Opinion ID: 1239200
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 22

Heading: establishment of districts

Text: The remaining instructions of the Court relate to the guides and standards to be used in establishment of the new House and Senate election districts. These were as follows: (1) That the ideal number of persons to be included in a single member House district is to be determined by dividing the population base by 40 and the ideal population for a single member Senate district by 20. (2) That the new district boundaries be established to contain a number of persons as close to the formula as feasible and that express and specific justification be given for any substantial deviations from the population norms. (3) That an effort should be made to make the districts correspond, where feasible, with the approximate boundaries set out in the 1971 reapportionment plan and that the districts be created of contiguous and compact territory containing as nearly as practicable a relatively integrated socio-economic area. Using the population base of 302,361 (the Census total population enumeration), the ideal or norm for a single member House district would be 7,559 persons and for a single member Senate district 15, 118. The first step in considering the new districting was to test the 1971 reapportionment districts using the total Census population and the above norms. The Court's instructions (other than using these districts where feasible), however, drastically altered both the population base and the general procedures followed by the Board in establishing the 1971 districts. The population base in the 1971 plan was the total population reported by the Census less the number of military personnel as of April 1, 1970 reported by the Department of Defense, not the Census. Adherence to the Court's instruction resulted in further major changes in the 1971 plan's deviations from an ideal or norm. The Court's further instructions effectively rule out the reasoning of the Board that deviations in individual districts are compensated by offsetting or balancing deviations of others in combination. The Court is specific in saying that the individual districts are to be as close to the norm as feasible and that any substantial deviations must be justified. Table 11 applies the total 1970 population to the House districts established in the 1971 plan. With the exception of the Barrow-Kobuk district, these deviations from the population norm are too great to be justified as entirely unavoidable or as being the best results possible. Accordingly, it was necessary to arrive at a new set of physical districts. In doing so the Masters were guided by the same concerns of the Board: that in addition to seeking arithmetically equal representation, the districts should also be an expression of natural geographic units and socio-economic communities as far as possible.