“The new question for the court to answer is does remand cure a gerrymander?” asked Eva Gardner, the attorney for the Girdwood plaintiffs. “Could a board launder its illegitimate business through the courts? The answer has to be no.”
Girdwood plaintiffs: ‘These board members do not deserve the benefit of the doubt’
With the candidate filing deadline just a month and change away, the judge overseeing the legal battles over Alaska’s redistricting plan has shortened the window for new legal challenges in hopes to settle issues before then.
The Alaska Redistricting saga continued today as Judge Matthews heard competing arguments about what Judge Matthews really meant when he sent the board back to the table to fix its gerrymander. (Screenshot taken with court approval.)
The plan would keep Eagle River in control of two Senate districts while also lumping together several incumbents and a former Senate President together in a single senate district.
“Map 3B is absolutely ridiculous,” said Sen. Lora Reinbold.
The key difference between the two is how they treat Eagle River, which will have an impact on how the deeply conservative community is represented in the Legislature.
Surprise, the GOP-favored proposal would maintain the deeply conservative Eagle River’s hold onto the driver’s seat of two Senate districts by once again reaching over the Chugach Mountains.
Neither change should take a significant amount of time or processing power to complete.
Plenty of notes to make for… the next round of redistricting in 2031.