Opinion ID: 2604170
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Challenged Aspects of the Plan.

Text: The Board's principal decision in formulating the 1984 reapportionment plan was the removal of Cordova from House District 2 and the retention of a unified Juneau District. This decision resulted in a total deviation from the ideal district population size for house districts of 14.8%. [1] The communities of Metlakatla and Hoonah, which formerly comprised parts of House Districts 1 and 3, respectively, were added to District 2 in order to replace most of the 2,200 Cordova residents. The Board noted that this proposed configuration was the only identified means of retaining the Inside Passage District, which was devised to unite small rural communities in Southeastern Alaska and to facilitate review under the Voting Rights Act of 1965. [2] The Board considered and rejected a series of proposals to move a portion of the Juneau community into another house district because the Juneau District retains the boundaries of a political subdivision and because maintaining all of Juneau as a two-member house district recognizes the unique social and economic nature of the community. The Board reasoned that while other Southeastern communities depend principally on fishing and timber, Juneau is inextricably tied to the operation of state government. The state directly employs approximately 4,000 people in Juneau, and tourism, not fishing or timber, is the community's second principal economic activity. The Board believed that a division of Juneau might contravene the state constitutional requirement of social and economic integration within the district. [3]
House District 7 contains: the Nikiski area on the northern Kenai Peninsula, and the southeastern reaches of the Municipality of Anchorage, including the community council areas of Old Seward/Oceanview, Rabbit Creek, Turnagain Arm, and Girdwood Valley. Its northern boundary proceeds east from Turnagain Arm along Klatt Road to the New Seward Highway, southerly on the New Seward Highway to Huffman Road, westerly along Huffman Road to the Old Seward Highway, southerly on the Old Seward Highway to DeArmoun Road, east on DeArmoun Road to Rabbit Creek, and easterly and southerly along Rabbit Creek. District 7 has a population of 9,580.1 and thus a deviation from ideal district population size of + 4.0%. The record indicates that the Board based its decision to include Nikiski in District 7 on several factors. First, the 1981 reapportionment plan included the North Kenai communities and South Anchorage in the same senate district. Second, and of greater significance, the Board was convinced that the North Kenai-South Anchorage districting link was supported by substantial social, economic, and political underpinnings. The drawing of District 7 also reflected the Board's belief in a lack of available alternatives. Relocation of Cordova in District 6 resulted in an unacceptably large population base in the Southcentral area, and the Board concluded that creating the North Kenai-South Anchorage District was the only way to meet federal constitutional population standards while minimizing the number of changes to the overall 1981 plan. The Board considered the creation of a four-member district composed of proposed Districts 5 (the Kenai-Cook Inlet District), 6 (the Prince William Sound-Kenai District) and 7 (the North Kenai-South Anchorage District), but believed that the establishment of a multi-member district solely to achieve population parity would raise equal protection concerns and that the multi-member district would simply recast, rather than resolve, the social and economic integration concerns. The Board also took the position that its decision was no more problematic than the 1981 plan which linked North Kenai to Seward and Valdez, because North Kenai's links to Anchorage are stronger than its tie to those communities.
Senate District E is a two-member district composed of House Districts 6, 7, and 16, with a population of 36,025.52 and a deviation from ideal district population size of -2.2%. The Board created this district to respond to public dissatisfaction with the former senate configuration linking House Districts 5, 6, and 7, and to retain the balance between regional and Anchorage senate representation. [4] Based on testimony it received and the personal knowledge of its members, the Board's view was that a single-member senate district made up of House Districts 6 and 7 would become an Anchorage seat. The Board believed that alignment of Districts 6, 7, and 16 into a two-member senate district provided a strong foundation for regional representation. It found that the bulk of the senate district population was located in communities in which the economic focus is independent of Anchorage in some respects, substantially intertwined in others, and would share a common communication and transportation network. One Board member testified that the Board attempted, to the extent possible, to leave traditional groupings intact. She added that it heard considerable testimony from members of the Prince William Sound communities who believed that combining House District 16 with Districts 6 and 7 to create a two-member senate district would be[] a way in which to distribute political power in such way that the Prince William Sound, ... the Nikiski area and the Mat[anuska]-Su[sitna area] could be balanced.