Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, March 12, 1991                   TAG: 9103120286
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B1   EDITION: STATE 
SOURCE: ROB EURE POLITICAL WRITER
DATELINE: WYTHEVILLE                                 LENGTH: Medium

REGION LIKELY TO LOSE SENATE SEAT, PANEL SAYS

The area from the Alleghany Highlands around Roanoke and south to Martinsville has lost nearly exactly enough population to eliminate one seat, said Sen. Joe Gartlan, D-Fairfax, chairman of the Senate Privileges and Elections Committee.

His committee and a similar panel in the House of Delegates have begun work this month on their plans for redrawing legislative districts following the 1990 census.

The committees will work the remainder of the month. The General Assembly is to reconvene in April to approve new lines for Senate and House districts.

At the first of a series of public hearings on the redistricting Monday night, a handful of speakers from the coal-producing counties in the far southwest urged a plan that would keep them together.

"The coal region of six counties are the energy counties of the state," said Dick Wolfe, president of Coal Technologies Corp. of Bristol. "The next decade will be the decade of our energy development. We expect to see tremendous growth in the next 10 years."

In drawing new districts, legislators are required to give weight to drawing election areas that share common interests, but Gartlan warned that the numbers may make keeping the coalfields together impossible.

The new Senate districts will have average populations of about 154,000, based in the census report of 6.2 million Virginians in 1990. That leaves the three districts in far Southwest Virginia, represented by Sen. Daniel Bird, D-Wytheville; Sen. John Buchanan, D-Wise; and Sen. William Wampler, R-Bristol, about 80,000 people shy.

Worse for the southwest interests is that Buchanan is ill with cancer. A senior member of Gartlan's committee, Buchanan missed most of the recent General Assembly session and may miss much of the redistricting battle.

"I don't see how we can help but lose a member from the area," said Sen. Madison Marye, D-Shawsville, who also sits on the Privileges and Elections panel.

Gartlan said because the region is losing population, the panel will be forced to draw a district in Western Virginia that would pit two incumbents for the same seat. The growing population in Gartlan's region, Northern Virginia, should give it two new Senate seats.

"That's the heart of the problem," Gartlan said.

Southwest Virginia Democratic senators have met privately trying to settle the issue among themselves, but still have to "iron out some details," said Bird.

In addressing the committee, Bird inadvertently slipped and mentioned that he preferred "option 2-B." That brought an immediate request from Gartlan for Bird to release the plans the Southwest Virginians are considering.

Marye kept silent and later said the option just referred to "some working papers I'm trying to draw up to see where we're going to go."

Incumbency is an issue that the legislature can consider in redrawing lines, and in the preliminary discussions of redistricting it has been the overriding concern. Senators and delegates have been meeting in regional groups across the state in recent weeks to figure out how they can redraw their districts to protect themselves.

Some of the meetings of House Democrats have been particularly feisty. Tidewater delegates worked past midnight Sunday trying to draw their new districts.

The most talked-about plan for Southwest Virginia supposes that Buchanan will not seek re-election and that his district can be carved up to ease pressure in the region.

But contrary to that plan, the ailing Buchanan sent an aide to the public hearing Monday with a plan that keeps his coalfield district intact and calls on the committee to retain the four Senate seats in the 9th Congressional District.

"It is imperative throughout this process that proper and acceptable levels of representation be retained for those areas which have suffered population losses," Buchanan wrote. "This dilemma only magnifies the needs of such areas in terms of economic, social and governmental needs."