Court Opinion

ID: 9784052
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 20:36:34.085188+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:35:47.787896
License: Public Domain

CARPENETI, Justice,
dissenting.
The court today strikes down-directly or indirectly-over two-thirds of the election districts fashioned by the board.1 I disagree with several individual aspects of today's Order, and discuss those points in this dissent. Fundamentally, though, I disagree with the Order because it fails to truly consider the statewide responsibilities of the board and the need for the board, at the end of the day, to prepare a plan that works across the entire state.
Proclamation House District 5
The Order invalidates Proclamation 2 House District 5 on the ground that it is non-compact. But Alaska's constitution "calls only for relative compactness;"3 this is because the state's geography and population distribution make it impossible to draw conventionally compact districts that neatly approximate regular shapes like squares and circles. We have frequently allowed some departure from strict compactness in a given district in order to accommodate all of the constitutional criteria for all of the districts in the state.4 We have previously noted the difficulty of drawing districts in Alaska and emphasized the need for flexibility so that all constitutional requirements may be satisfied as nearly as practicable: "'When Alaska's geographical, climatical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic differences are contemplated the task assumes Herculean proportions commensurate with Alaska's enormous land area. The problems are multiplied by Alaska's sparse and widely scattered population and the relative inaccessibility of portions of the state." " 5
In the "Board Plans" 6 advocated by the Craig plaintiffs and impliedly accepted as "compact" by today's Order, the proposed "Islands District" encompassing Prince of Wales Island begins at the Canadian border on the south, includes a 800-mile section of the mainland, almost all of Prince of Wales Island, all of Kupreanof and Kuiu Islands, almost all of Admiralty Island, about half of Chichagof Island, and then returns to the mainland to include a long, thin section of the mainland which ends in a long, thin appendage slicing the Haines Borough in two and incorporating Klukwan but bypassing Haines *149on its way to Klukwan. Proclamation House District 5, extending west to include Cordo-va, is not "substantially less compact" than the "Islands District" in the plan advocated by the Craig plaintiffs. As the options before the board were all relatively compact, the board had the discretion to choose among the differing plans. As Judge Rindner found, the board's decision to keep smaller, rural communities together was a reasonable choice: Proclamation District 5 did not have the appendage problem of Board Plans 1 and 2 and public testimony from small communities urged the board to create a district that did not include them with larger, urban communities. Indeed, the board's plan enjoyed the distinction of being endorsed by every legislator-Republican and Democrat, urban and rural, Native and Caucagsian-in all of Southeast Alaska.
Correctly viewing redistricting as a process that requires the board to constantly look beyond the borders of the district being fashioned, the board made a reasonable choice in drawing Proclamation House District 5. The district is substantially more compact than a number of districts in the state,7 is easily as compact as Board Plans 1 and 2 because it avoids the Klukwan appendage problem that infects those alternative plans,8 and is sufficiently socio-economically integrated. The superior court's affirmance of the board's action in creating Proclamation District 5 should be upheld.
Proclamation House Districts 12 and 32
Judge Rindner carefully analyzed the problems presented by the formation of Proclamation House Districts 12 and 82. He found that Proclamation District 12 could not survive close serutiny because of insufficient socio-economic integration between the northern and southern halves of the district, separated as they were by the Alaska Range and long-established habits of economic and social activity. The evidence showed that the northern communities interacted with each other and the southern communities interact, ed with each other, with almost no interaction between the northern and southern halves of the district. Judge Rindner's similarly careful consideration of the evidence concerning Proclamation House District 32 led him to the opposite conclusion with regard to that district. He found that "[blased on all of the evidence, ... District 32 contains as nearly as practicable a relatively integrated socio-economic area." Applying the correct legal standard on review, he said, "It is clear that the Board gave careful consideration and extensive deliberation to this district and took a hard look at the factors both in favor and against such a pairing." He therefore struck down Proclamation District 12 and upheld Proclamation District 82. Because Judge Rindner correctly understood and applied the relevant law, I dissent from this court's holding that Proclamation House District 32 must be remanded for further consideration.
