Letter to DOJ commenting on Alaska Redistricting Board Submission
Letter to DOJ Voting Section regarding Alaska Redistricting Board's submission. Particularly deals with section on Publicity and Participation.
Content
Septembr 24, 2011 Chief, Voting Section Civil Rights Division United States Department of Justice Room 7254-NWB 950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Washington, D.C. 20530 Regarding: Comment under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. Alaska Redistricting Board Submission
2011-2995
I’m responding to the Submission of the Alaska Redistricting Board. I’m a professor emeritus of public administration at the University of Alaska Anchorage and a blogger who attended nearly all of the Anchorage Redistricting Board meetings and public hearings. My blog posts about the Board are listed and described at www.whatdoino-steve.blogspot.com/p/redistricting. After an overview, I will focus on the Publicity and Participation section of the report, which I would characterize as not untruthful, but misleading. It’s the job of the attorney to present his client’s information in as positive a light as possible. My submission is intended to add shadow and perspective. I would also awknowledge that the Board staff and most of the Board members were helpful and cooperative throughout the process - answering questions, providing documents, and otherwise assisting me and others attending meetings. Overview My general sense is that the Board’s top priority was to avoid trouble getting clearance from the DOJ. After approving their draft plan, when they saw that some private plans maintained nine Native districts, they worked hard to create a reasonable nine district plan. Board members Marie Greene and PeggyAnn McConnochie worked particularly hard on this. They traveled widely and listened carefully and were determined to accommodate Native concerns - such as keeping traditionally connected villages and keeping the same language groups in the same House districts. While they couldn’t meet all the demands, their demeanor at the meetings and the efforts they made at creating alternative maps convinced me of their sincerity in this effort. However, the focus on the Native Districts meant, in the words of board member Bob Brody, “We’re spending 90% of our time on 10% of the population.” That was a little exaggerated, but close. And as that board member feared, when they got to Anchorage and Fairbanks, there was little time for a full and open public process. The projected maps moved quickly across the
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screen and it was hard to see exactly where the lines were being drawn and whose district was being affected. They would say, “We have to do this, because of how the Native Districts fell out.” Though previously they’d said that Anchorage and Fairbanks’ population density would make it easier to have fair districts. Coincidentally, it was Anchorage and Fairbanks where there were enough Democratic seats that they were able to pair Democratic incumbents while creating adjacent open districts. By pairing two Democratic Senators in Fairbanks next to an open Senate district, and by putting the only African-American legislator (Anchorage Senator Bettye Davis) into a more Republican district, they have made it much harder for the Democrats to keep the 10-10 tie that now exists in the State Senate.That tie has meant a bi-partisan coalition in the Alaska Senate that has worked cooperatively to the benefit of Alaska. They’ve also paired Southeast Alaska Native and Democratic Senator Al Kookesh with Republican Senator Bert Stedman. Thus there is a good possibility that Alaska Natives will lose one Native Senator and that Alaska’s only African-American legislator will not return after the 2012 elections. Without the threat of DOJ rejection of the plan, I doubt the Board would have worked so hard to prevent retrogression. But, they also used the need to maintain Native Districts to put Fairbanks Democratic representative David Guttenberg into a huge district that is majority Native, a district being challenged by two lawsuits from Fairbanks. Could they have created this Native district without requiring a non-Native Democratic incumbent to win a Native district to keep his seat? Probably. They had tinkered with this Fairbanks Democrat’s seat in a less egregious, but still job threatening, revampaing of his district in the draft plan. They also had to split Yupik villages that are closely connected economically, socially, lingusitically and through health systems to create this district (38). Instead of keeping those villages, like Hooper Bay which do not have running water or indoor plumbing connected to nearby Yupik hub Bethel, they paired them with a distant suburb of urban Fairbanks. You can see these two communities in contrasting videos here: http://whatdoino-steve.blogspot.com/2011/07/judge-rules-against-redistricting-board.html
I didn’t have the software that would have allowed me to draw my own maps. After watching the board and talking to representatives from AFFR, AFFER, and the Rights Coalition, and some of the other alternative plan designers, I know that coming up with the nine Native districts was not easy.
Publicity and Participation Section of the Submission I wish to address in detail the section on Publicity and Participation. It’s the part, as a blogger, I saw in detail. I regularly reviewed their website and Facebook pages (I could probably account for 500 of the hits they reported to you.)
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So let me go through the Publicity and Participation section of their report in detail. 1. “. . . the Board conducted the most open redistricting process in Alaska history. The Board took full advantage of technology, social networking tools, and new methods of online outreach to ensure the public had unprecedented access to the redistricting process.” (p. 15) a. I heard this claim about the most open process several times. I have no doubt that it’s true. The bar was very low. b. “took full advantage of technology, social networking tools, new methods of online outreach. . .” The board had a website and a Facebook page, but used only the most basic functions. It was like having an iPhone but only making calls on it. This was not a high priority of the Board chair and the sites were (more so in the first two months) not consistently updated and never gave the public a clear overview of the process. A lot of data accumulated on the site. But it was short on information useful to the general public. There was nothing that succinctly and clearly explained key issues or would educate someone so they could testify usefully. Their computer expert (Eric Sandberg) was a GIS expert dedicated to the plans and maps, not the website and Facebook pages. They got their toes wet in new technology, but they were a long way from taking even partial advantage, let alone full advantage. I’ll elaborate below. 2. “Website content included contact information, Board member profiles, copies of all draft redistricting plans, general information about the history and process of redistricting, data, maps, GIS files, and announcements and meeting agendas concerning Board meetings, public hearings, and other activities of the Board.” (p. 15) This statement is both true and misleading. -There is a link to member profiles. But the ‘profiles’ consist simply of the members’ names, who appointed them, PO Boxes, and email adresses. About 15 words per profile. Nothing about who these people are. No pictures. -General information was minimal. There was lots of data but little information that would help a citizen grasp the key concepts. There never was much to explain the complexities of the VRA or to help people understand the legitimate needs for “Native” districts. They had the GIS files and there were links to the Census Bureau training, but nothing explained what software you needed to use it, how to get it, or how expensive it was. When I asked the Board’s attorney at the first Anchorage public hearing whether the Board had some computer terminals available to the public he said he thought they did and directed me to the Executive Director. Ron Miller said it was too expensive to hire staff to teach people how to use it. When I asked how people could use the data, he said, they could draw maps the way people used to without the software. I have this exchange on video posted here: http://whatdoino-steve.blogspot.com/2011/03/video-redistricting-board-attorney.html
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-There were no user friendly explanations of the process, or how to prepare for the public hearings. You can look through the meeting announcements in Volume 5 and see that the information was minimal. Time, location, teleconference access, that they’ll take testimonry. There is no explanation of the need, for example, to balance the Voting Rights Act requirements with the State requirements for social and economically cohesive districts and compact districts. Legal requirements are posted, but not explained. This information would have helped the board deal with many of the issues people raised when they saw their own districts. For example, people in the Muldoon neighborhood of Anchorage complained they had no real connection with people in the Eagle River neighborhood. They had no idea of how compatible they were compared to many of the rural pairings. But there was no such overview availalble from the board, ever. (And while the Board noted these complaints when they did the Anchorage map, in the end, they paired Muldoon and Eagle River in a Senate seat that now jeopardizes the only African-American legislator in Alaska.) The key reason there were any people at the hearings was that the various interest groups - the Democratic and Republican Parties, the AFL-CIO, the Bush Caucus, some cities, and Native organizations paid people to be informed and to get their constituents to the meetings. If people had had to rely on the Board to know there was a meeting, no one would have showed up. This resulted in people connected to those various interest groups being the only people who showed up somewhat prepared. Another key point relates to timing. Often announcements got posted, but not in a timely way. More on that below.
