Associated Press
Virginia House Speaker William J. Howell (R)
Virginia Republicans spent Martin Luther King Day redrawing state Senate district lines in their favor, taking advantage of the fact that one of their colleagues -- an African-American civil rights activist -- was away from the chamber for the inauguration of the nation's first African-American president. They then adjourned in memory of Confederate General Stonewall Jackson.
If the mid-decade, re-redistricting plan became law, the state Senate, currently an even split between Democrats and Republicans, would be heavily tilted in the GOP's favor.
But it wasn't entirely up to state Senate Republicans to stack the deck because their scheme had to also pass Virginia's House of Delegates. To the relief of Democrats, that didn't happen.
House Speaker William J. Howell effectively killed the GOP's surprise Senate redistricting plan Wednesday, taking one of the most contentious issues off the table in this year's General Assembly session.
Howell (R-Stafford) used a procedural move to scrap the proposed map.... Calling it a "vast rewrite of Senate districts," Howell ruled that the map was not germane to the legislation to which it had been attached. His decision rids the General Assembly of an issue that has heightened partisan tensions and threatened to derail Gov. Robert F. McDonnell's transportation funding overhaul.
Keep in mind, this wasn't redistricting; this was re-redistricting. The state Constitution mandates that district lines be draw after the decennial census, in 2011, that's exactly what Virginia policymakers did.
But since Democrats were in the majority at the time, Republicans don't like that map, and hoped to redo it.
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Chalk another one up to renewed progressive clout, from the grassroots. This kind of activism was nowhere to be found in 2009-2011. This must be sustained through the midterms...
the effort must not only be sustained through the midterms it must be increased dramatically in the gerrymandered states to overcome the tilted playing fields there.
a vewy quiet (as in "sssh, i'm hunting wabbits") grassroots GOTV campaign must be mounted. if the cons think they've got it made they won't turn out in huge numbers and may be open to lib voter ambush.
It's past time that re-districting was removed from the parties, either party.
agreed. This needs to be done by a non-partisan panel that will ensure fair and effective representation that actually facilitates the will of the people.
I would add that districts are supposed to put the elected representative within reasonable proximity to the constituents he serves. That's so constituents can physically meet with their congressman when the need arises. These funky shapes, intended to distribute Republicans among districts so there's just enough to win each of them, are a dead giveaway that there's something sneaky afoot.
Yes. We in California have demonstrated that when you do non-partisan districts created by a citizen commission, you totally get rid of right wing Republicans, and turn the Republicans into the political equivalent of the extinct Dodo Bird. We now have a 2/3 Democratic majority in both houses of the state legislature, which means the fiscal mess can finally be straightened out without all the Republican bull excrement to slog through.
Fair redistricting is fatal to Republicans.
Which is why they'll let it happen on the 5th of never, anywhere else.
Didn't somebody named DeLay end up in a world of hurt over a similar move in Texas a few years ago?
That was my first thought.
DeLay actually got away with that one, other than one of the gerrymandered districts having to be redrawn. That was in 2003, again mid-decade. What finally caught up with him was money-laundering related to campaign finance violations, all tied up with Jack Abramoff and Grover Norquist and the K Street Project.
He is a total sleaze, in my opinion. Started his adult life as a pest exterminator and then figured there was something more lucrative in politics. And for a while there was.
Get rid of the electoral college.
Agreed. It would solve (or most) of the problems with elections.
there is nothing inherently wrong withe electoral college. it was conceived to give more weight to the low population (rural) states to balance the high population (urban) states. it is more in keeping with the idea of a republic than a direct election. think the reason for a House and Senate.
one change i would like to see would be to ban reporting of poll results (including exit polls) until the last polling place has closed. this way nobody stays home because an election has already been called and the down-ticket races receive their fair share of representation.
of course, Massachusetts will still be called for the Democratic candidate by noon.
Can we just declare that "public servants" in Virginia are an oxymoron?
What really needs to happen is MEANINGFUL redistricting. What we have now is still a gerrymandered mess, both state legislature and congressional. I live in VA 7th congressional district. Eric Cantor would never have kept his seat if the VA 7th included the eastern part of Henrico county, as well as the western. We need meaningful representation.
I, for one, am relieved. '11 was the first year that, after the first redistricting, Creigh Deeds became my state Senator (even though I live almost "next door" to his home base, the old lines cut our town off). It was a long haul for him with half of the territory new to him but, with the "help" of a tea-infused "businessman" as challenger, he managed to scrape by. This time, he was pretty much cut out of the running (almost entirely new territory, and unfriendly with it), while I was thrown into a bag of a (Republican, naturally; can't have a college town in a Dem domain) Senator who, most likely, couldn't point out our location if he tried...
Is Virginia trying to be the Arizona of 2013?
No, they're just going back to Jim Crow Virginia.
Is there any sensibility in limiting the ratio of the district's perimeter divided by the district's area? If you compare that number to the county or school district or state, might there be a reasonable upper limit?
Question: Can the redistricting done by a democratic majority after the 2011 census be characterized as gerrymandering? Why or why not?