majority of Juneau lives, north of Juneau, where the transportation access to their communities is.

Regarding East Anchorage being paired with Eagle River in Senate Seat K, Matthews said “For East Anchorage, the Board obviously violated the ‘hard look’ standard by ignoring public comment on the senate pairings. The Board left itself almost no time for comment devoted to senate pairings. Despite that abbreviated time period, the support for keeping Muldoon and Eagle River separate was loud and clear. And yet the Board ignored it to accommodate the wishes of a single Member, even though it was constitutionally possible to keep those communities together. Having fgailed to take an appropriate “hard look” at the Senate pairings, the Board violated the constitutional rights of East Anchorage Plaintiffs under Article l,& 7 of the Alaska Constitution.”

The inclusion of Muldoon with Eagle River has raised the ire of Democrats in Anchorage.

The redrawing of political boundaries is an exercise that takes place every 10 years after the national census, as a method to even out the populations between districts and ensure equal representation in the Legislature, and in other states, congressional seat boundaries. Members of the Alaska Redistricting Board are politically appointed by the governor, Senate president, House speaker, and Chief Justice of the Alaska Supreme Court. This board’s bios are at this link.

The entire decision can be found at this link.

Sen. Natasha von Imhof said on Twitter Tuesday that she will not run for her Senate seat, nor any other political office in 2022. She will complete her term as senator for Southwest Anchorage, formerly known as Senate Seat L. Redistricting had pushed von Imhof and Sen. Mia Costello into the same district; both are Republicans, and a race between them would have been difficult.

On Twitter, von Imhof wrote, “Due to family circumstances, I will not be seeking reelection or participating in the ’22 election. I will serve out my term and then step away from politics to focus on my family. Thank you to my constituents and supporters for allowing me to serve our great state.”

Von Imhof has been rumored to be interested in running for governor, but with the recent passing of her father, Ed Rasmuson, she may now be planning to take a greater role in the family foundation, the Rasmuson Foundation.

The Anchorage Young Republicans club has awarded its endorsement to Republican Nick Begich III for Congress.

In announcing the vote, the Anchorage Young Republicans said, “Nick Begich does not share the same political views as his [Begich Democrats] family; he is an actual conservative and aware of all the major issues facing our state and country. We strongly encourage you to make it to one of his events and question him to confirm this for yourself.”

The group’s decision was influenced by recent actions from Congressman Don Young, including:

1. – Rep. Young’s decision to introduce and endorse Deb Haaland, a radical leftist environmentalist, to the U.S. Senate during her confirmation hearing for Secretary of the Interior: “She has been as predictably bad for Alaska resource development as her record indicated she would be,” the YRs said.
2. – Rep. Young’s vaccine mandate for his official office and revelations that he fired a young woman on his staff who chose not to get vaccinated for Covid.
3. – Rep. Young’s “yes” vote on the PRO Act: “This was an anti-small business & pro-union bill that was (luckily) shot down in the Senate.”
4. – Rep. Young’s attendance record. A recent article in Roll Call reported that the congressman was absent from attending committee markup sessions for more than 19 months. “When Speaker Pelosi instituted proxy voting during the pandemic, Congressman Young signed onto the Republican lawsuit calling proxy voting unconstitutional. However, he is one of the most prolific and regular Republican users of proxy voting,” the group stated. “Nick Begich represents a new generation of leadership for our state. His views on policy more closely align with ours and he has the energy to show up for work. While we continue to respect Don Young and those who still support him, we can no longer do so in good conscience. We are proud to endorse Nick Begich and hope you will consider supporting him as well,” the group wrote.

Congressman Young has served as Alaska’s sole member of Congress since 1973, after Nick’s grandfather, who was Alaska’s congressman, disappeared in what is believed to be a plane crash over Prince Williams Sound.

Begich also gained more endorsements from elected officials. He now has 11 Republican members of the Alaska House and Senate supporting him, including two Senate members and nine House members. New endorsements have come daily, with former Alaska Republican Party Vice Chairman Frank McQueary, State Rep. Ben Carpenter, and Kenai Republican activist Jill Schaefer, Anchorage activists Monte Dyson and Jeff Garness, Karen Lasseter of Sterling, JocQuis Scoiners of Anchorage, Kathy McCollum of Wasilla, and John Wisel of Fairbanks announcing recently that they are with Nick.