THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, November 19, 1995 TAG: 9511190160
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium: 63 lines
Two Republican Party activists who say Virginia's congressional districts are racially gerrymandered have filed suit in federal court to overturn them.
The lawsuit cites a U.S. Supreme Court decision involving Georgia, which said carving districts into racial blocs is unconstitutional.
Don Moon of Hampton, the 3rd District Republican chairman, and Robert A. Smith, a black activist in Norfolk who has run for commissioner of the revenue and for the 2nd District congressional seat, filed the suit Friday in U.S. District Court.
Traditionally, a three-judge panel considers such cases.
The suit seeks an injunction banning further congressional elections in Virginia under the existing plan. The state's 11 members of the House of Representatives are up for election next year.
If the lawsuit prevails, the General Assembly would have to draw new districts.
The suit by Moon and Smith targeted the 3rd Congressional District represented by Democratic Rep. Robert C. Scott, who is the state's first black congressman since Reconstruction.
The district meanders some 225 miles through urban and rural areas from eastern Richmond along the James River to Norfolk. It has a 64 percent black majority. It takes in all or part of eight cities and eight counties.
``Race was the predominant factor in the creation of the district,'' the suit says. ``It was the stated intention of the legislature in creating this district that it would give African-Americans an opportunity to elect a candidate of their choice and that candidate would be an African American.''
The suit was filed against Gov. George F. Allen, Speaker of the House Thomas W. Moss Jr., Lt. Gov. Donald S. Beyer Jr. and M. Bruce Meadows, secretary of the State Board of Elections.
``It's not my district,'' Scott said Friday. ``It's the people's district. I believe all 11 congressional districts were legally drawn, but obviously the federal court will be ruling on this now.''
The 1991 General Assembly drew the congressional district lines under directions from the Bush Administration's Justice Department to maximize the number of majority black districts in the General Assembly as well as in Congress.
But the Supreme Court this year, in a 5-4 decision, said districts drawn on racial grounds are unconstitutional. Georgia's congressional districts already have been overturned by a federal court.
The suit says the Virginia districts ``are so irrational on their face that they cannot be understood as anything other than an effort to segregate voters into different districts on the basis of race. These districts disregard traditional redistricting principles, such as compactness ... of the territory, community of interests of the people, observance of natural lines and conformity to historic divisions, such as county lines.''
The suit also asks that Virginia no longer be governed by the federal Voting Rights Act. Under the act, states with a history of segregation must submit all redistricting and election law changes to the U.S. Justice Department for its review. by CNB