Under Kenai Peninsula Borough v. State,9 strict proportionality is not a constitutional requirement.10 However, "the interest of individual members of a geographic group or *150community in having their votes protected from disproportionate dilution by the votes of another geographic group or community" is a significant constitutional interest.11 By definition, a borough is socio-economically integrated.12 That integration, the contiguous, and often compact, nature of boroughs, and the significant constitutional interest in protecting the equally effective votes of residents of an organized geographic area requires the board to attempt to draw districts that allow communities to control the whole number of seats to which they are entitled. We have previously stated that "where possible, all of a municipality's excess population should go to one other district in order to maximize effective representation of the excess group.13 This principle is even more compelling when the "excess" population could constitute the majority of a new district.
The board, therefore, was properly concerned about placing exeess populations from Anchorage and the Mat-Su Borough-each of which was sufficient to constitute the majority of a district-into a single district. This legitimate concern resulted in the board's ultimate decision to create a plan that allowed Anchorage, with a population supporting 16.6 House seats, to have the excess population placed in a seventeenth district, and Mat-Su, with a population supporting 3.8 House seats, to have its excess population placed in a different district. Splitting either of these boroughs' excess population, members of a "politically salient class," would clearly have resulted in diluting the voting power of the "excess" voters of each borough. Such dilution would have constituted evidence that the individual voters' rights to geographic equal protection had been violated by the board, and predictably would have led to litigation.14
While the board's decision to attempt to draw districts that gave boroughs control over the whole number of seats to which they were entitled was reasonable, this consideration cannot be elevated over the constitutional mandates of one-person, one-vote, contiguity, compactness, and socio-economic integration. As Judge Rindner found, Proclamation House District 12 is not sufficiently socio-economically integrated. The board's decision to value proportionality does not justify the creation of a district that is not socio-economically integrated. Accordingly, I agree that this district is unconstitutional.
Proclamation House District 82, on the other hand, is sufficiently socioeconomically integrated. Judge Rindner found, and I agree, that "District 32 contains as nearly as practicable a relatively integrated socio-eco-nomic area. This integration is not minimal but significant." - As Proclamation House District 82 is sufficiently socioeconomically integrated, the board's decision to create this district and thereby protect the effectiveness of the vote of the "excess population" involved, was rational. The board should not be required to reconsider Proclamation House District 32.
Anchorage House Districts
We have long held that population deviations under 10% are "minor deviations" that do not require further justification; they are presumptively constitutional.15 The superior court found that the board's attempt to preserve neighborhood boundaries in Anchorage was not improperly motivated, a conclusion that this court accepts. Yet today's Order *151invalidates sixteen house districts in Anchorage on the ground that the board did not make a sufficient effort to further reduce deviations that we have consistently said are minor and need no further justification.16 The order attempts to justify this surprising result on two grounds. Neither survives scrutiny.
First, the Order suggests that the constitutional change adopted by the voters in 1999 justifies dramatically stricter standards in redistricting. But a simple comparison of the language of the former provision and the current provision shows that the change made the standard more flexible, not more strict. Article VI, section 6 previously provided: "Each area shall contain a population at least equal to the quotient obtained by dividing the total civilian population by forty." That provision literally required that each district contain the same number of civilians as every other district: Each had to be "at least equal" to every other; once any district contained an excess of population, another district would fail to have "at least" that many persons. Whatever might be said about the feasibility of meeting this standard, it is clear that the standard was very high. In 199817 the citizens of Alaska voted to adopt new language for article VI, section 6. The new language provides, "Each [house district] shall contain a population as near as practicable to the quotient obtained by dividing the population of the state by forty." Clearly, the new language-"as near as practicable"-created a more flexible standard than the language it replaced-"equal".18
Second, today's Order relies on Grok v. Egan19 for the proposition that "Anchorage neighborhood patterns cannot justify deviations so close to the ten percent threshold." But in Groh v. Egan we were faced with a plan with a total deviation of 29%.20 We addressed three Anchorage districts, which respectively were underrepresented by 5.9%, 6.5%, and 8.6%,21 in the context of a total deviation of 29%. In holding that neighborhood patterns cannot justify "substantial disparities," we were unmistakably referring to total deviations over 10%. By comparison, *152the greatest Anchorage deviation struck down today is 4.8%, and the maximum statewide deviation-a deviation figure that Anchorage has nothing to do with 22-is 12%. Groh v. Egan simply does not support the court's invalidation of sixteen Anchorage house districts.
