Unalaska, AK – The state's redistricting board has cut up Unalaska's House district 37 and divided up the Aleutians. The five-person board has been redrawing districts using 2010 U.S. Census data. Coastal Alaska to have lost population while there have been large gains in suburban areas around Anchorage, Fairbanks and the Mat-Su Valley, causing coastal areas to lose seats in the House to the rail belt's gain.

Here in the Aleutians, House district 37 which has included the eastern and western Aleutians and Bristol Bay region has been spliced at Unimak Pass. House District 37 is represented by Democrat Bryce Edgmon of Dillingham.

"Well it caught me completely off guard," said Edgmon

Now Edgmon's district includes the eastern Aleutians, Alaska Peninsula, Bristol Bay region as well as add 16 new communities in the lower Kuskokwim Delta. The western Aleutians including Unalaska and Pribilofs will be paired with Bethel and surrounding communities, making it possible that the next representative would be from the Y-K Delta.

"We have a really crazy looking district now that will unfortunately would pair Unalaska, Akutan, Nikolski, Atka, Adak and St. George and St. Paul and pair them with the Bethel House district," he said. "Looking back at previous redistricting efforts this will definitely be challenged in court."

He says a 1992 court challenge had precluded the splitting of the Aleutian Islands into separate House districts.

For the state Senate district it gets even stranger. Unalaska and the western Aleutians would still include Bethel but a new swathe of extends across the interior as far the suburbs of Fairbanks. In practical terms that means far-flung island Adak Island and interior coal mining community Healy would share a senator.

Those responsible for the new boundaries justify the map saying complex and often conflicting state and federal mandates were taken into account. The board received legal advice to maintain at least 42 percent adult Native population voters in some districts so not to disenfranchise traditional Native voting districts as required by the U.S. Department of Justice. At the same time the Alaska Constitution says districts need to be drawn along similar cultural and economic lines.

Bob Brodie is a Kodiak Republican who sat on the redistricting board. He concedes not everyone is happy with the new map but says the board needed to pair Native and non-Native populations to keep the ratio right.

"The predominant population in Unalaska/Dutch Harbor was non-native population so it was paired up with Bethel," Brodie explained. "And then the eastern villages out of the Bethel area was paired up with Bristol Bay/Dillingham to raise that voting age population."

Other proposals had Unalaska and Kodiak sharing a Senator. He says this configuration would strengthen the clout of commercial fishing in Juneau.

At least with this pairing it will allow Dutch Harbor/Unalaska to have a senator it will allow Kodiak to have a senator each of which has fishing interests in mind," Brodie said. "I tried to go into this to find the best solution that would have the least harmful impact on everybody."

After June 14 there's a 30-day window for court challenges which inevitably follow a redistricting plan. The real deadline is about 12 months away when candidates file papers to run in fall 2012 elections. Brodie says he hopes Alaska can live with the new map.

"I recognize not everybody's happy," he said. "I just hope that we all make the best of it and can get into the next legislative session after the 2012 election."

Meanwhile, Edgmon concedes that the main problem is the changing demographics of the state. But he predicts a judge will reunite the Aleutians.

"This really underscores the difficulty in drawing legislative boundaries given the fact that our population center in southcentral continues to grow and the outlying areas continue to shrink," Edgmon said. "I fully expect to see this plan challenged in court - my hope is that district 37 can return to its previous boundaries."

The new statewide redistricting map can be downloaded here: http://www.akredistricting.org/Files/Board Adopted Final Draft/Statewide.pdf