Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 7, 1991 TAG: 9104080242
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ROB EURE POLITICAL WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Long
The House gave final approval to its new district map in a nearly uniform party vote of 59-41, and the Senate passed its measure 21-18.
Republicans paid the price of minority status in the House of Delegates. The final plan, lumping 15 Republicans and one GOP-leaning independent in eight districts, was called "a public hanging" by one Republican legislator.
Del. Vince Callahan, R-Fairfax, accused the Democrats of "blind obsession to preserve power" and said they "buckled under to the jackboots of their bosses."
In the Senate, even supporters of the final plan - which creates one weak black-minority district instead of two new seats - said amendment or veto is certain as the plan is reviewed by Gov. Douglas Wilder and the U.S. Justice Department in coming weeks.
"Dead on arrival," Majority Leader Hunter Andrews of Hampton said minutes after the vote.
"The harsh reality that apparently some of the leadership is not willing to admit is that one-man, one-vote applies," Roanoke Sen. Granger Macfarlane, a Democrat, said.
Wilder's office gave no hint of when he will review the redistricting maps. He will officially receive the legislative plans Tuesday, when both chambers plan to reconvene to formally adopt each other's work.
But few senators believe Wilder has any choice but to rework the Senate plan to add two or even three new black-majority districts to the two the Senate now has.
Each plan reduces voting power in Western and Southside Virginia, sending new seats to Northern Virginia and Tidewater, where population has jumped in the past decade. Southwest Virginia loses two House seats and one Senate seat in the plans approved Saturday. That is not likely to change even if both plans are successfully challenged.
The main difference in the final plans stems from the view taken by House and Senate leaders in applying the 1964 Voting Rights Act. Virginia is one of 10 states under the act because of its history of racial discrimination in voting.
Designed to protect the voting power of minority groups, the 1964 act has been interpreted in court cases to essentially require that when a community of blacks is large enough to control a legislative district, such a district must be drawn.
The act also requires that Virginia's redistricting plans be cleared by the U.S. Justice Department before being implemented.
In the House, leaders adopted the theory early that they needed a plan that would win tacit approval from the seven black members of the House and from civil-rights groups, said Del. Glenn Croshaw, D-Virginia Beach, one of the main architects.
By drawing 11 strong black majority districts, each with a black population of more than 58 percent and a voting-age population of 55 percent or more in 10 of 11, the House captured that support.
But in the clubby atmosphere of the Senate, the areas where black districts were possible also include the districts of some of the chamber's senior members. The Senate balked at the risk of sacrificing incumbents to create black districts.
"Senator Elmon Gray [of Sussex] and I have been deskmates here for 20 years, longer than anyone else in this body," Sen. Howard Anderson, D-Halifax, said Friday as he introduced an amendment to weaken the new black majority in Gray's district. The amended district is not likely to gain legal status as a true black district.
Anderson, the last remaining senator who supported Virginia's massive resistance to segregation in the 1950s, argued that "black, white doesn't matter" in his area.
Then on Saturday, Northern Virginia senators killed a final attempt to create two new black-majority districts - a cause with which most of them are sympathetic - rather than risk losing one of the two new Senate seats created for their area.
Senate Privileges and Elections Committee Chairman Joseph Gartlan Jr., D-Fairfax County, said Saturday that he had attempted "gentle leading" to bring the Senate to "the realities" of the Voting Rights Act. Gartlan said he is convinced "you are not going to change your minds until you are faced with the inevitable."
So he said he would rather risk a plan certain of rejection on civil-rights grounds than risk boosting power in his region.
The result was a Senate plan that leaves few incumbents vulnerable. Macfarlane and several other Democrats have taken districts with a slightly stronger Republican presence, but they generally are considered safe.
The Senate plan is even kind to Republicans, except for the lone Southwest Virginia Republican: William Wampler of Bristol. Wampler's district lost much of Republican-leaning Washington County, adding the Democratic coalfield counties of Wise, Dickenson and part of Buchanan. That gives Del. Jack Kennedy of Norton an opportunity to challenge Wampler.
Wampler's troubles gave nine of the Senate's 10 GOP members enough reason to oppose the plan. Nine Democrats opposed the plan on civil-rights grounds.
House Democrats could afford more partisan efforts, having settled the voting rights issue. They took advantage.
