ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, December 5, 1995 TAG: 9512050087
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: RICHMOND
SOURCE: DAVID M. POOLE STAFF WRITER
BLACKS AND THE GOP may find themselves on the same side of the fence, hoping a lawsuit challenging the shape of Virginia's 3rd Congressional District fails.
Some Virginia Republicans wish Texas conservative Edward Blum would butt out.
Blum's organization, Campaign for a Color Blind America, is paying for a lawsuit in Virginia that challenges the boundaries of the black-majority 3rd Congressional District, which stretches from Richmond to Norfolk.
Blum understands that if the lawsuit prevails, one of the biggest losers could be Virginia Republicans. "If it hurts the Republican Party, so be it," Blum said.
The 3rd District lawsuit - patterned after a challenge in Georgia that succeeded in the Supreme Court - has exposed a schism within Republican ranks.
Some, like Blum, are outspoken in their philosophical opposition to race-based districts that have boosted minority representation in Congress and state legislatures. Pragmatists dislike racial preferences, but realize that concentrating blacks in voting districts dilutes Democratic strength in adjacent areas.
Many Republicans are quietly rooting against the lawsuit, but few will stand up and be counted. "No one's going to say, `Yes, we want to put as many blacks [as we can] in districts so we can quarantine them,''' one Republican explained.
The 3rd District challenge puts Attorney General Jim Gilmore in an awkward position with the conservative wing of the Republican Party. Defending the district's boundaries could make it appear that Gilmore is defending racial preferences implicit in the Voting Rights Act.
A spokesman said Gilmore has not decided whether to defend the state or remove himself - as he did in a case in which the state opposed funding for a religious magazine at the University of Virginia.
The 3rd Congressional District has a population that is 64 percent black. To obtain this racial mix, the General Assembly cut a tortured swath across Southeastern Virginia. From Richmond, the lines dip below the James River to snap up predominately black precincts in Petersburg and Hopewell. The district extends to South Hampton Roads, where the lines lasso selected neighborhoods in Norfolk, Suffolk and Portsmouth.
The district's representative, Rep. Robert C. Scott of Newport News, is the first black from Virginia to serve in Congress since Reconstruction.
Scott, who believes the courts will uphold the district boundaries, said the General Assembly's predominant factor in drawing the district was incumbent protection, not race.
Republicans concede that the district lines make Scott virtually invincible. But GOP pragmatists also note that the district may help them in the long run by leaving the surrounding congressional districts with a bigger percentage of whites.
Republicans say clumping black - and traditionally Democratic - voters in the 3rd District may one day help the GOP take control of the 2nd and 4th districts now represented by two Democrats, Owen Pickett of Virginia Beach and Norman Sisisky of Petersburg, respectively.
"I hope the lawsuit fails, because we have a better shot the way things are when Pickett and Sisisky retire," said one Republican who asked not to be quoted by name.
The origins of black majority districts date to 1982 amendments to the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Congress sought to counter historic patterns of discrimination that made it difficult for minorities to gain representation in statehouses and in Congress.
In Democratic state legislatures around the South, white lawmakers dealt black precincts like trump cards that would protect incumbent white Democrats. Congress amended the Voting Rights Act to outlaw district lines that lessened the opportunity of minority groups to "elect representatives of their own."
Under then-President Bush, a Republican, the Justice Department interpreted the amendment to require state legislatures to draw black-majority districts whenever possible.
"Was this for partisan reasons? You bet it was," said Del. Jay DeBoer, a Petersburg Democrat.
In 1991 redistricting battles, Virginia Republicans recognized the Voting Rights Act as an opportunity to make gains in the Democrat-controlled General Assembly. The GOP formed an unlikely alliance with the all-Democrat Black Legislative Caucus. The Black Caucus wanted to increase its numbers. The GOP wanted surrounding districts to have more white voters.
Both sides achieved their goals.
Blacks will make up 10 percent of the 1996 General Assembly, up from 7 percent before redistricting.
Republicans have pulled even with Democrats in the Senate and have come within three seats of a majority in the House of Delegates.
Many of the GOP gains have come against senior white Democrats who lost large numbers of blacks to minority districts.
Analysts say the creation of black-majority districts was a major factor in the defeat last month of Sen. Hunter Andrews of Hampton, the powerful dean of the state Senate. Andrews was considered safe in his old district with a 37 percent black population. But he became vulnerable when redistricting left him with a 15 percent minority district. Andrews squeaked by in 1991, but succumbed this year to a well-funded GOP member of the Newport News City Council.
Robert Smith, a Norfolk Republican who is a plaintiff in the 3rd District lawsuit, said he is committed to fighting the notion that blacks cannot win legislative seats.
"Is it still necessary for someone to stack the deck in black people's favor? I don't think it is. It cheapens the accomplishment," said Smith, who works as a customer service representative for a local finance company.
Smith said he fears that his son will grow up in a world in which minority accomplishments are "marginalized" by set-aside programs.
"This kind of attitude perpetuates this perception about blacks in general, and I don't want my son stigmatized," he said.
Smith and fellow plaintiff Don Moon of Hampton filed the 3rd District challenge after the Coalition for a Color Blind America, based in Texas, agreed to commit at least $1 million to the fight.
"I searched two years and two months for the money to file this lawsuit," said Moon, who is chairman of the 3rd District GOP committee.
The lawsuit seeks to take advantage of a recent Supreme Court action that invalidated a congressional district in Georgia drawn using race as a predominant factor. The 5-4 decision repudiated the Bush Justice Department's interpretation of the Voting Rights Act, but stopped short of providing guidelines to states for drawing districts aimed at increasing minority representation.
``It was like an earlier case on obscenity,'' said David Bositis, senior researcher at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a black think tank. ``The court said, `We can't tell you what is obscene, but we will tell you when we see it.'''
Today, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in similar cases from North Carolina and Texas. It is unclear how long it will take the Virginia case, filed in U.S. District Court in Richmond, to work its way to the Supreme Court. A victory by the plaintiffs could require the General Assembly to redraw congressional districts.
Blum, a Houston stockbroker, said the 3rd District challenge may be only the beginning. The next step would be to challenge Virginia's state legislative districts.
Blum said he doesn't care that many Republicans fear that the lawsuit, if successful, could reverse some GOP gains in the General Assembly.
"Segregating neighborhoods based on race hurts everyone," Blum said. "The [partisan] consequences of having fair districts doesn't concern me at all."
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