Carpenter v. Hammond, 6728

• Decision Date: 22 July 1983
• Docket Number: No. 6728,6728
• Citation: 667 P.2d 1204
• Parties: Marilyn CARPENTER, Appellant, v. Jay S. HAMMOND, Governor of Alaska, Appellee.
• Court: Alaska Supreme Court

Page 1204

667 P.2d 1204

Marilyn CARPENTER, Appellant, v. Jay S. HAMMOND, Governor of Alaska, Appellee.

No. 6728.

Supreme Court of Alaska.

July 22, 1983.

Holli I. Ploog, Dichter & Ploog, and Francis M. Flavin, Flavin & Wickersham, Anchorage, for appellant.

Thomas M. Jahnke, Asst. Atty. Gen., Wilson L. Condon, Atty. Gen., Juneau, for appellee.

Before BURKE, C.J., and RABINOWITZ, CONNOR, MATTHEWS and COMPTON, JJ.

OPINION

RABINOWITZ, Justice.

This appeal involves a challenge to the 1981 Alaska legislative reapportionment plan promulgated by Governor Jay S. Hammond on July 24, 1981. Following a trial on this matter, the superior court entered a dismissal with prejudice in favor of the Governor and against Marilyn Carpenter, on all claims, except as to the adjustment of the boundary lines for Districts 25 and 26. On appeal, Carpenter raises two challenges to the superior court's decision. First, she argues that the methods used in identifying and excluding certain members of the military and dependents from the reapportionment population base violated the equal protection provisions of the United States Constitution and impermissibly reduced the voting strength of voters residing in districts where the military and their dependents were excluded. Second, she contends that the formation of House Election District 2 (Cordova-Inside Passage) violated Article VI, section 6 of the Alaska Constitution which requires that each new district created be formed of "contiguous and compact territory containing as nearly as practicable a relatively integrated socio-economic area."

I. Facts

In 1979, Governor Jay S. Hammond appointed the Reapportionment Advisory Board (the Board) to assist him in the decennial reapportionment of the state legislative districts. ¹ The Board, in a report dated June 10, 1981, submitted its recommended plan for redistricting of the legislature. Governor Hammond, after reviewing the report and making some modifications publicly announced on July 24, 1982, his acceptance of the Board's recommendations and signed the reapportionment proclamation. ²

In preparing its report, the Board initially had to determine an accurate population base for the reapportionment. It was thought that the United States Census count of 1980 would include a significant number of people who were not in fact residents of Alaska. The Board hired an expert in Alaskan demography and survey research to advise the Board in its assessment and treatment of groups thought to contain large numbers of non-residents. The Board's expert studied various groups, including military personnel and dependents, oil camp workers, lumber camp and fish processing employees, college students, felons, and aliens, to determine the numbers of non-residents likely to be included in the federal census count and their potential impact on state reapportionment. The expert's report concluded that the only group of potential non-residents present in significant numbers, for reapportionment purposes, consisted of military personnel and their dependents. The report contained the recommendation that a study of the military population be conducted at seven installations in the state, including Fort Richardson and Elmendorf Air Force Base in Anchorage, Fort Wainwright and Eielson Air Force Base in Fairbanks, Fort Greely at Delta Junction, the Kodiak Coast Guard Station, and the Adak Naval Base.

In order to ascertain the legal residence of military members and their dependents, the Board decided to conduct a mailed sample survey of military personnel. The survey questionnaire listed seven questions, the first three of which read as follows:

1. Do you consider your home to be in Alaska or some other state?

2. Do you plan to make your home in Alaska or some other state when you leave the military?

3. Are you registered to vote in the State of Alaska?

Military members who answered "Alaska" to the first two questions, or who answered "yes" to question three were counted as Alaska residents. The next three questions asked the following:

4. How many dependents currently live with you (spouse, children)?

5. How many of these dependents consider their home to be in Alaska and intend to make their home in Alaska in the future?

6. How many of these dependents have registered to vote in the State of Alaska?

All dependents who were listed as either considering Alaska their home and intending to make Alaska their home in the future or as having registered to vote in Alaska were counted as residents for apportionment. The last question asked the military member to indicate whether the member lived on or off the military base.