3. “Members of the public were able to sign up on the Board’s website to receive frequent email updates, meeting notices, and reminders about the Board’s activities.” (p. 15) -The email notices were the best way to keep informed. The staff was extremely helpful and responsive. When I suggested ways to improve their website, they did their best to fix it. When I called they usually provided the requested information quickly. There was one glaring exception. When they did the Anchorage maps for the final plan, what was available at the meeting was not clear enough to see streets and see how incumbents were impacted. I asked for the more detailed map and was promised it at the end of the meeting. At the end of the meeting I was promised it by email in an hour. I didn’t get it until the next day. It’s impossible to know how things may have changed from what was decided at the meeting and what was published the next day. It’s possible they were just too busy to send it to a blogger. Who knows? -Timeliness On Friday, March 18, 2011 I published a post which pointed out that I had only just received the Board’s email at 5:30 pm announcing the Anchorage public hearing the following Tuesday and I
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compared this to the ‘reasonable’ requirement of the Alaska Public Meetings Act. I pointed out that the link in the email to the full schedule of public meetings didn’t work, and that finding the location was also hard. Here’s the blog post: http://whatdoino-steve.blogspot.com/2011/03/ak-redistricting-board-finally-gets.html 4. “The Board distribution list had 769 participants. All of these individuals and organizations were specifically notified of all Board meetings and actions. Staff also maintained active accounts on Facebook and Twitter to maximize the Board’s public outreach efforts.”(p. 15) a. I’m not sure how to evaluate 769 participants. It’s around 1/10 of 1% of the population of Alaska. It’s less than the population of Hooper Bay, a remote town with no running water or indoor plumbing. Is this a big number to sign up for info about a state redistricting board? I don’t know. And I’m sure this is the total by the end of the process. How many had signed up by, say, April 14? b. If by ‘active’ they mean they had a Facebook account and they put stuff on it during the three months the board was active, it’s true. If it means someone consistently updated the Facebook page and website, then it’s false. I have two blog posts with screen shots of their website and the Facebook pages documenting that there was nothing to show when or where the next meeting was. This included a Facebook calendar that said, “Nothing is scheduled” when in fact things were scheduled. Here’s a link to the April 4 post: http://whatdoino-steve.blogspot.com/2011/04/is-alaska-redistricting-board-hiding.html And the May 5 post, before their last public hearing (another was later added): http://whatdoino-steve.blogspot.com/2011/05/how-is-alaska-redistricting-board-like.html
5. “All Board meetings and public hearings were publicly noticed through electronic media and a number of the public hearings were noticed via local print media. Samples of those e-mailed and published notices are provided in Volume 5, Folder 5.” (p. 15) -How were the meetings noticed? At the first public hearing in Anchorage I asked Board Chair John Torgerson, on video, how, given the low turnout in the biggest city in the state, they planned to notify people about the other meetings. He said the meeting announcements were posted on the State of Alaska public notice website. I’m an active blogger (I blogged the legislature in 2010) and a professor emeritus of public administration. I didn’t know of the existence of this site. And at that point, it wasn’t linked on their website. I think it’s a safe assumption that except for regular state contractors and administrators, few other people are aware of the site. And it isn’t easy to find the Redistricting Board notice. It takes a lot of clicking links. I then asked whether they were going to take out ads in local newspapers. His response was, “I hadn’t thought of that.” You can see this video exchange here: http://whatdoino-steve.blogspot.com/2011/03/redistricting-board-chair-john.html
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It took a while before they started posting the meeting times and places on the Board’s website. And it was never consistently done. The one consistent place they posted was the largely unknown and clumsy to use State public notice website. This is NOT taking ‘full advantage of modern technology.’ I challenge you to find a newspaper notice in Volume 5, Folder 6 that was submitted by the Board rather than by others particularly Alaska Native organizations and local governments.
6. “Over the course of the redistricting process, the Board sent over 34,000 emails, and its posts on Facebook and Twitter generated over 26,000 impressions. Examples from the Board’s Web site, Facebook and Twitter impressions, as well as press articles regarding the Board’s activities, can be found in Volume 5, Folders 2 and 6.” (pp. 15, 16) If you have 769 people signed up for email notices and you send out 34,000 emails, that comes to 44 emails sent to the whole list over about a 90 day period. I don’t think they sent that many to the list. It would be interesting to see a breakdown of who got emails. For example, how many of those emails did they send to each other? To put their “26,000 impressions” in perspective, my little blog had just over 34,000 hits in March, April, and May of 2011 when the Board met. The Board was hampered by the fact that the Anchorage Daily News (ADN) did not assign a reporter to cover the board until the very end. But the Board also did not work to get the ADN to cover it. Nor did they ever place an ad in the state’s one newspaper that has statewide circulation. 9. “All Board meetings were open to the public and held in accordance with Alaska's Open Meetings Act, Alaska Statute 44.62.310 et seq. All Board meetings were recorded and transcribed. The audio recordings of the Board meetings and public hearings were made available for free public download via the Board’s website.” (p. 16)
a. Yes, all the meetings were open and complied with the Alaska Open Meetings Act. What that statement means is they didn’t break the law. Another pretty low bar. As I said above, the only consistent notices were on an obscure State website few people know exists. Eventually, they began to put better notices up on their website, but not consistently. b. They were recorded. The recordings were sent to transcribers who had so much trouble identifying speakers that almost no transcripts were available until the whole process was over. The audio went up in haphazard fashion. It got better toward the end. I can’t give you precise time lags, but I would guess in the beginning there simply was nothing. Later there was about a two week lag.
