THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, March 3, 1996 TAG: 9603030054
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ALEX MARSHALL, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 88 lines
It's a ticklish question that has surfaced as the campaign for Norfolk's Superward 7 begins: Should a candidate's race exclude him from running in a council ward created to overcome racial inequities?
Horace T. ``Tommy'' White, whose last name is also his race, is running in the majority-black district.
But the city's three black council members say White should not be running in the district, because it violates the spirit in which Superward 7 was created.
Councilmen Herbert M. Collins Sr., Paul R. Riddick and the Rev. Joseph N. Green, who is retiring from the seat in question after two decades on the council, say Superward 7 was created under the scrutiny of the U.S. Justice Department to help elect more African-American council members.
``I'm disappointed that Mr. White would consider running, because it was designed to be a minority seat,'' Collins said. ``I'm kind of offended by that.''
Blacks, he said, should not run in white-majority districts.
``If I lived over in Ward 6, in (Councilman) Mason Andrews' district, I wouldn't consider running,'' Collins said. ``I think it would be offensive to thewhite community.''
Collins said he and other black leaders would mobilize the black community to make sure the seat stays in the hands of an African American.
All three councilmen acknowledged that White has a legal right to run.
``You can't say who will or who will not run,'' Green said, ``but I hope the people are smart enough and wise enough to elect a minority to this position, because the district was drawn specifically so we could do that.''
But a leading constitutional scholar says the three council members have it backward. The district was designed to fit the needs of its residents, not to elect individuals of a certain race, he says.
``It's a curious argument,'' said A.E. Dick Howard, professor of constitutional law at the University of Virginia. ``The intent of the Voting Rights Act was to create majority-minority districts, in which the majority of voters in that district are free to choose whom they please to represent them.
``The thrust of the act is not the race of the person elected, but the race of the electors.''
White, who is president of the Norfolk Federation of Civic Leagues, and who is making his first run for the council, said his race has not been a factor until now.
``I live there, I've always lived there, it's an open seat, I've always wanted to run for City Council, and that's what I'm doing,'' White said.
The feelings over who can properly represent Superward 7 may run high because African-American leaders battled for almost a decade to create the district as part of the city's ward system. It was created in 1991 after the city lost its appeals of rulings that favored a lawsuit by the NAACP. The group's suit claimed that the old at-large system was unfair to minority voters.
The seven petitioners in the suit included Collins, who now sits on the council. So far, White, H. Marks Richard and Daun S. Hester, both of whom are black, have filed to run for the seat, but several other candidates have been mentioned as possibilities, mostly other African-Americans. The filing deadline for candidates is Tuesday.
Superward 7 is an amoeba-shaped district that takes up much of the interior of the city, including Poplar Hall, Sherwood Forest, parts of Norview, Coronado, Green Hill Farms, Lafayette-Winona, Park Place, Lamberts Point and most public housing areas.
The councilmen fear that the black vote in the ward will splinter among the candidates and help White or another non-minority candidate get elected.
``We've made progress by having increasing representation by blacks,'' Riddick said. ``He's trying to slip in because he knows it will be a divided vote in a crowded field.''
African Americans, Riddick said, virtually never run in mostly white districts, but whites frequently run in majority-black districts, which Riddick said is insensitive.
``I think Tommy White is extremely off-base. I think it shows you that his mentality (does not recognize) the progress we have made in this city.''
But even in a two-person race, minorities do not always win majority-minority districts.
In Suffolk, Richard R. Harris, a white councilman, represents the Nansemond district in Suffolk, which is majority black. He won the seat running against Mary Z. Richardson, an African American. This May he will face at least two opponents, both of whom are black.
KEYWORDS: NORFOLK CITY COUNCIL by CNB