Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, April 18, 1991 TAG: 9104180478
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-15 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RAY L. GARLAND
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
State Democrats invested large resources in computer-driven redistricting designed to protect their control of the House, now occupied by 59 Democrats, 39 Republicans and two independents. Toward that end, 15 GOP delegates were placed in districts with another incumbent.
The Democrats also created several districts that represent a naked subversion of what should be the fundamental principle of reapportionment: districts easily comprehensible to citizens and having a well-defined community of interest.
If Gov. Douglas Wilder and Senate Democrats can agree on amendments that will create additional black-majority districts, it's my guess a challenge to redistricting on grounds of racial discrimination would likely fail, if a challenge materializes.
But those black-majority districts could not be created without jeopardizing a number of incumbent Democrats. A more interesting political angle arises when we examine those Democrats placed at risk when black precincts they had were taken from their districts in order to create those solid, black-majority districts nearby.
Six incumbent Democrats now find themselves in districts that President Bush carried by majorities between 62 and 70 percent.
So, while Democrats almost certainly will hold all the black-majority districts, a significant result of segregating the black vote is to put other Democrat-held seats at risk from strong Republican challengers.
While Republicans still hold out hope that the federal courts will invalidate the final Democratic plan, it is an exceedingly frail hope. If Wilder gets his way on the Senate plan, it is very likely that the state will have satisfied all mandates under the Voting Rights Act and the 1986 decision of the Supreme Court respecting the creation of black-majority districts.
That would leave only a claim of a political mugging by a majority party against a minority party, but the federal courts have shown great and understandable reluctance to enter that particular thicket.
The bottom line is that what Republicans now see is pretty much what they'll get. That changes the focus from trying to get the best deal to trying to get the best candidates. One thing in their favor is that the deadline for nominating candidates for the 100 House seats and 40 Senate seats has been postponed from June 12 to Sept. 10.
In Steve Haner, the Joint Republican Caucus of the General Assembly has a shrewd and dedicated executive director. But the financial and other resources available to Virginia Democrats - controlling as they do most of the levers of power - are very much larger. What Republicans lack in resources, they must try to make up in strategy, tactics and determination. And here, at least, recent events have conspired to help them.
Presidential popularity has never proved to be of much help to lesser candidates of the president's party, but it certainly doesn't hurt. If the overall political environment is more favorable to one party than the other, it can easily move 2 percentage points toward the party having the best image. There is at least a suggestion just now of a favorable tide lifting all Republican boats. But of greater significance in the equation is the rising level of doubt focusing on Gov. Wilder and continuing troubles on the state and local fiscal front.
If Virginia Republicans are to maximize their opportunities in 1991, they must present a united front and a few simple reasons why detached and detachable voters ought to elect a Republican delegate or state senator. When the national GOP was trying to come back in 1946 after the long Rooseveltian hegemony, it adopted the slogan "Fed up? Vote Republican." Something like that might work now in Virginia.
The GOP has a few good issues, such as merit selection of judges, and removing redistricting itself from the General Assembly and vesting it with an independent reapportionment commission. But these aren't likely to cause voters to rush into the streets.
What might get some voters excited is the suggestion that Wilder is ignoring the state to further his national ambitions, and that Democrats, in total control in Richmond these past 10 years, haven't managed state finances very well.
While Republicans may not have thousands of dollars for paid media that would drive these messages home, they can have a carefully orchestrated strategy to use such "names" as are available to the party to blanket the free media. And they can make certain that all their candidates are singing from the same song sheet.
Haner has kept careful records showing how incumbent Democrats have voted on key issues and will supply a great deal of useful documentation to all GOP candidates. But it is the selection of good candidates that means everything, and nothing in politics is more difficult.
Ray L. Garland is a Roanoke Times & World-News columnist.
by CNB