Opinion ID: 2604170
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: does house district 7 or senate district e violate article vi, section 6 of the alaska constitution?

Text: Kenai argues that House District 7 violates article VI, section 6 of the Alaska Constitution because there is no evidence of substantial socio-economic interaction between South Anchorage and North Kenai (Nikiski). Kenai contends that the evidence relied on by the superior court in reaching the opposite conclusion demonstrates only links between the Cities of Kenai and Anchorage, and that the standards established in Carpenter require significant interaction between the communities comprising the district as opposed to interaction between those communities and the surrounding areas. Kenai also asserts that any justification for the redistricting based on a lack of alternatives is invalid because we reversed and vacated the superior court's order to the extent that it required the governor to make the fewest possible changes from the 1981 plan in complying with the mandate of Carpenter. Kenai contends that the state is now estopped from arguing necessity based on the superior court's order because it successfully challenged that order. The state argues that no constitutionally permissible alternative to joining North Kenai with South Anchorage existed. Based on its calculation that the Kenai Peninsula Borough alone supports approximately two and three-quarters house seats and the Prince William Sound communities of Cordova, Valdez, and Seward together cannot support a single seat, and that the two areas combined are too populated to support three seats but not sufficiently populated to support four seats, the state asserts that it could not form districts of nearly equal population without linking some portion of the Kenai Peninsula with South Anchorage. Furthermore, the state contends that including Nikiski in the Kenai district or in a three-seat regional district would result in overrepresentation of the district by 10.2% and a total (statewide) deviation in excess of the 16.4% maximum deviation permitted under the Federal Constitution. According to the state, the other alternative considered by the Board, a three-member regional district excluding Valdez and Cordova, would have required those communities' inclusion in District 17 and thereby triggered a domino effect, causing strained district configurations throughout rural Alaska. The state contends that the Board could not both maintain a unified Juneau District and establish a three-member district composed of the Kenai Peninsula and Prince William Sound. [15] In support of the North Kenai-South Anchorage linkage, the state also asserts that the ties between the two are stronger than those established by the 1981 plan, which joined North Kenai in a district with Seward and Valdez, and stronger than those implicitly identified as sufficient by this court in Carpenter.  At the heart of this dispute is whether sufficient socio-economic integration of North Kenai and South Anchorage results from the former's interaction with Anchorage. The state argues that South Anchorage and Anchorage should be considered an indivisible area for the purpose of determining whether North Kenai's socio-economic ties with South Anchorage satisfy the constitutional mandate. Our review of the evidence reveals that actual interaction between the two areas is minimal. North Kenai and South Anchorage are essentially satellites of Kenai and Anchorage, respectively; to the extent that they interact at all, they do so as a consequence of the nexus between Kenai and Anchorage. For example, Nikiski has no high school of its own, so Nikiski students attend Kenai Central High School; Kenai Central plays in the Northern Lights Football Conference against Anchorage Christian High School, which South Anchorage students attend. Thus, to the extent that students from Nikiski and South Anchorage interact, it is through Kenai Central and Anchorage Christian. Similarly, as the state points out, the two areas are linked economically, because Anchorage-based professionals and financial institutions serve the needs of North Kenai developers with respect to major industrial activities in Nikiski, and because residents of both areas engage in commercial and sport fishing in the peninsula area; and linked socially, because residents of the areas share the same news and entertainment media and visit each other frequently. In Carpenter, we found the record devoid of evidence of significant social and economic interaction between Cordova and the remaining communities comprising House Election District 2, and accordingly held the inclusion of Cordova within the district constitutionally impermissible. [16] Id. at 1215. We thus construed article VI, section 6 to require sufficient evidence of socio-economic integration of the communities linked by the redistricting, proof of actual interaction and interconnectedness rather than mere homogeneity. See id. at 1218 (Matthews, J., concurring). The issue here thus becomes whether interaction between the communities comprising House District 7 and communities outside the district but within a common region sufficiently demonstrates the requisite interconnectedness and interaction mandated by article VI, section 6. We hold that it does. A reapportionment plan will be upheld if reasonable and not arbitrary. See id. at 1214. The sufficiency of the contacts between the communities involved here can be determined by way of comparison with districts which we have previously upheld. Unlike the district linking Cordova and the Southeast which we invalidated in Carpenter, the communities of North Kenai and South Anchorage are relatively close geographically. Like the Juneau District upheld in Groh, which included Skagway and Haines, the communities here are connected by daily airline flights (and by highway transportation, whereas the Juneau communities used ferry service); both are linked to the hub of Anchorage, although North Kenai obviously has greater links to Kenai. We think Kenai draws too fine a distinction between the interaction of North Kenai with Anchorage and that of North Kenai with South Anchorage. [17] We find no error in the superior court's decision to uphold House District 7. [18]