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The closest thing to ‘transcripts’ available to the public during the 90 day process were my rough notes of meetings occasionally posted on my blog. Here’s an example: http://whatdoino-steve.blogspot.com/2011/04/alaska-redistricting-board-april-4.html
10. “Generally, audio files of the Public Hearings and Board Meetings were posted on the Board’s website shortly after each meeting was held. Transcripts of the hearings were posted on the Board’s website as they were completed.” ((p. 16) Audio was not posted shortly after each meeting until well into the process. Transcripts were posted as they were completed. Unfortunately, the vast majority (perhaps all of them) were not completed until the process was over. 10. “Live audio access was often provided for Board meetings and public hearings via the Alaska Legislature’s online streaming media portal, including every meeting from May 16, 2011, through June 14, 2011. Live webinar access was provided for all meetings from June 1, 2011, through June 14, 2011, which made it possible for anyone with an internet connection to have both audio and visual access to the Board’s final deliberations.” (p. 16) a. They tried to have audio connection from the first meeting, though they had technical difficulties that day. It would be nice if they gave you a number instead of ‘often.’ Their dates show they had audio the last month and webinar the last two weeks. I discuss this in a May 14 post when their email alert announced that the next few sessions would have live audio. http://whatdoino-steve.blogspot.com/2011/05/alaska-redistricting-board-live.html The webinars didn’t happen until the last two weeks of the process and seemed to be precipitated by the fact that board member Holm was calling in from Fairbanks and needed to see the computer mapping screen. Only the computer screen was visible online. That was helpful - one could take screen shots of the maps which were much clearer than what appeared on the projected screen at the meetings. But there was never public wifi in the Redistricting offices, so if you attended the meeting, you couldn’t also go online. b. Access to the public hearings (as opposed to the meetings) was mostly unavailable except at the locations they were held. The Anchorage public hearings were held at the Legislative Information Office, so they were broadcast statewide. At least one hearing in Juneau was also available statewide. To my knowledge none of the others were. Nor were transcripts posted of those meetings nor audio. There were brief but useful staff synopses of them much later though (Vol 5 Folder 7). 11. “Between April 18, 2011, and May 6, 2011, public hearings on the draft plans were held in 32 communities across Alaska. During this time period, the Board and its staff logged nearly
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60,000 air miles traveling between hearing sites. Hearings were held in Anchorage, Fairbanks, Juneau, Cordova, Healy, Palmer, Delta Junction, Nome, Dutch Harbor, Kotzebue, Tok, Cold Bay, Bethel, Glennallen, Galena, Barrow, Kodiak, Sitka, Craig, Ketchikan, Wrangell, Seward, Petersburg, Homer, Kenai, Skagway, Haines, Valdez, Angoon, King Salmon, Dillingham, and Hoonah. A statewide teleconference also was held in Anchorage at the LIO on May 6th, at which time groups were invited to provide new or revised plans.” (p. 17) -There was quantity but not necessarily quality. There were no apparent criteria for chosing where they were going other than a board member suggested it or someone from the town requested they visit. The first five public hearings were held around the state, one day after another, so there was no time to reflect on what happened and how they could improve things before they went to the next one. The Board got the census data on March 15. They held their first meeting on March 16. They held their first public hearing - in Anchorage - on March 22. Anchorage organizations were supposed to have their draft plans ready in less than a week! There were complaints during the break and it was decided that the March 30 Statewide conference (in Anchorage) would allow Anchorage folks to present plans as well. 12. “The Board also held a public hearing on May 24, 2011, specifically to seek input from groups who had submitted statewide plans on the configuration of Alaska Native Districts.” (p. 17) -Private plans were due May 6 as quote 11 says. If I recall correctly, the May 24 date was added because the comments from the VRA consultant came in so late and there were revised definitions and criteria that were different from what people had originally used in their plans. From my post of May 17: “The percent of Natives and which Natives (Voting Age Population -VAP - not total population), after Handley's analysis of voting patterns from 2002 to 2008 changes things a bit. When the board asked for firm numbers, the consultant said, it isn't that easy, and listed various factors that would change the basic percentage needed - such as whether whites added to a district had voted in a bloc with or against Native bloc preferred candidates.” From: http://whatdoino-steve.blogspot.com/2011/05/voting-rights-act-andplanning-end-game.html The groups submitting private plans needed to redo the numbers - and the board needed that too because they wanted to be sure that the private plans could come up with nine Native districts with the newly understood standards. That’s why they were allowed to resubmit their amended plans on May 24. 13. “The high level of public participation in Alaska's redistricting process is reflected by the number of proposed plans submitted to and considered by the Board. In total, the Board received
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proposed statewide or regional plans from fourteen (14) different entities, both private and public. A number of these entities submitted multiple and/or revised plans.” (p. 17) -This assumes there was a high level of participation, which is questionable. The number of plans reflects the importance of redistricting to a number of groups. The key groups to submit statewide plans included: AFFR (AFL-CIO, with national funding, and some Alaska Native groups), AFFER (Essentially the Republican party); the Rights Coalition (mainly the Democratic Party); and the Alaska Bush Caucus (legislators from Alaska Native districts). These groups were poised and funded well before the Board began meeting. They sent paid staff to nearly every meeting. Their participation was not due to anything the Board did to encourage participation. 14. “The final plan adopted by the Board was one drafted by the Board that took bits and pieces of what the Board thought were good ideas from various other plans it had considered, as well as public input from its hearings. The Board was very cognizant of public testimony and attempted to accommodate the wishes of the public when it was possible to do so consistent with its obligations to comply with federal and state laws.” (p. 17) There was a fair amount of testimony and two or three thick notebooks of letters. But there was no serious analysis or compilation of that data so Board members could see how many people supported particular points. Their use of public input was anecdotal - what they personally remembered. The Board did attempt to utilize input about neighorhoods - and would say things like “people wanted us to put these two neighborhoods togehter” - when it was convenient and didn’t when it was inconvenient. One could tell that board member McConnochie agonized over maps of Southeast Alaska. First round, for example, they split off the Native community of Saxman which sits inside of Ketchikan on the grounds they needed the numbers for a Native district. Then they got feedback not to split it out and they put it back. Marie Greene and Peggy McConnochie expressed convincingly at meetings their frustrations of trying to both meet the requests of villages and the need to get districts of equal size. I believe the Board worked hard to accommodate requests they remembered from hearings. It wasn’t possible to accommodate them all because many were contradictory. Others appeared physically impossible to carry out. There were only a few instances where it seemed the Board made decisions that were strongly objected to by the communities. A couple of these - such as including Ester in District 38 - have resulted in lawsuits.
