The interim political boundaries for the 2022 election will remain the permanent ones for the next decade in Alaska, after the Alaska Redistricting Board decided to not challenge the Alaska Supreme Court’s decision to gerrymander downtown Anchorage and JBER through a judicial order.
Redistricting takes place once every 10 years, after the U.S. Census is completed. The attempt by boards around the nation is to even out the populations in the various political districts.
In Alaska, that redistricting process faced six lawsuits. In the end, the redistricting board won all but two of those Democrat-funded lawsuits when the Alaska Supreme Court sided with the Democrats to dilute the conservative vote at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, by adding the voters there into the liberal downtown district. The other district that had a slight adjustment was Cantwell in Senate Seat K.
The Supreme Court’s reasoning for the decision was issued in April, months after the actual decision. At Monday’s meeting of the board, the adoption of the final map, the one approved by the court, was already in the meeting packet when the commissioners sat down to deliberate.