Based on the responses to the questionnaires, "non-resident population coefficients" were determined for each installation and surrounding off-base area. These coefficients were used to calculate the estimated "resident" and "non-resident" military/dependent populations at each location. The "non-resident" population figures for each area were totaled (31,363.8) and deducted from the federal census count for Alaska (400,481) producing an adjusted state population base (369,117.2). Using this adjusted figure as the population base for reapportionment, the Board computed the ideal house district population (9,228) and the ideal senate district population (18,456). ³ The legislative redistricting plan was then drawn up based on these target figures.

In the reapportionment plan recommended by the Board and adopted by Governor Hammond, the City of Cordova was included in House Election District 2 along with several Southeast coastal communities:

District 2 is composed of that portion of Southeast Alaska between Dixon Entrance and Port Gravina on Prince William Sound that is not contained in Districts 1, 3 and 4. Included within its boundaries are the communities of Cordova, Yakutat, Haines, Skagway, Klukwan, Gustavus, Angoon, Kake, Thorne Bay, Klawock, Craig and Hydaburg.

Following Governor Hammond's announcement of the new reapportionment plan, Marilyn Carpenter filed suit raising the following objections to the redistricting plan: the exclusion of military members and dependents from the apportionment population base was a violation of equal protection; in selecting the Advisory Board Governor Hammond violated Article VI, section 8 of the Alaska Constitution which provides that reapportionment board members be appointed "without regard to political affiliation"; ⁴ the failure to identify and exclude other groups of non-residents including fish processing and lumber workers, and personnel and dependents at unsurveyed military installations resulted in an inaccurate apportionment population base and substantial variations from the actual population among the districts; ⁵ and the inclusion of Cordova in District 2 along with the Southeast coastal communities violated the requirement that districts be compact and socio-economically integrated areas. Alaska Const., art. VI, § 6.

The superior court entered a final judgment of dismissal with prejudice in favor of Governor Hammond on all claims, except as to the adjustment of the boundary lines for Districts 25 and 26, which the state was ordered to correct within 30 days. ⁶ This appeal followed. ⁷

II. Does Carpenter Have Standing?

Carpenter asserts that the inclusion of Cordova in District 2 violates the requirements of compactness and socio-economic integration in Article VI, section 6 of the state constitution. ⁸ The Governor's position is that Carpenter lacks standing to raise this claim because she does not reside in or near the challenged district but resides and votes in Anchorage. The Governor further argues that a plaintiff in a reapportionment suit has no standing to assert the rights of voters in a district in which the plaintiff does not reside or vote. ⁹

Carpenter claims that her status as a registered voter of Alaska is sufficient to establish her standing to attack the reapportionment plan. She relies heavily on Article VI, section 11 of the Alaska Constitution which provides in part:

Any qualified voter may apply to the superior court to compel the governor, by mandamus or otherwise, to perform his reapportionment duties or to correct any error in redistricting or reapportionment. (Emphasis added.) ¹⁰

Carpenter argues that this constitutional provision is a general grant of standing to any voter to contest the validity of a proposed reapportionment scheme, without being required to allege any personal injury. The Governor contends that the phrase "any qualified voter" was intended to establish "a jurisdictional threshold, a first step, in addition to which one must establish standing" in order to raise a reapportionment challenge. ¹¹

We hold that Article VI, section 11 of the Alaska Constitution is dispositive of the standing issue, for it is clear that under the provisions of Article VI, section 11 "[a]ny qualified voter" is authorized to institute and maintain a reapportionment suit seeking "to correct any error in redistricting or reapportionment." Nothing in the text of Article VI, section 11, or the relevant portions of the record of the constitutional convention, furnishes justification for a judicial construction departing from the section's unambiguous text. ¹² Thus, Carpenter has standing to raise both the military exclusion and the Cordova inclusion issues.

Additionally, and apart from Article VI, section 11, we hold Carpenter has standing to challenge the reapportionment plan under this court's decisions pertaining to standing. In Moore v. State, 553 P.2d 8, 23-24 (Alaska 1976), we said in part:

As previous decisions of this court indicate, the concept of standing has been interpreted broadly in Alaska, favoring increased accessibility to judicial forums. In Coghill v. Boucher, 511 P.2d 1297, 1303 (Alaska 1973), we noted that "[i]n the past ... this court has departed from a restrictive interpretation of the standing requirement."

Whether a party has...