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Final Thoughts The Board’s attempts at publicity were minimal. Their participation efforts were ‘quantity, not quality.” This is reflected in their report which tells you they logged 60,000 air miles, but offers you no materials that were used to prepare citizens to understand the process at hearings, and no summary or analysis of the feedback they got. There are some notes - some handwritten, some typed - with data on 23 of the 32 public hearings. I understand that they were only done for those meetings where only part of the board was present, so the other members could have an idea of what they missed. This (and the correspondence log) is the only attempt I witnessed to document feedback. But even these are just notes or the pile of letters, and there is no summary of the feedback or anaylysis. The Board’s citizen participation efforts do not reflect the sophisticated techniques that have been developed in this field in the last 40 years. Some examples of the very rudimentary way this was undertaken: • Determining where to visit was ad hoc. They began with the places the previous board had been. Then board members suggested other places and they agreed. Or communities invited them and they agreed. No suggestion for a new location at a public meeting was turned down. Individual board members sometimes offered reasons - PeggyAnn McConnochie said they needed to visit Southeastern communities because they would be losing a seat and so there would be special problems. But there was never an organized look at possible sites to visit, they just added and added and added new sites.
• Notice to communities they were visiting was minimal - the state public notices website, an obscure and hard to use site was the key location. As things progressed there were regularly, but not completely reliable, notices on the Board’s website. The board placed no ads in newspapers, sent out no mailers to the public, except to those who subscribed to their email list. There was attendance at hearings only because interest groups notified their constituents and/or small communities themselves put out ads. The media did cover local hearings, but no traditional media regularly covered the Board and when they did, not in depth.
• There was no attempt to educate the public on the process. While a fair amount of data accumulated on the Board’s website over the three months, there was almost nothing that gave citizens a useful overview of the process, the issues, and particular questions for specific districts. All that work was done by the special interest groups. I tried to do a little of that on the blog a few times. Here’s my post for the Kotzebue public hearing for example: http://whatdoino-steve.blogspot.com/2011/03/kotzebue-today-bethel-tomorrow-then.html • And there was no analysis of the feedback they received. So, when they were doing the maps, a board member might comment about someone who said they should do this or that.
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But they had nothing to refer to which might show how many people agreed or not. But even that would have only been the tiny percent of people who went to the hearings. In sharp contrast the State Department of Transportation, for example, hires consultants to run their public hearings. They come prepared with professionally designed visual aids that clearly outline the problems faced, the possible options, what those options would look like and cost, and how the participants can usefully participate. They post notices in the newspapers and on the radio, send fliers by mail and email to affected citizens, and further information is available on their website for the public to study before the meeting. They study all the feedback and publish it using tables and charts. Nothing like that happened. Instead they spread out across the state at great expense in money and time where they were met with generally small groups of people. Often these were the professionals hired by the communities and Native organizations to represent their interests. For example, they flew to Unalaska (pop, @3800) and Cold Bay (pop. @ 75). Airfare to Cold Bay, via Unalaska, from Anchorage is about $900 round trip. Three people went, so that’s about $2700. Their notes say that nine people attended the Unalaska meeting and six the Cold Bay meeting. But only three people actually testified at each hearing. The nine attendees in Unalaska were the Planning Director, seven people representing the City of Unalaska, one person representing himself, and the Legislative Information officer, where the meeting was. The three people who testified were the planning director and two council members. That’s $180 per attendee, not counting pay for the board members and staff, and six hours plus roundtrip to Unalaska and Cold Bay and waiting time. Or $450 per person testifying. There’s no doubt it is beneficial for the Board to see the different parts of the State and hear from people there how redistricing impacts them, and presumably the local attendees were pleased they took the effort, even if they were only in the hearing space and then quickly left town. Given the time and money they spent on these 15 people, six of whom testified, they could have sent a DVD with an explanation of the process and maybe highlighted local issues and then called all the households in Cold Bay for feedack. Would they have gotten less feedback? I’m guessing they would have gotten more. This is far beyond anything the Board considered. How much of the board’s budget was spent on travel? How much was spent on getting people to the meetings, on educational materials for the public, and on reviewing and analyzing the feedback? I’d argue that 95% for the travel and 5% for the rest probably overestimates ‘the rest.’ Another contrast is to the huge amount the Board spent on the VRA expert and on the staff attorney who also had expertise in the VRA and the general redistricting process. They had no one with any specialized expertise in publicity and public participation.
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I’ve gone into considerable detail here to make my point. The submission’s facts are pretty much accurate, but the missing facts make the story they tell less glowing. I’ve focused on the Publicity and Participation because it’s the section I know most about. The submission makes the Board’s actions look very professional, when, in fact, they were ad hoc without any real expertise in this field. I would suggest that those reviewing the Alaska Redistricting Board’s submission, carefully read between the lines in all the sections. They did hire a VRA consultant and their staff attorney had experience with these things, plus they had a GIS expert. But they were the only people who were applying professional technical knowledge and skills to this process. The rest reflected a lay person’s understanding of modern management and analytic skills and techniques.
