In Re 2011 Redistricting Cases

Summary

The court affirmed the superior court's invalidation of the Board's amended redistricting plan because the Board did not follow the required process of first designing a plan based on Alaska constitutional criteria before considering federal voting-rights requirements. The court reversed rulings requiring district-specific constitutional findings and superior-court approval of an initial constitutional plan at each drafting stage, and remanded for a new plan. The court declined to reach challenges to particular district configurations because those issues were moot after the plan was invalidated; on rehearing, it corrected the number of unchanged house districts from 36 to 22.