Legislature(1995 - 1996)
03/21/1995 01:05 PM House CRA
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* first hearing in first committee of referral
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
HCRA - 03/21/95 HB 247 - MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS CO-CHAIR IVAN invited Representative Al Vezey to give the sponsor statement for HB 247. Number 027 REPRESENTATIVE AL VEZEY explained the current Title 29 statutes were enacted in 1972 in response to the 1965 Voter's Rights Act. He noted there had not been any substantial changes in the statutes since then. The Voters' Rights Act have been amended on four occasions and a lot of new laws regarding voter's rights have been established by the Supreme Court. The purpose of the bill is to mandate that municipalities elect their governing body out of districts with no more than one member per district. He said it basically is the law of the land and just good democracy. Representative Vezey referred to a 1970s court case where the Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against a complaint of a violation of the Voters Rights Act and Justice Bright dissented from the Circuit Courts opinion. The Supreme Court then heard the case on appeal, overturned the Circuit Court and adopted Justice Bright's decision. The dissenting opinion became the Supreme Court's opinion ruling in favor of single member districts. Justice Bright spelled out ten reasons relating to his opinion which were quite scholarly on the fundamental principals of what democracy is. The purpose of the bill is to mandate that our municipalities follow the same procedures of every state in the union, currently required in terms of its legislature, and its elected officials be elected from single member districts. Number 103 CO-CHAIR IVAN noted, for the record, the attendance of Representative Pete Kott. He welcomed comments or questions from committee members. Number 108 REPRESENTATIVE KIM ELTON stated he didn't have a fiscal note even though he thought the sponsor made reference to one. Number 112 REPRESENTATIVE VEZEY said that there was one prepared even though it is a null fiscal note. He said he wasn't aware of any impact this would have on the state. Number 119 REPRESENTATIVE ELTON said it would have a fiscal implication for local municipalities, especially this close to the time to the last reapportionment. Number 122 REPRESENTATIVE VEZEY replied that HB 247's fiscal notes don't address political subdivisions. It would have no impact on the state. The cost on local governments would be the cost of enacting an ordinance. The local governments could decide whether or not to hire consultants to do this work. This is nothing that couldn't be done with existing resources. He said the expense would result if the party became involved in litigation or a Voter Rights Act violation. Number 137 REPRESENTATIVE ELTON said one of his concerns with the bill is it mandates the reapportionment process which would incur some cost but it also provides an open door for potential litigation allowing citizens to challenge the municipal process. This would also have a cost to the municipality. Number 150 REPRESENTATIVE VEZEY disagreed with Representative Elton's characterization. He stated one could put as many resources into a reapportionment effort that one wanted. This bill doesn't give citizens any rights that they don't currently have under law. Rather than going through the expense of having an election to ratify an reapportionment plan, we would do away with that election. This statute merely clarifies this is the process, the remedy is available to all citizens. Number 171 REPRESENTATIVE ELTON asked if the sponsor was aware of any situations in which a citizen has gone to court protesting existing municipal elections and municipal reapportionment of seats on their local assemblies or councils. Number 177 REPRESENTATIVE VEZEY answered that he knew of only two Supreme Court decisions involving a representation on county seats and both outside the state of Alaska. Number 180 REPRESENTATIVE ELTON asked whether or not there has been an expressed need for change by citizens in Alaska or if changes have been expressed through a court suit. Number 187 REPRESENTATIVE VEZEY replied that he's personally aware of someone that has considered challenging the electoral system in court. He stated that he's also aware that there was at least one municipality where there was an active movement to effect a portion of a municipality. These are issues that are related to representation. He stated one of the reasons for moving this legislation forward is due to the movement to force a change through some other legal means. Number 202 REPRESENTATIVE ELTON asked if there was anything that precludes a municipality from making the change on their own rather than having it mandated by the state. Number 211 REPRESENTATIVE VEZEY replied it can be done under existing laws. It's not illegal to do it but there are some mechanical loops that have to be gone through. Number 214 CO-CHAIR ALAN AUSTERMAN asked about Title 29. He wanted to clarify whether this bill dealt basically with schools and school boards or if the bill deals with all government bodies. Number 222 REPRESENTATIVE VEZEY answered that it deals with all government bodies. Number 224 CO-CHAIR AUSTERMAN asked how it would affect those communities that have a difficult time getting someone to run for a service district. Number 236 REPRESENTATIVE