Sincerely, Steven E. Aufrecht, PhD
Note: While these comments have focused on what I see as shortcomings of the Board, I must also reiterate that the staff were very cooperative and helpful throughout the process. They worked hard under the pressures of deadlines, of the grueling travel schedule, dealing with complex systems and voluminous data, and all this with a very short learning curve in an organization that did most of its work in a three month period. I appreciate their responsiveness to my questions and requests during the process.
2011-2995
I’m responding to the Submission of the Alaska Redistricting Board. I’m a professor emeritus of public administration at the University of Alaska Anchorage and a blogger who attended nearly all of the Anchorage Redistricting Board meetings and public hearings. My blog posts about the Board are listed and described at www.whatdoino-steve.blogspot.com/p/redistricting. After an overview, I will focus on the Publicity and Participation section of the report, which I would characterize as not untruthful, but misleading. It’s the job of the attorney to present his client’s information in as positive a light as possible. My submission is intended to add shadow and perspective. I would also awknowledge that the Board staff and most of the Board members were helpful and cooperative throughout the process - answering questions, providing documents, and otherwise assisting me and others attending meetings. Overview My general sense is that the Board’s top priority was to avoid trouble getting clearance from the DOJ. After approving their draft plan, when they saw that some private plans maintained nine Native districts, they worked hard to create a reasonable nine district plan. Board members Marie Greene and PeggyAnn McConnochie worked particularly hard on this. They traveled widely and listened carefully and were determined to accommodate Native concerns - such as keeping traditionally connected villages and keeping the same language groups in the same House districts. While they couldn’t meet all the demands, their demeanor at the meetings and the efforts they made at creating alternative maps convinced me of their sincerity in this effort. However, the focus on the Native Districts meant, in the words of board member Bob Brody, “We’re spending 90% of our time on 10% of the population.” That was a little exaggerated, but close. And as that board member feared, when they got to Anchorage and Fairbanks, there was little time for a full and open public process. The projected maps moved quickly across the
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screen and it was hard to see exactly where the lines were being drawn and whose district was being affected. They would say, “We have to do this, because of how the Native Districts fell out.” Though previously they’d said that Anchorage and Fairbanks’ population density would make it easier to have fair districts. Coincidentally, it was Anchorage and Fairbanks where there were enough Democratic seats that they were able to pair Democratic incumbents while creating adjacent open districts. By pairing two Democratic Senators in Fairbanks next to an open Senate district, and by putting the only African-American legislator (Anchorage Senator Bettye Davis) into a more Republican district, they have made it much harder for the Democrats to keep the 10-10 tie that now exists in the State Senate.That tie has meant a bi-partisan coalition in the Alaska Senate that has worked cooperatively to the benefit of Alaska. They’ve also paired Southeast Alaska Native and Democratic Senator Al Kookesh with Republican Senator Bert Stedman. Thus there is a good possibility that Alaska Natives will lose one Native Senator and that Alaska’s only African-American legislator will not return after the 2012 elections. Without the threat of DOJ rejection of the plan, I doubt the Board would have worked so hard to prevent retrogression. But, they also used the need to maintain Native Districts to put Fairbanks Democratic representative David Guttenberg into a huge district that is majority Native, a district being challenged by two lawsuits from Fairbanks. Could they have created this Native district without requiring a non-Native Democratic incumbent to win a Native district to keep his seat? Probably. They had tinkered with this Fairbanks Democrat’s seat in a less egregious, but still job threatening, revampaing of his district in the draft plan. They also had to split Yupik villages that are closely connected economically, socially, lingusitically and through health systems to create this district (38). Instead of keeping those villages, like Hooper Bay which do not have running water or indoor plumbing connected to nearby Yupik hub Bethel, they paired them with a distant suburb of urban Fairbanks. You can see these two communities in contrasting videos here: http://whatdoino-steve.blogspot.com/2011/07/judge-rules-against-redistricting-board.html
I didn’t have the software that would have allowed me to draw my own maps. After watching the board and talking to representatives from AFFR, AFFER, and the Rights Coalition, and some of the other alternative plan designers, I know that coming up with the nine Native districts was not easy.
Publicity and Participation Section of the Submission I wish to address in detail the section on Publicity and Participation. It’s the part, as a blogger, I saw in detail. I regularly reviewed their website and Facebook pages (I could probably account for 500 of the hits they reported to you.)
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So let me go through the Publicity and Participation section of their report in detail. 1. “. . . the Board conducted the most open redistricting process in Alaska history. The Board took full advantage of technology, social networking tools, and new methods of online outreach to ensure the public had unprecedented access to the redistricting process.” (p. 15) a. I heard this claim about the most open process several times. I have no doubt that it’s true. The bar was very low. b. “took full advantage of technology, social networking tools, new methods of online outreach. . .” The board had a website and a Facebook page, but used only the most basic functions. It was like having an iPhone but only making calls on it. This was not a high priority of the Board chair and the sites were (more so in the first two months) not consistently updated and never gave the public a clear overview of the process. A lot of data accumulated on the site. But it was short on information useful to the general public. There was nothing that succinctly and clearly explained key issues or would educate someone so they could testify usefully. Their computer expert (Eric Sandberg) was a GIS expert dedicated to the plans and maps, not the website and Facebook pages. They got their toes wet in new technology, but they were a long way from taking even partial advantage, let alone full advantage. I’ll elaborate below. 2. “Website content included contact information, Board member profiles, copies of all draft redistricting plans, general information about the history and process of redistricting, data, maps, GIS files, and announcements and meeting agendas concerning Board meetings, public hearings, and other activities of the Board.” (p. 15) This statement is both true and misleading. -There is a link to member profiles. But the ‘profiles’ consist simply of the members’ names, who appointed them, PO Boxes, and email adresses. About 15 words per profile. Nothing about who these people are. No pictures. -General information was minimal. There was lots of data but little information that would help a citizen grasp the key concepts. There never was much to explain the complexities of the VRA or to help people understand the legitimate needs for “Native” districts. They had the GIS files and there were links to the Census Bureau training, but nothing explained what software you needed to use it, how to get it, or how expensive it was. When I asked the Board’s attorney at the first Anchorage public hearing whether the Board had some computer terminals available to the public he said he thought they did and directed me to the Executive Director. Ron Miller said it was too expensive to hire staff to teach people how to use it. When I asked how people could use the data, he said, they could draw maps the way people used to without the software. I have this exchange on video posted here: http://whatdoino-steve.blogspot.com/2011/03/video-redistricting-board-attorney.html
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-There were no user friendly explanations of the process, or how to prepare for the public hearings. You can look through the meeting announcements in Volume 5 and see that the information was minimal. Time, location, teleconference access, that they’ll take testimonry. There is no explanation of the need, for example, to balance the Voting Rights Act requirements with the State requirements for social and economically cohesive districts and compact districts. Legal requirements are posted, but not explained. This information would have helped the board deal with many of the issues people raised when they saw their own districts. For example, people in the Muldoon neighborhood of Anchorage complained they had no real connection with people in the Eagle River neighborhood. They had no idea of how compatible they were compared to many of the rural pairings. But there was no such overview availalble from the board, ever. (And while the Board noted these complaints when they did the Anchorage map, in the end, they paired Muldoon and Eagle River in a Senate seat that now jeopardizes the only African-American legislator in Alaska.) The key reason there were any people at the hearings was that the various interest groups - the Democratic and Republican Parties, the AFL-CIO, the Bush Caucus, some cities, and Native organizations paid people to be informed and to get their constituents to the meetings. If people had had to rely on the Board to know there was a meeting, no one would have showed up. This resulted in people connected to those various interest groups being the only people who showed up somewhat prepared. Another key point relates to timing. Often announcements got posted, but not in a timely way. More on that below.
