An Alaska Superior Court Judge rejected the Calista Corporation’s legal challenge to redraw the region’s state house districts. In his decision, released Feb. 16, Judge Thomas Matthews determined that the current district boundaries do not violate the Alaska Constitution and can remain in place.
Calista Corporation, along with two private individuals from Hooper Bay and Scammon Bay, sued the Alaska Redistricting Board after it issued new voting maps last year. Their complaint argued that Scammon Bay and Hooper Bay should be included in the same state house district as Bethel. By excluding them, the plaintiffs claimed that the board violated two sections of the Alaska Constitution.
First, the plaintiffs said that the board unconstitutionally violated Scammon Bay and Hooper Bay’s socioeconomic ties to Bethel by placing them in a voting district with Nome. Matthews rejected that claim. He determined that the Calista region does not have standing to sue, because it is not an organized borough. The redistricting board can consider Native corporation boundaries when drawing voting districts, but previous courts have determined that unorganized areas are not constitutionally required to be in the same house district.
Matthews acknowledged that both Scammon Bay and Hooper Bay have “less evidence of meaningful ties to Nome." But he wrote that there still are some ties, such as sharing a school district with other villages in the area and a barge that moves up the coast in the summer. Also, Scammon Bay and Hooper Bay have been included in Nome’s voting district in the past.
The plaintiffs' second claim was that the redistricting board unconstitutionally violated the Equal Protection Clause by diluting the Calista region’s voting power. The plaintiffs pointed out that Calista was the only Alaska Native Corporation land divided into three house districts and two senate districts. Matthews accepted this fact, but rejected that it violates the constitution as unequal treatment. To do that, evidence would have to show that the redistricting board intentionally discriminated against voters in the region. Matthews wrote that other Native corporations are included in fewer voting districts because they fall within borough boundaries. Also, the Calista population is too large to fit into a single house district. Calista’s proposed maps also divide the region into three house and two senate districts. Calista is, however, the only Native corporation to have full control over a single house district, and Calista has a majority in a senate district.
The Calista lawsuit was one of five legal complaints Matthews heard challenging the new redistricting map. The map is redrawn each decade to adjust for population changes. He rejected three challenges, and overturned district boundaries in East Anchorage and Southeast Alaska. Appeals are expected.