Here, the board's stated purpose of trying to maintain neighborhood boundaries within Anchorage, once it had fully complied with the one person, one vote requirement, resulted in the board's decision not to attempt to further minimize deviations within Anchorage below what we have previously determined to be de minimis.23 It did so in order to preserve neighborhoods,24 a proper motive25 It had no impermissible effect. In sum, I believe that the board's approach was entirely proper and conformed to all constitutional requirements. This court should uphold Judge Rindner's affirmance of the board.
Proclamation House District 40
Today's Order invalidates Proclamation House District 40 on the ground that the board incorrectly believed that the 6.9% population deviation in that district was required by the Voting Rights Act. Because I do not believe that is an accurate description of the reason that the board fashioned District 40 as it did, I dissent.
To understand what occurred in regard to District 40, some background information is necessary. Proclamation House District 40 encompasses a very large area-approximately 133,000 square miles-that is sparsely inhabited. The board had only two options to obtain sufficient population: adjoining District 6 or adjoining District 39.
The board considered but rejected the option of taking population from District 6, because District 6 is a majority Athabaskan district, whereas District 40 is a majority Inupiaq district. In Hickel v. Southeast Conference,26 we recognized that combining these disparate populations may be "the single worst combination that could be selected if a board were trying to maximize socioeconomic integration in Alaska.27 Clearly, the board's decision not to take population from District 6 was reasonable and fully justifiable.
The board's other option was to take population from District 39. The closest community in that district is Shishmaref. But if the board were to have done that, the deviation in District 39 would have been -7.8%, greater than District 40's -6.9%.
The board could have lowered the 7.8% deviation by moving Pilot Station from District 6 to District 39 (its former district), but such a move would have increased the deviation in District 6 to -8.2%, again, a greater deviation.28 Accordingly, the board conclud*153ed that District 40's population shortfall was justified by the difficulty of obtaining offsetting population blocks without violating the board's policies of achieving socio-economic integration and preserving political and Native corporation boundaries. Thus, while the board's initial concerns involved the Voting Rights Act, Judge Rindner found that "[all Board members joined in the decision to approve the boundaries of House District 40, believing that this choice would result in the lowest population deviation." - (Emphasis added.)
Judge Rindner found that the board's -6.9% deviation in Proclamation House District 40 was justified. As he concluded, "[bloth the size and the unavailability of easily moved population blocks make this deviation acceptable [and] justified." Judge Rind-ner noted that the board moved Pilot Station out of District 39 into District 6 to increase the Native population in District 6. As a consequence, the resulting deviation of Proclamation House District 40 was the lowest possible deviation. Although Judge Rindner found that moving Pilot Station from District 6 to District 89 would have had Voting Rights Act implications-which in themselves would not have been enough to justify a total deviation in excess of 10% 29-the reason for the move was not to satisfy the Voting Rights Act but to achieve the lowest population deviation consistent with other constitutional requirements, including socio-economic integration.
For these reasons, I believe today's Order misapprehends the impact of the Voting Rights Act on the board's actions. Even ignoring the federal act entirely, the board had few options and exercised one that is fully consistent with constitutional requirements. Finally, as a point of reference, the 12% total statewide deviation that the board's plan contained is the lowest deviation in any redistricting plan in Alaska's history. I would uphold Judge Rindner's affirmance of the board's Proclamation House District 40.
Conclusion
I fully agree with the Order's observations that redistricting presents formidable challenges to a citizen board that operates under extraordinary time pressures, and that this board should be "commended for its diligent, conscientious efforts to achieve the basic goal of redistricting." - It is because the task is so difficult, the time so short, and the job on remand so remarkably heavy that this court should not strike down or otherwise throw into question two-thirds of the districts unless they are truly unconstitutional. Because I believe that only Proclamation Districts 12 and 16 fail to meet constitutional requirements, I dissent from those parts of today's Order that do not affirm the trial court. I would affirm the decision of Judge Rindner in all respects.