3. “Members of the public were able to sign up on the Board’s website to receive frequent email updates, meeting notices, and reminders about the Board’s activities.” (p. 15) -The email notices were the best way to keep informed. The staff was extremely helpful and responsive. When I suggested ways to improve their website, they did their best to fix it. When I called they usually provided the requested information quickly. There was one glaring exception. When they did the Anchorage maps for the final plan, what was available at the meeting was not clear enough to see streets and see how incumbents were impacted. I asked for the more detailed map and was promised it at the end of the meeting. At the end of the meeting I was promised it by email in an hour. I didn’t get it until the next day. It’s impossible to know how things may have changed from what was decided at the meeting and what was published the next day. It’s possible they were just too busy to send it to a blogger. Who knows? -Timeliness On Friday, March 18, 2011 I published a post which pointed out that I had only just received the Board’s email at 5:30 pm announcing the Anchorage public hearing the following Tuesday and I
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compared this to the ‘reasonable’ requirement of the Alaska Public Meetings Act. I pointed out that the link in the email to the full schedule of public meetings didn’t work, and that finding the location was also hard. Here’s the blog post: http://whatdoino-steve.blogspot.com/2011/03/ak-redistricting-board-finally-gets.html 4. “The Board distribution list had 769 participants. All of these individuals and organizations were specifically notified of all Board meetings and actions. Staff also maintained active accounts on Facebook and Twitter to maximize the Board’s public outreach efforts.”(p. 15) a. I’m not sure how to evaluate 769 participants. It’s around 1/10 of 1% of the population of Alaska. It’s less than the population of Hooper Bay, a remote town with no running water or indoor plumbing. Is this a big number to sign up for info about a state redistricting board? I don’t know. And I’m sure this is the total by the end of the process. How many had signed up by, say, April 14? b. If by ‘active’ they mean they had a Facebook account and they put stuff on it during the three months the board was active, it’s true. If it means someone consistently updated the Facebook page and website, then it’s false. I have two blog posts with screen shots of their website and the Facebook pages documenting that there was nothing to show when or where the next meeting was. This included a Facebook calendar that said, “Nothing is scheduled” when in fact things were scheduled. Here’s a link to the April 4 post: http://whatdoino-steve.blogspot.com/2011/04/is-alaska-redistricting-board-hiding.html And the May 5 post, before their last public hearing (another was later added): http://whatdoino-steve.blogspot.com/2011/05/how-is-alaska-redistricting-board-like.html
5. “All Board meetings and public hearings were publicly noticed through electronic media and a number of the public hearings were noticed via local print media. Samples of those e-mailed and published notices are provided in Volume 5, Folder 5.” (p. 15) -How were the meetings noticed? At the first public hearing in Anchorage I asked Board Chair John Torgerson, on video, how, given the low turnout in the biggest city in the state, they planned to notify people about the other meetings. He said the meeting announcements were posted on the State of Alaska public notice website. I’m an active blogger (I blogged the legislature in 2010) and a professor emeritus of public administration. I didn’t know of the existence of this site. And at that point, it wasn’t linked on their website. I think it’s a safe assumption that except for regular state contractors and administrators, few other people are aware of the site. And it isn’t easy to find the Redistricting Board notice. It takes a lot of clicking links. I then asked whether they were going to take out ads in local newspapers. His response was, “I hadn’t thought of that.” You can see this video exchange here: http://whatdoino-steve.blogspot.com/2011/03/redistricting-board-chair-john.html
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It took a while before they started posting the meeting times and places on the Board’s website. And it was never consistently done. The one consistent place they posted was the largely unknown and clumsy to use State public notice website. This is NOT taking ‘full advantage of modern technology.’ I challenge you to find a newspaper notice in Volume 5, Folder 6 that was submitted by the Board rather than by others particularly Alaska Native organizations and local governments.
6. “Over the course of the redistricting process, the Board sent over 34,000 emails, and its posts on Facebook and Twitter generated over 26,000 impressions. Examples from the Board’s Web site, Facebook and Twitter impressions, as well as press articles regarding the Board’s activities, can be found in Volume 5, Folders 2 and 6.” (pp. 15, 16) If you have 769 people signed up for email notices and you send out 34,000 emails, that comes to 44 emails sent to the whole list over about a 90 day period. I don’t think they sent that many to the list. It would be interesting to see a breakdown of who got emails. For example, how many of those emails did they send to each other? To put their “26,000 impressions” in perspective, my little blog had just over 34,000 hits in March, April, and May of 2011 when the Board met. The Board was hampered by the fact that the Anchorage Daily News (ADN) did not assign a reporter to cover the board until the very end. But the Board also did not work to get the ADN to cover it. Nor did they ever place an ad in the state’s one newspaper that has statewide circulation. 9. “All Board meetings were open to the public and held in accordance with Alaska's Open Meetings Act, Alaska Statute 44.62.310 et seq. All Board meetings were recorded and transcribed. The audio recordings of the Board meetings and public hearings were made available for free public download via the Board’s website.” (p. 16)
a. Yes, all the meetings were open and complied with the Alaska Open Meetings Act. What that statement means is they didn’t break the law. Another pretty low bar. As I said above, the only consistent notices were on an obscure State website few people know exists. Eventually, they began to put better notices up on their website, but not consistently. b. They were recorded. The recordings were sent to transcribers who had so much trouble identifying speakers that almost no transcripts were available until the whole process was over. The audio went up in haphazard fashion. It got better toward the end. I can’t give you precise time lags, but I would guess in the beginning there simply was nothing. Later there was about a two week lag.
