Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 24, 1991 TAG: 9103250237
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: B-2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The next time is here, and it's different all right. In 1981, the foolishness was confined to the House of Delegates. This year, the controlling Democrats in both houses have unveiled ridiculous redistricting proposals that could end up in court.
If that happens, one piece of folly, the plans themselves, could be compounded by another, the intrusion of the courts into political thickets where they don't belong.
Of the plans for House and Senate, it's hard to tell which is worse.
The House would raise from nine to 11 (out of 100) the number of its black-majority districts, presumably a plus in the eyes of Voting Rights Act enforcers in the U.S. Justice Department. But in transparently partisan fashion, the plan would put 19 Republican incumbents (and one independent) in districts with each other. That's nearly half the GOP members of the House. Only two Democrats would be put in a district together, and one of them is expected to leave the House anyway, to seek a state Senate seat. To contrive this marvelous contraption, the redistricters have had to resort to such idiocies as slicing Pittsylvania County into portions of six separate districts.
On the other hand, the Senate plan fails to increase the number (now two of 40) of black-majority districts. And in Southwest Virginia, if not the state as a whole, the proposed Senate gerrymander is far worse than the new House districts.
The failure of the Senate plan to add another black-majority district or two, while not indefensible, is a legitimate subject for judicial scrutiny.
In the plan's defense, carving a second black-majority district in the Tidewater area, while possible, poses technical problems. The general argument could be made that Virginia has passed the point where such artificial remedies are needed to overcome the state's racist history.
Still, that history exists, as does the fact that fewer blacks are in the General Assembly than the black percentage of the population suggests should be the case. In parts of the state, there's no mistaking the fact that the electorate remains racially polarized.
Far less defensible, unless you believe in the divine right of Democratic incumbents, are the political aspects of the House and Senate gerrymanders. They are far less defensible, that is, in the court of public opinion. The courts of law should leave the politics of redistricting alone.
The districts are contiguous, if sometimes not very; they are said to meet the equal-population standard. Until recent years, unless racial issues were involved (they're not in Southwest Virginia), that would have been enough to keep the judiciary at bay.
In 1985, however, did the U.S. Supreme Court change the rules? The significance of the case is not entirely clear. A Republican gerrymander of Indiana congressional districts was upheld because (the court said) returns from a single round of elections weren't enough evidence to overturn the plan. But the court indicated that political gerrymandering, like racial gerrymandering, is subject to some sort of constitutional review by judges.
That goes too far. The courts' legitimate intervention in race-based districting disputes is at best a necessary evil, made necessary by the evil of racial discrimination. Intervention in political gerrymandering is an evil without necessity.
Republican vs. Democrat (or vice versa) is not black vs. white. A political party is not a person. Voters are free to change political affiliations, and do. They are free to vote for the other party, and do.
Indeed, a striking feature of gerrymanders in the late 20th century is how often they backfire. As an illustration, look no farther than the Indiana plan that gave rise to the Supreme Court case.
The idea behind the GOP gerrymander was to transform a 6-5 Democratic delegation to a 6-4 or 7-3 Republican one. (The state lost a seat after the 1980 Census.) The count today? Eight Democrats, two Republicans.
If they persist in their partisan arrogance, Virginia's Democratic legislators shouldn't have to fear the courts. They should be fearing the wrath of the voters.
by CNB