. The Order explicitly strikes down House Districts 5, 12, 16, 32, and the Anchorage Districts 17-31. Furthermore, the Order instructs the board to make changes to House Districts 6, 39, and 40, thereby directly striking down a total of twenty-two of forty House districts. These districts necessarily implicate twelve of twenty Senate Districts: District C (House Districts 5 and 6), District F (House District 12), District H (House District 16), District T (House Districts 39 and 40), and the Anchorage Districts I-P (House Districts 17-32).
This Order will indirectly necessitate changes to other districts, as well. With a conservative estimate of at least one other contiguous district being affected for each district explicitly struck down (not including the Anchorage districts, with the exception of District 32), four additional House districts are affected (District 1, District 35, District 36, and District 38). These four additional House districts affect another three Senate districts (District A, District R, and District S). In total, today's Order directly or indirectly affects forty-one of sixty districts If the Order necessitates changes in all of the districts contiguous with those explicitly struck down, forty-seven of sixty districts are directly or indirectly affected.

. Districts finally adopted by the Redistricting Board are called "Proclamation" districts.

. Carpenter v. Hammond, 667 P.2d 1204, 1218 (Alaska 1983) (Matthews, J., concurring) (adopted by the full court in Kenai Peninsula Borough v. State, 743 P.2d 1352, 1361 & n. 13 (Alaska 1987)).

. See, e.g., Hickel v. Southeast Conference, 846 P.2d 38, 52 & n. 23 (Alaska 1993).

. - Id. at 50 (quoting Egan v. Hammond, 502 P.2d 856, 865-66 (Alaska 1972)), quoted in Groh v. Egan, 526 P.2d 863, 875 (Alaska 1974) and Kenai Peninsula Borough, 743 P.2d at 1359.

. "Board Plans" 1 and 2, which were among the four plans originally promulgated by the board, were not ultimately adopted by the board. As noted above in note 2, districts finally adopted by the board are known as "Proclamation" districts.

. For example, Proclamation House District 40 covers the entire North Slope of the state; Proclamation House District 37 comprises the entire Aleutian Chain as well as part of the mainland; and Proclamation House District 6, the largest single district, extends from the Canadian border just north of Yakutat (a point about 350 miles east of Anchorage), reaches as far north as the Brooks Range and Arctic Village, encompasses almost all of the Yukon River drainage and most of the Kuskokwim River drainage, and extends as far west as Marshall and Russian Mission (to a point about 400 miles west of Anchorage). This district appears to be slightly larger than the State of Texas, which may be fitting given its horseshoe shape.

. Indeed, a comparison of Proclamation House District 16-which the Order properly strikes because of an appendage that rendered it non-compact-and the "Islands District" in Board Plans 1 and 2-which the Order finds to be compact despite a substantially more prominent appendage-illustrates the correctness of the board's rejection of Board Plans 1 and 2 as an alternative to Proclamation District 5.

. 743 P.2d 1352 (Alaska 1987).

. Id. at 1370 n. 33 (stating that "We note that article VI, section 6 alone identifies the criteria governing reapportionment; if the framers had intended to make proportionality a criterion for the establishment of new districts, they presumably would have included it in this section or written a sister provision.").

. Id. at 1371.

. Hickel v. Southeast Conference, 846 P.2d 38, 52 (Alaska 1993).

. Id.

. Id. at 52 n. 26 ("Dividing the municipality's excess population among a number of districts would tend to dilute the effectiveness of the votes of those in the excess population group. Their collective votes in a single district would speak with a stronger voice than if distributed among several districts.").

. Id. at 48; see also Groh v. Egan, 526 P.2d 863, 877 (Alaska 1974) ("[In the absence of a showing that the manner of reapportioning a state was improperly motivated or had an impermissible effect, deviations of up to ten percent require no showing of justification."). Indeed, the United States Supreme Court has upheld deviations over 16%, where such deviations were justified by legitimate considerations. Mahan v. Howell, 410 U.S. 315, 328-30, 93 S.Ct. 979, 35 LEd.2d 320 (1973).

. The Order is particularly puzzling in that it squarely places the burden on the board to justify de minimis deviations, Order at 9, effectively but silently reversing longstanding precedent from this court. Groh, 526 P.2d at 877 (stating that in the absence of a showing of improper motive or impermissible effect, "deviations of up to ten percent require no showing of justification") (emphasis added). We relied on federal law in announcing this rule, citing both the Court's opinion in White v. Regester, 412 U.S. 755, 93 S.Ct. 2332, 37 LEd.2d 314 (1973), and Justice Brennan's dissent in that case to the effect that "a line has been drawn at 10%-deviations in excess of that amount are apparently acceptable only on a showing of justification by the State; deviations less than that amount require no justification whatsoever." Id. at T76, 93 S.Ct. 2332 (Brennan, J., dissenting) (emphasis added).