The need to eliminate four House seats in Western and Southside Virginia and fitting five new seats into Northern Virginia was done by pairing rural Republicans together and in several cases urban Republicans. That's a process dubbed "double bagging" by Democrats in the House.
Although the Republicans are critical of the plan, they, too, had lumped a similar number of Democrats together and created the same number of black districts in the official GOP map. They argued, however, that the GOP plan divided fewer counties and came closer to the average district population of 54,800.
Charles Hawkins of Chatham, paired in a district with Lynchburg's Joyce Crouch, lambasted Democrats on Saturday for rejecting the minor amendments offered by Republicans aimed at eliminating some of the pairings. He said the Democrats had acted like a "threatened and mean" pack of dogs.
"I am ashamed of my membership" in the legislature, he said.
Democrats had drawn their map placing Hawkins' precinct in a district stretching to Lynchburg to place him with Crouch. When they learned that Pittsylvania's precinct lines had been changed by court order following a Danville annexation last year, the Democrats changed the plan and split the precinct rather than see Hawkins be put in the same district with one of their own, Del. Willard Finney, D-Rocky Mount.
Hawkins, like many of the paired Republicans, says he may move into Finney's district anyway. He owns a home in Floyd County already.
"Rumors of my political demise are premature, I assure you," Hawkins said. "The cleverest of spiders occasionally becomes entangled in his own web."
NEW DISTRICTS/ HOUSE OF DELEGATES/ District 5: Smyth, part of Grayson and Tazewell. Del. G.C. Jennings, D-Marion./ District 6: Bland, Wythe, Galax, part of Grayson and Carroll. Del. Thomas Jackson, D-Hillsville./ District 7: Pulaski, Radford, part of Giles. Del. Barbara Stafford, R-Pearisburg, and Del. Tommy Baker, R-Radford.
District 8: Salem, part of Montgomery and Roanoke counties. Del. Steven Agee, R-Salem./ District 9: Floyd, part of Franklin County, Bedford and Pittsylvania. Del. Willard Finney, D-Rocky Mount./ District 10: Patrick, part of Carroll, Henry and Pittsylvania. Del. Roscoe Reynolds, D-Martinsville./ District 11: Martinsville, part of Franklin, Henry and Pittsylvania. House Speaker A.L. Philpott, D-Bassett./ District 12: Parts of Montgomery and Giles. Del. Joan Munford, D-Blacksburg./ District 14: Craig, northern and eastern Roanoke County, part of Roanoke, Botetourt and Bedford County. Del. Richard Cranwell, D-Vinton./ District 16: Central and Southwest Roanoke and part of Southwest Roanoke County. Del. Clifton Woodrum, D-Roanoke./ District 17: North and east part of Roanoke and portion of north Roanoke County. Del. Victor Thomas, D-Roanoke./ District 18: Bath, Covington, Alleghany, Clifton Forge, Lexington, Highland, part of Botetourt, Rockbridge and Augusta. Del. Emmett Hanger, R-Augusta./ District 19: Bedford, central Botetourt, part of Bedford County and Rockbridge, Del. Malfourd "Bo" Trumbo, R-Fincastle, and Del. Lacey Putney, I-Bedford./
NEW DISTRICTS/ SENATE/ District 20: Patrick, Floyd, Henry, Franklin, Martinsville and part of Carroll. Sen. Virgil Goode, D-Rocky Mount./ District 21: Roanoke, part of Roanoke County. Sen. Granger Macfarlane, D-Roanoke./ District 22: Giles, Radford, Craig, Salem, Botetourt, Bath, Covington, Alleghany, Clifton Forge, part of Pulaski, Roanoke County and Rockbridge. Sen. Dudley Emick, D-Fincastle./ District 23: Bedford, Bedford County, Amherst, Lynchburg and part of Campbell. Sen. Elliot Schewel, D-Lynchburg./ District 24: Augusta, Lexington, Buena Vista, Highland, Staunton, Waynesboro, part of Rockingham and Rockbridge. Sen. Frank Nolen, D-Augusta./ District 38: Russell, Tazewell, Bland, Wythe, part of Washington and Buchanan. Sen. Daniel Bird, D-Wytheville./ District 39: Grayson, Smyth, Montgomery, Galax, part of Carroll and Pulaski. Sen. Madison Marye, D-Shawsville.
Keywords:
GENERAL ASSEMBLY POLITICS
by CNB