Redistricting likely to affect rural representation

The state's political map is about to be redrawn, and there's a good chance that Southeast and Bush Alaska districts could be swallowed up as those areas' populations drop and Southcentral grows.

Hoping to maintain representation from the state's most rural areas, some legislators from Southeast and Bush Alaska want to add four senators and eight representatives to the 60 already working in the state Capitol.

Just as the move gets going, though, some senators are suggesting it may not roll far. Senate President Gary Stevens, R-Kodiak, told reporters Tuesday morning that he doesn't expect the bills adding lawmakers to pass this session. And Sen. Lyman Hoffman, a Bethel Democrat whose district is at risk of serious changes, seemed skeptical as well.

Perhaps that's because half the state's population lives in Southcentral, where voters could hone in more on the increasing costs of adding politicians and have less concern for rural area issues. Voters in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough, which has grown substantially in the past decade, could also be reluctant to make a move increasing the size of Alaska's government.

An increase in the number of lawmakers would require that voters pass a constitutional amendment, and time is running out. Census workers are tallying men, women and children across the state now. Those figures will be turned over to the state's redistricting board in about a year. Then districts will be redrawn with the help of complex computer programs, keeping together as much as possible communities that share geography and socioeconomic characteristics. Changes would take place stating with the 2012 election.

Although numbers aren't official, the state's Department of Labor is estimating Alaska's population at 700,000. That would call for legislative districts of about 17,500 people each.

Rural districts are already far shy of that level. The Ketchikan area is 3,000 to 4,000 people off; the North Slope is about 3,000 short. Kodiak, too, is roughly 4,000 people shy, and Bristol Bay about 3,000 off.

Gordon Harrison, who served on the state's last redistricting board, said he expects the state will lose House Districts 5 and 6, as well as Senate District C -- they'd be gobbled up by surrounding districts.

Senate District C is a massive expanse represented by Sen. Albert Kookesh out of Angoon in Southeast. The district covers more than 100 communities, from southeast islands to Arctic Village, hundreds of miles north, and west across the Interior.

House District 6, represented by Rep. Woodie Salmon of Chalkyitsik, is the size of Texas and spans the middle of the state from the Canadian border on the east nearly to Norton Sound on the west. And House District 5, now represented by Rep. Bill Thomas of Haines, covers most of the Southeast area except for population centers around Juneau, Sitka and Ketchikan.

"Redistricting without this measure is going to create some really big rural districts, even larger than they are now," Harrison warned.

Lawmakers have this session, which ends April 18, to pass a resolution in order to get the increase on the 2010 ballot if the rural seats at risk are to be saved under the 2011 redistricting plans.