The state contends that the article VI, section 6 requirements should be less strictly applied with respect to the apportionment of senate seats because the provision explicitly pertains only to house districts and because the framers of the constitution sought to use senate districts to achieve regional representation. In the absence of a constitutional amendment to the contrary and given the framers' intent to use geographic area and rural representation as the criteria for apportioning senate seats, we hold that the article VI, section 6 requirements do not apply to the redistricting of senate seats. In Wade v. Nolan, 414 P.2d 689, 700 (Alaska 1966), we upheld the authority of the governor to reapportion senate districts despite the absence of express authority for such reapportionment in the constitution. After discussing the possibility that the framers intended to freeze the apportionment of senate districts and the invalidity of frozen area apportionment plans under federal law, we stated: Unanticipated changes in the law of the land have invalidated the Senate apportionment and now require that the Senate be expeditiously reapportioned on a population basis... . The Governor and the Reapportionment Board have reapportioned the Senate in the same manner that the constitution requires them to reapportion the House. An enlightened construction of Article VI which permits realization of its fundamental purpose, that reapportionment not be dependent in any manner on legislative initiative and that effective means of enforcement be readily available to any voter, is that its remaining constitutional provisions provide the implied power in the Governor and the Reapportionment Board to reapportion the Senate on an interim basis and we so hold. 414 P.2d at 700. In Wade we did not reach the question of the applicability of article VI, section 6 to senate redistricting. We subsequently noted that the constitution has never been amended in this regard and that the governor's implied power to reapportion senate districts therefore remains in force under Wade. Egan, 502 P.2d at 874. [19] Wade does suggest the approach to be taken when, as here, circumstances require this court to decide an issue not explicitly considered by the framers themselves: The facts before us were not anticipated by the Convention. It is appropriate, therefore, that we attempt to determine from Article VI as a whole and appropriate Convention Minutes, what was the pervading purpose and intent of the Convention. We must then determine whether a fair interpretation of the various provisions of Article VI will support a construction which permits accomplishment of this purpose, bearing in mind that often    what is implied is as much a part of the instrument as what is expressed. 414 P.2d at 698 (quoting Ex parte Yarbrough, 110 U.S. 651, 658, 4 S.Ct. 152, 155, 28 L.Ed. 274, 276 (1884)). Regarding the issue at bar, the minutes of the Constitutional Convention indicate that the creation of the senate districts reflected a compromise between rural and urban interests. Representatives of urban areas sought at-large representation by population while those speaking for rural areas sought smaller districts determined by geographic area. See 3 Proceedings of the Alaska Constitutional Convention 1876 (January 12, 1956) (Statement of Delegate John Hellenthal) (The Committee has not ignored the principle of representation at large... . [But] the Committee [also] felt strongly that emphasis should be placed on giving representation in both the house and the senate to a degree to representatives from nonurban areas); see also id. at 1881-82 (Statement of Delegate Frank Peratrovich). To protect the interests of the less populous rural areas, the framers amended the proposed constitution to provide that the boundaries of the senate districts would be respected if the districts were modified. [20] As the following exchange between delegates demonstrates, geography and rural representation, not socio-economic integration, was of paramount concern: HARRIS: ... [T]he idea of the whole compromise from the beginning was that one [branch of the legislature] would be based on a geographic standpoint and the other one on a population standpoint, and the rural areas went along with it with that in mind, that they would be guaranteed representation... . [A] lot of other people from the rural areas ... said, We may lose our house representatives, it is very possible, but we will never lose our senator. [T]his amendment ... is a compromise. It is a guarantee to the rural areas that they will always have representation... . ... . HELLENTHAL: ... [T]o clear up any doubts that the senate was to be based strictly on area and the house strictly on population, ... let me read from the report of the Committee: In the composition of the senate, stress was placed upon area with minor stress upon socio-economic groups. It did develop, though, that there was a conflict in the Committee... . This amendment ... is crystal clear. The senate of Alaska, and the constitution is now based strictly, 100 per cent upon area, but the great objective of this group has been secured in that the minor areas are assured of representation. That was what we set out to accomplish, that the minor areas in Alaska, the small hinterland, would be assured of representation, and it wouldn't all go to the cities. 5 Proceedings of the Alaska Constitutional Convention 3468-69 (January 28, 1956) (emphasis added). We conclude that the framers aimed to ensure that rural communities retained senate representation by using geographic area as a criterion for establishing senate districts and did not contemplate socio-economic integration as a criterion for redistricting senate seats. Therefore, we hold that the provisions of article VI, section 6 which set forth socio-economic integration, compactness and contiguity requirements are inapplicable to redistricting and reapportionment of senate districts. [21]