ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, September 15, 1996 TAG: 9609180006
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: 2 EDITION: METRO
IF THREE federal judges don't undo Virginia's 3rd Congressional District, after hearing testimony last week in Roanoke, somebody ought to. And that somebody ought to be the General Assembly. Indeed, the assembly should have had the districting job in the first place.
The 3rd is an unseemly, meandering, tentacled district in eastern Virginia that includes some of Tidewater, some of Petersburg, some of Richmond and the entirety of none of them. At one spot, portions of the district are connected only by a river; at another, an exit ramp.
Technically, the 3rd is a creation of state lawmakers, part of the general redistricting after the 1990 Census. In practical fact, it's a creation of the U.S. Justice Department. In cobbling together a district whose electorate is 62 percent black, lawmakers were complying with Justice's mandate that, under the department's interpretation of the Voting Rights Act, black-majority districts had to be created wherever and as strongly so as possible.
But what Justice said the states must do - make race a predominant factor in congressional districting - another arm of the federal government, the U.S. Supreme Court, has subsequently told the states they must not do. The only constant has been Washington's imposing its will on the states.
Districting is inevitably political, often ironically so. The case to overturn the Virginia district was brought by two GOP activists. But the political net if they win is apt to favor Democrats. Popular Congressman Robert Scott, a Democrat who is black, is considered a good bet for re-election even in a whiter, more compact district - while the transfer of some black voters to adjacent districts will make them somewhat more Democratic.
Conversely, the Justice interpretation of the Voting Rights Act came under GOP administrations well aware that maximizing the number of minority-majority districts would on balance favor Republicans, by concentrating traditionally Democratic black voters in fewer districts. But established civil-rights groups also support the Justice interpretation, because it has led to the election of more minority members of Congress - never mind that it dilutes the overall political influence of rank-and-file black voters and exacerbates racial polarization.
Unfortunately, the courts seem to have the same tendency as Justice to overdo things when it comes to districting issues, albeit this time in the opposite direction from Justice.
Requiring that governmental districts be of approximately equal population was a reasonable application of the Constitution's "equal protection" clause. Similarly, a ruling that states need not go to absurd lengths to create minority-majority districts would have been a helpful qualifier to the mandate against attempts to diminish black voters' influence. But to overturn districting plans on the basis of legislative motive and an undefined compactness standard - that's a leap into the politics of map-drawing.
No two cases are entirely identical. But in North Carolina and elsewhere, federal courts have overturned congressional districts that resembled the Virginia 3rd in origin and shape. If the 3rd must also be redrawn, that will come as no surprise. It should be redrawn.
If the courts are going to get deeply into districting, though, they need to craft clearer, more consistent, more objective guidelines for meeting minimum constitutional standards, and then leave the states alone to work within them. Otherwise, redistricting won't become less political so much as the courts will become more so.
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