. The new constitutional provision took effect January 3, 1999. Committee Substitute for Senate Bill (C.S.S.B.) 44, 20th Leg. 1st Sess. (1999).

. The legislative history of the provision tends to confirm this view. A section-by-section analysis of the proposed constitutional amendment, prepared for the House Judiciary Committee, commenting on section 4 (which was to become article VI, section 6) stated, with regard to the "as nearly as practicable" language, "Since Alaska Supreme Court and U.S. Supreme Court decisions make clear that minor deviations from an ideal one-fortieth reapportionment per district are permissible, the 'as nearly as practicable' language is added." Sectional Analysis for HJR 44 0-LS0528/C, Original Bill File, House Judiciary Comm. (Feb. 4, 1998).
Virtually identical language is found in the Sectional Analysis prepared for the Senate Judi-clary Committee on the same provision. With regard to the "as nearly as practicable" language, the analysis reads: "Since U.S. Supreme Court and Alaska Supreme Court cases make clear that minor deviations from an ideal one-fortieth of the state's population are permissible for house and senate districts, the 'as nearly as practicable' language is added." Sectional Analysis for CS FOR HJR 44(RLS), Original Bill File, Senate Judiciary Comm. (April 6, 1978).

. 526 P.2d 863 (Alaska 1974).

. - Id. at 874, 878-79.

. The Groh opinion does not divulge the Anchorage district with the greatest overrepresentation. Accordingly, we do not know the "maximum population deviation in Anchorage" in the redistricting plan that Grok addressed. It is therefore not possible to construct the figure that would be comparable to the 9.5% "maximum population deviation in Anchorage" that today's Order describes. But it is likely that the comparable figure would have been substantially higher in the Grok case, for no Anchorage district in the present plan exceeds 4.8% deviation.

. In this redistricting plan, the most overrepresented district is House District 40 (the North Slope) with a -6.89% deviation. The most underrepresented district is House District 33 (Ke-nai Peninsula), with a +5.06% deviation. Accordingly, the plan's statewide "total deviation" is 11.95%, rounded to 12%.

. Groh, 526 P.2d at 877 ("We conclude that in the absence of a showing that the manner of reapportioning a state was improperly motivated or had an impermissible effect, deviations of up to ten percent require no showing of justification.").

. The Order does not appear to challenge the conclusion that the board's purpose was to preserve neighborhoods, a conclusion that was supported by the evidence. For example, the board heard substantial expert testimony about the so-cio-economic characteristics of Anchorage neighborhoods, and a majority of the Anchorage Assembly endorsed, as the plan that best kept neighborhoods intact, a package of districts that became most of the final Proclamation districts.

. Groh, 526 P.2d at 879 ("[Patterns of housing, income levels, and minority residency] may form a basis for districting.").

. $46 P.2d 38 (Alaska 1993).

. Id. at 53 (internal quotation marks omitted).

. Attempts to lower the deviation in District 6 to acceptable levels were not feasible: District 6 is contiguous with the other effective Native districts, Districts 5 and 37 40. However, these districts are already underpopulated. While District 6 is also contiguous with the districts that include the urban areas of Kenai, Anchorage, Mat Su, and Fairbanks, these areas have minimal, if any, socio-economic integration with the Interior Rivers area, District 6. Given the higher population deviations that would have resulted from trying to reduce District 40's underpopu*153lation, the board's decision to keep Pilot Station in District 6, though originally for Voting Rights Act reasons that do not justify a deviation in excess of 10%, was reasonable. Additionally, it had the benefit of maintaining District 6, the only district in Alaska shown to have racially polarized bloc voting, as an effective Native district.

. Guidance Concerning Redistricting and Retrogression Under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, 42 U.S.C.1973¢c; Notice, 66 Fed.Reg. 5412, 5413 (Jan. 18, 2001) ("For state legislative and local redistricting, a plan that would require overall deviations greater than 10 percent is not considered a reasonable alternative.")