VEZEY replied that this bill didn't address what would happen if no one ran for an office. Legally, a vacancy would occur and the statutes, or ordinance, regarding how a vacancy was filled would take effect. Number 242 CO-CHAIR AUSTERMAN pointed out that someone could be appointed who wasn't necessarily interested in the vacant seat. He referred to the open school board on Kodiak Island where everyone runs that's interested. Upon the implementation of districting in Kodiak, for example, uninterested representation from the villages on the school board may occur. Co-Chair Austerman had not perceived this problem. Number 255 REPRESENTATIVE VEZEY said service districts weren't an appropriate analogy because there was no population basis for a service district but one of common political interest. If you go to a system that's different from what you currently have, there is a transition period during which people have difficulty in perceiving the change. Number 278 CO-CHAIR AUSTERMAN noted that districting Kodiak Island would create additional costs if each village became its own district because of the necessary cost of flying the representatives into Kodiak for school board meetings. He stated this bill would have some financial impact through the separate districts. Number 294 CO-CHAIR IVAN stated that he had a proposed amendment for HB 247. He commented on his small communities mentioning one village with a population of 35 people. CO-CHAIR IVAN said his amendment would exclude second class cities, including towns such as Bethel and Kotzebue, and several communities within his own district. He moved his amendment for adoption by the committee. Number 313 REPRESENTATIVE VEZEY expressed his appreciation for the work done by Co-Chair Ivan concerning the amendment. He stated it might not be an appropriate amendment because a second class city form of government has no bearing on the size of the municipality. There is some size barrier with single member districts where it would not be practical to move toward the process of democracy. Number 326 CO-CHAIR IVAN agreed to this and stated that he would discuss it later. Number 328 CO-CHAIR AUSTERMAN again referred to the villages on Kodiak Island, some with a population of 250, and stated that the number wasn't very different from the population of 35 in Co-Chair Ivan's district. He questioned determining the districts affected by the bill, by basis of population, because the makeup of the rural communities is different from that of the urban areas. Number 340 REPRESENTATIVE VEZEY said he wasn't sure of the size limit of a first class city but looking at population wasn't the right mechanics to address the problem. He agreed to further discuss this problem. REPRESENTATIVE VEZEY stated that he had his own amendment suggesting referral to a population limit. He stated that it wasn't in the original bill because he thought the committee members would want to decide amongst themselves at what level to impose this requirement for this level of representation. People's rights, under democracy, can be deminimized by at-large voting. Number 368 CO-CHAIR IVAN stated that he would like to work with Representative Vezey to come up with a compromise concerning the proposed amendment. He wants to accommodate the small rural areas that might have problems under HB 247. Number 377 REPRESENTATIVE VEZEY wanted to hear opinions from the other committee members concerning where the line should be drawn. His only suggestion was to determine it by population. Number 383 REPRESENTATIVE ELTON stated current action would be to take a philosophical approach and only apply it in certain areas. His preference, he noted for the record as being facetious, would be at 500,000 because the bill wouldn't mandate to any community. In his opinion, this bill would be telling communities what to do and what's good for them. Representative Elton stated he didn't know of a rational way to apply a number. He would be more compelled to try to come up with a number if he thought there was a problem the communities were facing and unable to solve for themselves. Number 412 CO-CHAIR AUSTERMAN agreed with Representative Elton's remarks. He also thought it difficult to come up with a number at which to draw the line. Co-Chair Austerman stated he wasn't totally in favor of this bill and questioned how it would affect school districts. Number 426 REPRESENTATIVE PETE KOTT agreed that this bill was complex. He suggested that if you looked further into the population base for some of the incorporated cities, you could come up with a reasonable number. Number 435 CO-CHAIR IVAN invited Mr. David Koivuniemi from the Division of Elections to testify. Number 438 DAVID KOIVUNIEMI, Acting Director, Division of Elections, Office of the Lt. Governor, said he was of the opinion this bill would have a fiscal impact on the Division of Elections. He is concerned about small communities with very few registered voters. Upon reduction of districts, a single household could be established as the voting area for a district. MR. KOIVUNIEMI mentioned a concern of the Division of Elections pertaining to Title 15.07.064, under which voter registration is allowed for small communities that are a single precinct without having them give a physical resident address. This bill would require a community be divided into several districts and the community itself would have to be able to identify actual address locations. He stated that within