The fight over redistricting is nearing an end.  The Alaska Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on the issue Tuesday and a ruling is expected to follow shortly. 

At the heart of the issue is whether the Redistricting Board’s newly drawn voting districts violate the State Constitution.  Earlier this year a lower court judge ruled that in the case of the Aleutians, they did.  Now it’s up to the Supreme Court to decide the merits of that ruling.

When the Redistricting Board drew up new boundaries last summer, they split the Aleutians at Unimak Pass, pairing communities to the west with the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta region and leaving communities to the east with Bristol Bay.

The lawsuit against the Redistricting Board claims the western pairing violates the constitutional mandate that voting districts be contiguous and compact.  In other words, it says the western Aleutians shouldn’t be represented in the State Legislature by the same elected officials that represent the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta.

The Redistricting Board counters that the configuration is necessary in order to comply with Alaska Native representation requirements.

Each side will have forty-five minutes Tuesday afternoon to argue their case in front of the Alaska Supreme Court.

Many communities are anxiously anticipating the Court’s decision.  Ernie Weiss is a spokesperson for the Aleutians East Borough, which was divided into two House Districts by the Board.  He says even if the Court rules that the new configuration is unconstitutional, that doesn’t mean the Board will revert to the status quo either.

“If they are forced to redraw the districts, anything could happen.  And it may not be favorable to the Aleutians East.  And so we are happy to be at the table, as it were, and maybe help it go our way, but we understand that the changes could go any direction.  So we are just kind of watching and waiting.”

The Borough is not party to the lawsuit, but has filed a ‘friend of the court’ brief explaining how the split affects its constituents.  Weiss says ideally the Borough would just like things to go back to the way they were.

“That was gonna happen.  They had pretty much had a district that looked the same and all the plans had the Aleutians East Borough together in the same district until about a week before they made their final choice and then they split Akutan off from the rest of the Aleutians East Borough and that got our attention and then after talking about it we didn’t really agree with that and kind of want some sort of fix.”

The Court will also hear arguments about other three other districts that were challenged in the lawsuit.  The lower court found that House Districts 1, 2 and 38, all in the Fairbanks area, were also unconstitutional.

The arguments begin at 1:30pm.