The board that is redrawing Alaska's internal political boundaries got its first look Thursday at what the state's biggest political players are hoping for when it comes to carving up political territory.
The Alaska Redistricting Board needs to come up with a preliminary plan by April 14 that adjusts the boundaries of the state's 40 legislative districts to account for population shifts while still maintaining strong Native districts as required by the U.S. Justice Department.
The Republican and Democratic parties, the Bush Caucus in the Legislature and a non-partisan group of Native groups, nonprofit organizations and labor unions all invested in expensive mapping software similar to what the board is using so they could draw the boundaries they think best suits their political situation.
With the exception of the Bush Caucus, the groups presented detailed plans to the board Thursday that they said were balanced and fair, keeping like-minded communities together as much as possible in an effort to give each district as close to 17,755 residents as possible. Federal law allows some deviation from that average population.
All the plans submitted Thursday shifted House District 5, which now includes Cordova, Haines and Southeast Alaska island communities, away from Southeast because the Southeast region lost significant population in the last decade. House District 6, which covers a large swath of Interior Alaska where population also has dropped, also was reconfigured in the plans.
The proposed plans recognize population increases in the Matanuska-Susitna region and in Fairbanks, and for the most part try to clean up some areas of Anchorage in a way that makes more sense community-wise. For instance, Eagle River would no longer be in the same district as the Hillside and South Anchorage. Government Hill neighborhoods would be in the same district instead of broken up.
Alaskans For Fair Redistricting, the non-partisan group, said its plan closely resembles the current legislative districts with the exception of changes in Southeast and the Interior. The group posted a 60-page report including maps and detailed descriptions of districts on its website, akfairredistricting.com.
It handles the Interior by creating a district that stretches from Nome on the west to the Canadian border on the east. The area is unincorporated, sparsely populated and shares a heavy reliance on subsistence resources for survival, according to the detailed report. It is organized around two main geographic features -- the Bering Strait and the Yukon River -- and aims to keep a majority Native voting district intact.
The AFFR plan creates another east-west oriented district -- the Interior Rivers district -- that would run from the Tanana River communities -- Nenana, Healy, Cantwell -- on the east side to the Bering Strait communities of Hooper Bay and Emmonak on the west. It would include Eileson Air Force Base. The AFFR report says the district residents also rely on subsistence and share "extreme" energy costs.
Also under the AFFR plan the Copper River area would be consolidated with Valdez, Bristol Bay and the Aleutian chain would be combined in a single district and Kodiak and Prince William Sound would be together in a single district.
Vicki Otte, a spokeswoman for AFFR, said it was also a priority for the group to make sure incumbent lawmakers would not be forced to run against each other. That was accomplished everywhere but Southeast where one district was lost and the others had to be consolidated.
Five of AFFR's districts have Native majority populations and one is 35 percent Native. Otte said her group strove to protect rural Alaska and make sure it continues to have a voice.
Under the Republican plan -- presented by a group calling itself Alaskans for Fair and Equitable Redistricting that incudes party chairman Randy Ruedrich -- three districts were majority Native and one was an "influence" district with a large Native population. Currently, there are four Native majority districts and two influence districts, so the loss of strong Native districts could be a problem under Justice Department scrutiny.
The AFFER plan generally keeps the large northern House District 40 intact as well as the western districts covering Nome and Bethel. The GOP party plan creates a huge district in the Interior that surrounds the Fairbanks area and sweeps down along the Canadian border to Southeast.
The Democratic Party seeks to align legislative districts within borough boundaries, in keeping with past court rulings. The party presented two plans, including one that focuses on making sure there are four Native majority districts and two influence districts.
The "rights" plan creates 16 districts in Anchorage, five in the Mat-Su Borough, five in the Fairbanks North Star Borough, three in the Kenai Borough and one in the Juneau Borough with 10 districts out of the major population centers. The group said boroughs and cities within Alaska are socio-economically integrated so divisions along those lines makes sense.
All the groups told the board they plan to submit plans that are more finely tuned as the process moves along.
The board is continuing to take testimony throughout the state and said it hopes to release a proposed plan by April 12.
Contact Patti Epler at patti(at)alaskadispatch.com