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The closest thing to ‘transcripts’ available to the public during the 90 day process were my rough notes of meetings occasionally posted on my blog. Here’s an example: http://whatdoino-steve.blogspot.com/2011/04/alaska-redistricting-board-april-4.html
10. “Generally, audio files of the Public Hearings and Board Meetings were posted on the Board’s website shortly after each meeting was held. Transcripts of the hearings were posted on the Board’s website as they were completed.” ((p. 16) Audio was not posted shortly after each meeting until well into the process. Transcripts were posted as they were completed. Unfortunately, the vast majority (perhaps all of them) were not completed until the process was over. 10. “Live audio access was often provided for Board meetings and public hearings via the Alaska Legislature’s online streaming media portal, including every meeting from May 16, 2011, through June 14, 2011. Live webinar access was provided for all meetings from June 1, 2011, through June 14, 2011, which made it possible for anyone with an internet connection to have both audio and visual access to the Board’s final deliberations.” (p. 16) a. They tried to have audio connection from the first meeting, though they had technical difficulties that day. It would be nice if they gave you a number instead of ‘often.’ Their dates show they had audio the last month and webinar the last two weeks. I discuss this in a May 14 post when their email alert announced that the next few sessions would have live audio. http://whatdoino-steve.blogspot.com/2011/05/alaska-redistricting-board-live.html The webinars didn’t happen until the last two weeks of the process and seemed to be precipitated by the fact that board member Holm was calling in from Fairbanks and needed to see the computer mapping screen. Only the computer screen was visible online. That was helpful - one could take screen shots of the maps which were much clearer than what appeared on the projected screen at the meetings. But there was never public wifi in the Redistricting offices, so if you attended the meeting, you couldn’t also go online. b. Access to the public hearings (as opposed to the meetings) was mostly unavailable except at the locations they were held. The Anchorage public hearings were held at the Legislative Information Office, so they were broadcast statewide. At least one hearing in Juneau was also available statewide. To my knowledge none of the others were. Nor were transcripts posted of those meetings nor audio. There were brief but useful staff synopses of them much later though (Vol 5 Folder 7). 11. “Between April 18, 2011, and May 6, 2011, public hearings on the draft plans were held in 32 communities across Alaska. During this time period, the Board and its staff logged nearly
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60,000 air miles traveling between hearing sites. Hearings were held in Anchorage, Fairbanks, Juneau, Cordova, Healy, Palmer, Delta Junction, Nome, Dutch Harbor, Kotzebue, Tok, Cold Bay, Bethel, Glennallen, Galena, Barrow, Kodiak, Sitka, Craig, Ketchikan, Wrangell, Seward, Petersburg, Homer, Kenai, Skagway, Haines, Valdez, Angoon, King Salmon, Dillingham, and Hoonah. A statewide teleconference also was held in Anchorage at the LIO on May 6th, at which time groups were invited to provide new or revised plans.” (p. 17) -There was quantity but not necessarily quality. There were no apparent criteria for chosing where they were going other than a board member suggested it or someone from the town requested they visit. The first five public hearings were held around the state, one day after another, so there was no time to reflect on what happened and how they could improve things before they went to the next one. The Board got the census data on March 15. They held their first meeting on March 16. They held their first public hearing - in Anchorage - on March 22. Anchorage organizations were supposed to have their draft plans ready in less than a week! There were complaints during the break and it was decided that the March 30 Statewide conference (in Anchorage) would allow Anchorage folks to present plans as well. 12. “The Board also held a public hearing on May 24, 2011, specifically to seek input from groups who had submitted statewide plans on the configuration of Alaska Native Districts.” (p. 17) -Private plans were due May 6 as quote 11 says. If I recall correctly, the May 24 date was added because the comments from the VRA consultant came in so late and there were revised definitions and criteria that were different from what people had originally used in their plans. From my post of May 17: “The percent of Natives and which Natives (Voting Age Population -VAP - not total population), after Handley's analysis of voting patterns from 2002 to 2008 changes things a bit. When the board asked for firm numbers, the consultant said, it isn't that easy, and listed various factors that would change the basic percentage needed - such as whether whites added to a district had voted in a bloc with or against Native bloc preferred candidates.” From: http://whatdoino-steve.blogspot.com/2011/05/voting-rights-act-andplanning-end-game.html The groups submitting private plans needed to redo the numbers - and the board needed that too because they wanted to be sure that the private plans could come up with nine Native districts with the newly understood standards. That’s why they were allowed to resubmit their amended plans on May 24. 13. “The high level of public participation in Alaska's redistricting process is reflected by the number of proposed plans submitted to and considered by the Board. In total, the Board received
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proposed statewide or regional plans from fourteen (14) different entities, both private and public. A number of these entities submitted multiple and/or revised plans.” (p. 17) -This assumes there was a high level of participation, which is questionable. The number of plans reflects the importance of redistricting to a number of groups. The key groups to submit statewide plans included: AFFR (AFL-CIO, with national funding, and some Alaska Native groups), AFFER (Essentially the Republican party); the Rights Coalition (mainly the Democratic Party); and the Alaska Bush Caucus (legislators from Alaska Native districts). These groups were poised and funded well before the Board began meeting. They sent paid staff to nearly every meeting. Their participation was not due to anything the Board did to encourage participation. 14. “The final plan adopted by the Board was one drafted by the Board that took bits and pieces of what the Board thought were good ideas from various other plans it had considered, as well as public input from its hearings. The Board was very cognizant of public testimony and attempted to accommodate the wishes of the public when it was possible to do so consistent with its obligations to comply with federal and state laws.” (p. 17) There was a fair amount of testimony and two or three thick notebooks of letters. But there was no serious analysis or compilation of that data so Board members could see how many people supported particular points. Their use of public input was anecdotal - what they personally remembered. The Board did attempt to utilize input about neighorhoods - and would say things like “people wanted us to put these two neighborhoods togehter” - when it was convenient and didn’t when it was inconvenient. One could tell that board member McConnochie agonized over maps of Southeast Alaska. First round, for example, they split off the Native community of Saxman which sits inside of Ketchikan on the grounds they needed the numbers for a Native district. Then they got feedback not to split it out and they put it back. Marie Greene and Peggy McConnochie expressed convincingly at meetings their frustrations of trying to both meet the requests of villages and the need to get districts of equal size. I believe the Board worked hard to accommodate requests they remembered from hearings. It wasn’t possible to accommodate them all because many were contradictory. Others appeared physically impossible to carry out. There were only a few instances where it seemed the Board made decisions that were strongly objected to by the communities. A couple of these - such as including Ester in District 38 - have resulted in lawsuits.
