Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 20, 1991 TAG: 9103200255
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ROB EURE POLITICAL WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Long
Consider: Residents of Radford would have to travel to Fincastle to see their representative, Sen. Dudley "Buzz" Emick. To do this, they would drive past the home of Madison Marye, their current senator, whose house in Shawsville is less than half the distance to Emick's in Botetourt County.
The same case applies to people in Marion. On their way up Interstate 81 to see Marye in Shawsville, they would first pass by their current senator, Daniel Bird, in Wytheville.
And in Bath County, residents who used to travel to Fincastle to see Emick would be only a third of the way to Lynchburg, where their new senator, Elliot Schewel, lives.
The plan, which gained preliminary approval Tuesday from the Senate Privileges and Elections Committee, meets the guidelines of reducing the region's senators from eight to seven, in districts with an average population of 154,000, and maintains incumbent Democrats' re-election chances.
But the twisting, slicing lines across the region also look like a psychiatrist's ink-blot test, which may raise objections from the U.S. Justice Department when it analyzes the final plans this summer.
Besides drawing districts with populations that are roughly equal and contiguous, the legislature is also charged with drawing compact districts. The Southwest Virginia districts agreed upon to date cut several counties in half, often to make a passage for a winding district to get through to another county.
"We were just trying to fit the people who are there [incumbents] into the numbers," said Marye, a Democrat and the only member of the Privileges and Elections Committee from the region. "When you are wedged into a triangle like Southwest Virginia, there is no way you can maintain county lines exclusively."
Marye, Emick, Bird, Sen. Granger Macfarlane of Roanoke and Sen. Virgil Goode of Rocky Mount, all Democrats, worked out the details of the plan, dubbed the "Ancient Age Plan" after Marye's favorite brand of bourbon.
Emick's district starts in Alleghany County and stretches through Western Roanoke County, Craig and Giles to the northern portion of Pulaski.
Marye has the strangest district. He gets all of Montgomery County, but then goes through southern Pulaski and northern Carroll to reach Grayson and Smyth counties.
Macfarlane has all of the city of Roanoke, as well as the the northern and eastern portions and much of the southern portion of Roanoke County. His is the most compact district, but his new area would include some strong Republican precincts in the county, such as Oak Grove and Windsor Hills.
Macfarlane still is angling for some adjustments to the plan, which is not set for final committee approval until next week. He wants to pick up two precincts in western Bedford County, where his opposition to the Explore Park has made him popular.
If that happens, Bedford County residents could find themselves with three senators. The county, which has been served by Schewel, would be split between Schewel in the north and Danville Republican Onico Barker in the south under the current plan.
At the same time, Schewel would like to keep more of Bedford and give Bath County back to Emick. Adding the 4,800 residents of Bath back to Emick's district would in turn require other minor adjustments.
The plan is not entirely aimed at incumbent protection. In redrawing far Southwest Virginia, the senators carved up the district of Sen. John Buchanan, D-Wise, who is ill with cancer.
They added Wise and Dickenson counties, both strongly Democratic, to the district of the area's sole Republican senator, William Wampler Jr. of Bristol. The plan also takes the northern end of Washington County - probably the strongest Republican county Wampler has - away from him.
The likely outcome is that Del. Jack Kennedy, D-Norton, who may see his own district carved up in the House of Delegates redistricting plan, might challenge Wampler in a district that gives Kennedy a strong Democratic base in the coal fields.
The House of Delegates has not released its plan for redrawing the 100 seats there. House Privileges and Elections Committee Chairman Ford Quillen, D-Gate City, said he hopes to present his first version of the new districts today or Thursday.
Meanwhile, one of the two Republican senators from the Northern Shenandoah Valley who would be pitted against a Republican colleague in the Senate redistricting plan threatened to introduce his own statewide plan if his conflict is not eliminated. That plan would include four districts with a black majority.
Sen. Kevin Miller, R-Harrisonburg, and Senate Minority Leader William Truban of Woodstock were included in the same district in the initial Senate plan. That was done by slicing a long arm out of Rockingham County to pick up Harrisonburg and Miller in Truban's district.
Tuesday, Miller proposed an alternative plan that restores the two districts to look much as they do now.
Miller's threat for an alternative bill made members sit up and listen. He said he would bring in Republicans to testify for his plan and would likely draw a statewide plan to include four minority districts.
The Senate now has two black-majority districts, and the redistricting plan under consideration retains those, but it does not add a third or fourth, which civil rights activists believe can be created in Tidewater and the eastern portion of Southside Virginia.
The problem with drawing the new districts dominated by black voters is that each one would threaten at least two incumbent, white Democratic senators.
Democrats are wary of speaking frankly about the politics involved with the black-majority districts. Virginia is one of the states under the Voting Rights Act because of its history of discrimination, so the record of the redistricting hearings along with the plan will be examined for racial fairness by the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department.
Sen. Joe Gartlan, D-Fairfax, chairman of the committee, said Tuesday that he believes "there are rational and defensible bases to defend the plan" under the Voting Rights Act, but he did not explain further.
Virginia has a black population of about 19 percent, but it is impossible to draw black-majority districts to reflect that percentage because blacks generally are not concentrated enough to draw such districts. When significant black communities do exist, the Justice Department requires that their strength not be diluted by legislative district lines.
The Senate's argument may be that it is better to have a strong concentration of blacks in a district, rather than try to draw two districts with slim black majorities. One such case might be in Norfolk, where Sen. Yvonne Miller's proposed district would have a 70 percent black majority. To draw another black-majority district there by taking in portions of Hampton, Portsmouth and Newport News would require trimming the black population in Miller's district.
The Senate committee recessed Tuesday until next Thursday, when Gartlan said he hopes the group can approve a final Senate redistricting map to send to the full Senate when the legislature convenes for a special session on the topic April 1.
Most of the Senate districts lines are settled outside of Northern Virginia, where senators still are haggling over the lines for two new districts. Gartlan said he hopes the near-final map will be ready later this week.
Keywords:
GENERAL ASSEMBLY POLITICS
by CNB