the state of Alaska, many rural areas lack street and/or post office box addresses and physical location is quite general. Administratively, the registration system currently in use is the Geographic Information Files (GIF) and is based on the physical description of a piece of property. These GIFs determine districts where a voter is registered. Currently, over 17,000 GIFs exist and with this bill, each GIF would be opened to determine districts, creating an intensive work load for the Division of Elections. Number 504 CO-CHAIR IVAN commented that this problem was similar to that faced within his community of Akiak. He stated that voter registration was done based on post office boxes. His community tried to come up with a central geographical location such as the school where addresses are listed in reference to distance from the school. He again asked members if they had comments or questions. Number 516 REPRESENTATIVE ELTON asked when a fiscal note could be made available to committee members. Number 518 MR. KOIVUNIEMI wasn't sure and he stated that he didn't want to come up with a fiscal note and say this project would be just like reapportionment. This bill does have many reapportionment aspects due to the fact that the GIFs would have to be manipulated. This adheres even to Anchorage, Fairbanks, and Juneau, where the Division of Elections would have to set up minor subdivisions for everyone in the state. Some areas would take three different additions such as Fairbanks which would include the borough subdivision, the city subdivision, the subdivisions within the borough subdivision within the city government and subdivisions within the school district. Mr. Koivuniemi said to try to come up with an estimate pertaining to the number of work hours necessary to make GIF corrections makes it difficult to come up with a fiscal note for the bill. Number 537 CO-CHAIR IVAN asked for any other questions or comments from committee members. Number 540 REPRESENTATIVE VEZEY noted the REAA's are impacted by the bill. In regard to the concerns expressed by the Division of Elections, he stated there is a point in trying to calculate how much break down is going to have to be done in the voter tabulating system. He stated the GIFs were synonymous to Census Blocks. It's pointless to break down a census block because you lose any legal basis you have for trying to subdivide the fundamental building block of census populations. These blocks vary considerably in size and it's difficult to justify breaking a census block for any purpose of calculating the equality in terms of voting. Number 567 CO-CHAIR IVAN said that he'd withdraw the amendment and work on merging the population version and his proposal. Number 571 CO-CHAIR AUSTERMAN commented that this type of discussion was held in Kodiak and the discussion didn't amount to anything because if Kodiak Island Borough was districted, the Island's six villages with no population base would have only one representative per district, whereas Kodiak City would have five. The same thing would happen to school districts where the six villages would have six representatives, and the five schools in Kodiak City would have five representatives. Kodiak Island Borough never believed they would get districting passed by a vote of the people. He asked why teleconferencing wasn't scheduled for this meeting. Number 593 TOM WRIGHT, Committee Aide, House Community and Regional Affairs Committee, Alaska State Legislature, said there were no requests for teleconferencing in time to get people on line. Number 596 CO-CHAIR IVAN stated that he would hold this bill over for further discussion. Number 598 REPRESENTATIVE VEZEY referred to Co-Chair Austerman's comment in request to how villages would be treated. If it is possible to get an accuracy of one more person, the Supreme Court just about mandates that you do. For state legislatures, there is a much looser standard. This is normally a variation of 8 to 10 percent and justification has been considered for more. State level has a considerable variance. A limited number of local reapportionment cases before the Supreme Court indicate they would look upon an even wider population variance because of the nature of the small communities. If you have seven people in the borough assembly, you have 2000 people per assembly position. You would think they would have to be combined with another population center to select someone. He asked if this wouldn't maximize their representation on the assembly and the representative would be accountable to the village people, no matter where the representative lived? Representative Vezey said this was the essence of the value of single member districts as Judge Bright outlined 20 years ago. Number 628 REPRESENTATIVE ELTON suggested that the bill sponsor send out a sectional analysis, as well as a copy of the new drafted committee substitute for HB 247, to all the communities that would be affected by this bill to give them the opportunity to respond to this legislation. He thought it would be important because if the committee is going to mandate from the state level the way that something has to be done, those affected should be aware of what was happening. Number 641 CO-CHAIR IVAN stated this was his intent also and he didn't want to pass legislation without involvement from the communities. He again stated he would hold the bill over until further notice.
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