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Final Thoughts The Board’s attempts at publicity were minimal. Their participation efforts were ‘quantity, not quality.” This is reflected in their report which tells you they logged 60,000 air miles, but offers you no materials that were used to prepare citizens to understand the process at hearings, and no summary or analysis of the feedback they got. There are some notes - some handwritten, some typed - with data on 23 of the 32 public hearings. I understand that they were only done for those meetings where only part of the board was present, so the other members could have an idea of what they missed. This (and the correspondence log) is the only attempt I witnessed to document feedback. But even these are just notes or the pile of letters, and there is no summary of the feedback or anaylysis. The Board’s citizen participation efforts do not reflect the sophisticated techniques that have been developed in this field in the last 40 years. Some examples of the very rudimentary way this was undertaken: • Determining where to visit was ad hoc. They began with the places the previous board had been. Then board members suggested other places and they agreed. Or communities invited them and they agreed. No suggestion for a new location at a public meeting was turned down. Individual board members sometimes offered reasons - PeggyAnn McConnochie said they needed to visit Southeastern communities because they would be losing a seat and so there would be special problems. But there was never an organized look at possible sites to visit, they just added and added and added new sites.
• Notice to communities they were visiting was minimal - the state public notices website, an obscure and hard to use site was the key location. As things progressed there were regularly, but not completely reliable, notices on the Board’s website. The board placed no ads in newspapers, sent out no mailers to the public, except to those who subscribed to their email list. There was attendance at hearings only because interest groups notified their constituents and/or small communities themselves put out ads. The media did cover local hearings, but no traditional media regularly covered the Board and when they did, not in depth.
• There was no attempt to educate the public on the process. While a fair amount of data accumulated on the Board’s website over the three months, there was almost nothing that gave citizens a useful overview of the process, the issues, and particular questions for specific districts. All that work was done by the special interest groups. I tried to do a little of that on the blog a few times. Here’s my post for the Kotzebue public hearing for example: http://whatdoino-steve.blogspot.com/2011/03/kotzebue-today-bethel-tomorrow-then.html • And there was no analysis of the feedback they received. So, when they were doing the maps, a board member might comment about someone who said they should do this or that.
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But they had nothing to refer to which might show how many people agreed or not. But even that would have only been the tiny percent of people who went to the hearings. In sharp contrast the State Department of Transportation, for example, hires consultants to run their public hearings. They come prepared with professionally designed visual aids that clearly outline the problems faced, the possible options, what those options would look like and cost, and how the participants can usefully participate. They post notices in the newspapers and on the radio, send fliers by mail and email to affected citizens, and further information is available on their website for the public to study before the meeting. They study all the feedback and publish it using tables and charts. Nothing like that happened. Instead they spread out across the state at great expense in money and time where they were met with generally small groups of people. Often these were the professionals hired by the communities and Native organizations to represent their interests. For example, they flew to Unalaska (pop, @3800) and Cold Bay (pop. @ 75). Airfare to Cold Bay, via Unalaska, from Anchorage is about $900 round trip. Three people went, so that’s about $2700. Their notes say that nine people attended the Unalaska meeting and six the Cold Bay meeting. But only three people actually testified at each hearing. The nine attendees in Unalaska were the Planning Director, seven people representing the City of Unalaska, one person representing himself, and the Legislative Information officer, where the meeting was. The three people who testified were the planning director and two council members. That’s $180 per attendee, not counting pay for the board members and staff, and six hours plus roundtrip to Unalaska and Cold Bay and waiting time. Or $450 per person testifying. There’s no doubt it is beneficial for the Board to see the different parts of the State and hear from people there how redistricing impacts them, and presumably the local attendees were pleased they took the effort, even if they were only in the hearing space and then quickly left town. Given the time and money they spent on these 15 people, six of whom testified, they could have sent a DVD with an explanation of the process and maybe highlighted local issues and then called all the households in Cold Bay for feedack. Would they have gotten less feedback? I’m guessing they would have gotten more. This is far beyond anything the Board considered. How much of the board’s budget was spent on travel? How much was spent on getting people to the meetings, on educational materials for the public, and on reviewing and analyzing the feedback? I’d argue that 95% for the travel and 5% for the rest probably overestimates ‘the rest.’ Another contrast is to the huge amount the Board spent on the VRA expert and on the staff attorney who also had expertise in the VRA and the general redistricting process. They had no one with any specialized expertise in publicity and public participation.
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I’ve gone into considerable detail here to make my point. The submission’s facts are pretty much accurate, but the missing facts make the story they tell less glowing. I’ve focused on the Publicity and Participation because it’s the section I know most about. The submission makes the Board’s actions look very professional, when, in fact, they were ad hoc without any real expertise in this field. I would suggest that those reviewing the Alaska Redistricting Board’s submission, carefully read between the lines in all the sections. They did hire a VRA consultant and their staff attorney had experience with these things, plus they had a GIS expert. But they were the only people who were applying professional technical knowledge and skills to this process. The rest reflected a lay person’s understanding of modern management and analytic skills and techniques.
Sincerely, Steven E. Aufrecht, PhD
Note: While these comments have focused on what I see as shortcomings of the Board, I must also reiterate that the staff were very cooperative and helpful throughout the process. They worked hard under the pressures of deadlines, of the grueling travel schedule, dealing with complex systems and voluminous data, and all this with a very short learning curve in an organization that did most of its work in a three month period. I appreciate their responsiveness to my questions and requests during the process.
