His 136-page decision, released Friday, is in the case brought by residents of the Goldstream Valley and Ester who said they should be in a Fairbanks district, not one that extends to the Bering Sea.
The Peloponnesian war arises in a discussion about choice and necessity and Balto pops up in a footnote about how Fairbanks is hub to rural Alaska and that the 1925 serum run began in Nenana.
While he rejected claims that partisan politics led to several key decisions, McConahy called for changes to four districts, saying the Alaska Redistricting Board plan failed to pass constitutional muster.
If upheld, the decision could mean eight to 10 districts out of 40 statewide could be redrawn in major or minor ways, said Mike Walleri, attorney for plaintiffs George Riley and Ron Dearborn.
Regardless, the case is probably going to the Alaska Supreme Court by mid-March, continuing a complicated process driven by the need to take population changes into account from the 2010 Census and draw new boundary lines.
In the Fairbanks area, the judge said the land along College Road that had been dubbed the “Kawasaki finger,” has to be removed from House District 1, a term that was not used in the court ruling.
He concluded the “appendage” was not added for partisan reasons and agreed with the contention by redistricting board member Jim Holm that the boundary was created to keep the district population at the right level.
Still, the judge said the district is not as compact as it should be and the appendage should be removed.
He also said, following up on an earlier decision, House District 2 has to be redrawn because it is also not compact. House District 2 includes North Pole, Eielson and Fort Wainwright.
In Article VI, Section 6, the Alaska Constitution says, “Each House district shall be formed of contiguous and compact territory containing as nearly as practicable a relatively integrated socio-economic area.”
This time around, each of the 40 House districts is supposed to contain about 17,755 people.
In one of those proposed Fairbanks districts, the College area and Chena Ridge are connected to the Tanana Flats, which provides a direct link to Salcha. The Tanana Flats connection allows Chena Ridge, House District 5, to be joined to Salcha for Senate District C. The judge rejected claims this was done for partisan purposes.
“My issue was that I wanted to get the farmers together with the farmers of the other side,” Holm testified.
The judge said Holm’s testimony was that the Senate District including Chena Ridge and Salcha “was desirable in order to unite the farmers in the Rosie Creek area and the Salcha area.”
“The plaintiffs argued that Holm’s testimony about his desire to reunite farmers was not credible because there was no evidence of a substantial number of farmers in Proclamation Senate District C. The plaintiffs concluded that there was ample circumstantial evidence that a more likely reason for the inclusion of the Tanana Flats into Proclamation House District 5 was for partisan political purposes.”
“As discussed earlier, the court does not find that this choice was influenced by partisan affiliation,” the judge wrote.
The plaintiffs alleged that if Salcha were not linked to Chena Ridge, it would have been impossible to put Sen. Joe Thomas and Sen. Joe Paskvan in the same district.
McConahy said the Tanana Flats had to be put in some district and it was not unreasonable to put it in one that connected Chena Ridge and Salcha.
As a result of the changes in the other Fairbanks districts, the Chena Ridge/College/Tanana Flats district may be revised, but it’s too soon to say how.
The judge found that House District 38, which includes Goldstream, Ester and points west to the Bering Sea, does not meet the constitutional requirement for “socio-economic integration” and has to be reconfigured.
As to what integration of that sort entails, he wrote that a delegate to the constitutional convention said, “What it means is an economic unit inhabited by people. In other words, the stress is placed on the canton idea, a group of people living within a geographic unit, socio-economic, following if possible, similar economic pursuits.”
There is no mathematical definition, but connecting Goldstream and the Bering Sea does not fall within a reasonable interpretation of what the term means, according to the judge.
The fourth district in question, House District 37, which includes Bethel and the western Aleutians, is not a compact district, and has to be redrawn, he said.
The next step is a redistricting board meeting Tuesday in response to the court ruling.
Dermot Cole can be reached at cole@newsminer.com or 459-7530.
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