An Alaska judge has ruled against the lawsuit filed by the Mat-Su Borough against the Alaska Redistricting Board.
In his opinion, dated Wednesday, Judge Thomas Matthews sided with the Redistricting board on three challenges raised by the Mat-Su.
Two of those challenges were made alongside the City of Valdez. The current map places Valdez in the same district as portions of the Palmer and Wasilla areas in District 29. Both the Mat-Su Borough and Valdez argued that the map violated constitutional requirements that districts be contiguous and that they be socio-economically linked. Judge Matthews’ opinion acknowledged the concerns raised and the consistent public testimony to the redistricting board against the way District 29 is drawn. His opinion states the decision was a close one, but that the district should remain intact.
The Mat-Su Borough and Valdez also both challenged District 36, a very large, horseshoe-shaped district that encompasses rural communities from the Canadian border in the east to Holy Cross in the west. The argument the Mat-Su Borough made was against the inclusion of Cantwell in the district, as opposed to District 30, which contains much of the rest of the Denali Borough as well as the Northern Mat-Su. Judge Matthews rejected claims that the inclusion of Cantwell made District 36 less compact than it should be and broke the ability to travel through District 30 without entering another district.
One of the overarching claims made by the Mat-Su is that all of the district that include Valley communities have too many people in them, thus diluting the voting power of the fastest-growing area in the state. Judge Matthews acknowledged that most of the more substantial deviations from the target population of a House district occur in the Mat-Su, but that the number is not large enough to throw out the Alaska Redistricting Board’s map.
All five redistricting lawsuits were heard and ruled upon together by Judge Matthews. In two of those suits, one concerning Senate districts in East Anchorage and Eagle River, and one concerning two House Districts in Southeast, Matthews ruled against the redistricting board.
Appeals by any party to Judge Matthews’ decisions will have to be made to the Alaska Supreme Court. Due to the deadline for candidates to file for office later this year, the Alaska Supreme Court has only until April 1st to decide the status of any appealed rulings.
