10/01/15: Take a look at Virginia’s redistricting proposals

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

SEEING THE maps of the redistricting plans that have been submitted in the 3rd Congressional District lawsuit takes more than a little bit of perseverance.

Despite some legal wrangling last week, all of the maps didn’t end up on the state’s redistricting website. The effort of some local people, though, makes it possible to review them.

Sept. 18 was the deadline for those involved, as well as any other interested parties, to submit a plan that remedies racial gerrymandering found by a federal court. While the defendants in the case chose not to submit a plan, the plaintiffs did, as did eight other interested parties. Briefs about the submitted plans are due by Oct. 7.

Any change in the boundaries of the 3rd will affect the surrounding districts — and could affect all 11.

Those changes have a trickle-down effect: Lines for the congressional districts guide the boundaries for state Senate, House of Delegates, and even Norfolk’s wards.

The public should be able to at least see — if not weigh in on — how the various proposals affect each of us. So putting the maps on the Division of Legislative Services website made perfect sense when it was proposed. I was mystified that the plaintiffs wanted to deny us this information.

The interactive DLS site, http://redistricting.dls.virginia.gov/2010/, was of tremendous use to all of us during the last redistricting. Two of the proposals submitted in the 3rd District case are on the site (SB 5001 and SB 5003) because they were proposed in 2011. When it was announced last week that the court had allowed the posting of the other plans, I thought it meant we’d have maps to see.

Nope.

The court’s order allowed the posting of the materials, but not the maps themselves. The materials include shape files and block assignment files, which require specialized software that DLS has — but most of us don’t. The plaintiffs’ efforts to keep the maps away from public scrutiny seemed to pay off.

Enter Code for Hampton Roads. These volunteers contribute their talents “toward improving the way our local governments and community organizations use the web.”

The group used the files posted to the DLS website to create an application that makes nearly all of maps not on the DLS website available for the public to view. The maps can be found at http://code4hr.github.io/proposed-voting-districts/ .

One other map of proposed districts is hosted on the blog of the group that submitted it. The Bull Elephant’s plan can be viewed at http://vjp.me/1Gh4Pb9.

The last plan was submitted by fax and requires no special software to review. It makes all of the congressional districts at-large statewide.

I guess the simple solution of having all of the proposed maps on the DLS website was just too much democracy for some folks to swallow. Better to keep the masses away from seeing behind the curtain — and perhaps voicing an opinion contrary to what those in the know would like.

My thanks to the court for extending the deadline for briefs on the submitted plans. I hope the public puts the five extra days to good use.