03/31/11: Power trumps people – again

This op-ed appeared in The Virginian-Pilot on the date shown.

WITH THE RELEASE of the House and Senate redistricting maps, it should be clear that those drawing the maps paid scant attention to the people. Instead of protecting communities of interest, the Republican majority in the House and the Democratic majority in the Senate drew lines that protected only their respective party’s power.

Virginia Beach, with a population of about 438,000, has only one complete Senate district in the city. With each Senate district ideally composed of about 200,000 inhabitants, it should have had two. Instead, the plan proposed by Senate Democrats has half of the city represented by not one, not two but three senators whose districts lie mainly outside of the city.

And then there is Norfolk. In the House Republican plan, the 87th district was moved to Northern Virginia, and its current inhabitants, including me, were split among three delegates. Again, each of those three districts lies primarily outside of Norfolk. Each House district represents 70,000 people.

It didn’t have to be this way.

College students across the state participated in a competition to draw maps of the state, using the basic principles of contiguity, equipopulation, the federal Voting Rights Act, communities of interest that are respectful of existing political subdivisions, compactness, electoral competition and representational fairness. The winning maps showed it was possible to draw the lines in such a way that accomplished these goals without gerrymandering.

We could have officially had something similar: a redistricting commission devoid of legislators drawing their own lines. Instead, we have them deciding who their constituents will be.

In her column Sunday, Virginian-Pilot editorial writer Christina Nuckols called for full-time constituents. I agree. If redistricting had been on the public’s radar for more than just the last few months, we just might have been able to persuade our legislators to do the right thing by us and pass legislation creating an independent redistricting commission. Such legislation has been introduced over and over, particularly since 2008, when control of the two chambers was split between the parties. While it managed to pass the Senate a couple of times, it never made it to the floor in the House for a vote.

Other states manage to use such commissions, with the result being more competitive elections — you know, the ones where we get to pick our representatives instead of their picking us. A report from last December states that “removing partisan control over state district lines translated into a 21 percent lower rate of uncontested general elections, as well as a 14 percent lower average margin of victory in contested races.”

Gov. Bob McDonnell, not much of a fan of independent redistricting commissions, belatedly appointed a bipartisan commission to advise him on his contribution to the redistricting process. We will know how much influence the commission has on the governor shortly, but truth be told, the governor’s role isn’t as significant as that of the two chambers.

The General Assembly will take up the redistricting plans in a special session starting next week. There will probably be a little bit of tweaking, but by and large, the plans released Tuesday will be approved. Mc-Donnell could follow the example of former Gov. Doug Wilder and veto the plan, but I’d be surprised if he did.

And so for the next 10 years, Virginia will once again live with the lines drawn by those who put power over the people. Sometime between now and 2021, I hope we will become full-time constituents long enough to pass a constitutional amendment to abolish this practice.