Editorial 13.8, November/December 2011, by Deirdre Helfferich Give Us Less Representation! The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner has been doing a good job of covering the redistricting battle. Now the official court proceedings have begun, and witnesses are on the record calling the creation of these ludicrous districts by its proper name: political gerrymandering. Hear, hear! And many, many thanks to Ester resident George Riley and Goldstream resident Ron Dearborn for taking on this legal tangle, and to the Ester/Goldstream Legal Defense Fund. The fundraiser held here in Ester on November 27 was sparsely attended, but as it was Thanksgiving weekend, that wasn’t too surprising. (The fund, by the way, can still use donations: see www.estergoldstreamlegaldefensefund.org for maps of the proposed districts, news links, analysis, and other information about the redistricting attempt and the lawsuit.) Many people who could not attend the fundraisers (and some who could) have still donated to the account in the fund’s name at Wells Fargo in Fairbanks. Of course, this whole mess would have been much less likely had Alaskans not stupidly voted in 2010 to have less say in their government. The main reasons I recall that were given for opposing Ballot Measure 1, which would have amended the state constitution to increase the state legislature by six members (two in the Senate and four in the House) and therefore add districts, were 1) keep government small and therefore less expensive, and 2) it would decrease the proportional power of each legislator. (That little gem came from—guess who? Randy Ruedrich, chairman of the Alaska Republican Party!) Gee. And now Mr. Ruedrich is all over this new redistricting plan, praising it as “fully compliant with the Voting Rights Act.” Well, adding six new legislators would have helped rural districts too, and complied with the Voting Rights Act without creating the temptation for making these giant, distorted, gerrymandered districts that violate Alaskans’ right to representation that actually represents them. Travel burdens for large, sprawling rural districts are proportionately much greater than for compact urban ones. Regular constituent meetings are much more difficult. (It’ll be really hard for somebody in Bethel to get to Ester, or vice versa, to meet their representative if the Alaska Redistricting Board’s plan goes through.) Districts in rural areas have to span hundreds of miles and cover many small communities to reach the designated district population, thus increasing the travel costs for those legislators and the districts’ residents, and thus disproportionately decreasing the power of those districts’ citizens to participate in state government. The federal Voting Rights Act of 1965 was enacted so that citizens would have the best representation possible. The state constitution requires districts to be set as socioeconomically integrated and as contiguous as possible, so that people can be better represented by a single legislator per district. However, as the state population grows, this is more and more difficult to achieve, because the less-populated rural districts have to get bigger until we finally have the lovely mess the Alaska Redistricting Board has brought before us. Since Alaska became a state, the population has tripled but the district representation has not kept pace. In 2000, each House district had about 15,600 people. Now, with the same number of districts and with a state population of more than 710,000 people, that works out to 17,755 for a House district and 35,310 for a Senate district. So, it is now even more difficult for a district to be contiguous and socioeconomically integrated. The Alaska Redistricting Board didn’t have an easy job—but they didn’t have to screw the voters, either. The Republican Party is of course drooling over the possibility that, should they win this case, they’ll get rid of a few Democratic legislators by wiping out representation in the Fairbanks area and elsewhere. After all, the last thing they want is to have Democrats represented. Government is all about the winners taking all the power and lording it over the rest of us peons who shouldn’t be allowed any say. And the best way to keep folks you don’t want in government out is to convince the voters that “Big Gummint” is the problem, and then they’ll even help you keep them down! Ah, spin and propaganda—such wonderful aids to the tyrant. I think that “Less Representation!” is a pretty uninspiring rallying cry, but that’s what, unfortunately, carried the day (although, of course, those I heard opposing it were mouthing the brainless “government doesn’t need to be bigger” line—that’s a tried and true euphemism for the same thing). Big Bureaucracy is a problem—but it’s not at all the same thing as more legislative districts. People in Alaska seem to have forgotten that they are supposed to be the government. And when there are more people, there should be better representation, and more of it, not less. So, Alaska, 60 percent of you in November 2010 wanted to be less well represented. Well, not only did you get what you wanted, you stuck us with it too. The Redistricting Board’s plan is just the icing on that particular cake. | ||
 | | |
