THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, September 13, 1996 TAG: 9609130559
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B7 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JAN VERTEFEUILLE, LANDMARK NEWS SERVICE
DATELINE: ROANOKE LENGTH: 77 lines
While much of the evidence in a redistricting case in federal court this week boiled down to conflicting statistics and dry testimony, the ACLU's attorney pleaded for fairness.
Virginia has spent most of its history gerrymandering voting districts to give whites the advantage, Gerald Hebert argued Thursday. He asked a three-judge panel to let the black-majority 3rd Congressional District remain intact.
``For the first time this century, this has let black voters elect the candidate of their choice to Congress,'' he said.
The judges must decide whether Virginia's only black-majority district - which stretches from Norfolk to Richmond - passes constitutional muster in light of recent Supreme Court decisions that struck down such districts in other states. They said at the end of the two-day hearing they would not rule before November's election.
The General Assembly was complying with U.S. Justice Department rules when it drew up the black-majority district in 1990. Now that the rules have changed, the state argued that race was just one of a number of reasons in drawing up the district.
``We do not dispute that the General Assembly intended to create'' a district in which blacks were a majority, said Greg Lucyk of the attorney general's office. But to be found unconstitutional, such a district must have been drawn contrary to traditional redistricting criteria - and the 3rd District was not, he said.
The Democrat-controlled General Assembly also sought to protect congressional incumbents and economic interests at the naval shipyards, Lucyk said.
But lawyers for the two men who filed suit against the state maintained that Virginia was trying to manufacture other reasons for the district after the fact. Del. John Watkins, R-Midlothian, testified that race was his committee's primary consideration in coming up with the district.
And University of Wisconsin government professor Ronald Weber testified that his research showed that ``the state was not paying attention to traditional redistricting principles. They subordinated construction of the district to reliance on race.''
Weber is an adviser to Campaign for a Color Blind America, which helped represent the two plaintiffs. The group believes voting districts should be drawn without consideration to race at all.
Expert witnesses for the state countered with data from previous elections indicating that few white Virginians will support black candidates.
Some politicians, such as former Gov. Douglas Wilder and U.S. Rep. Robert Scott - who represents the 3rd District - were able to win with white votes, but it was only later in their career, political scientist David Canon testified.
``It's that initial election that's very difficult for African-Americans to get elected and get that crossover (white) vote,'' he said.
The plaintiffs questioned why the 3rd District needs a 64 percent black majority, saying that violates the Supreme Court's criteria that such a minority district be ``narrowly tailored.''
Weber testified that a district 45 percent black would be enough to elect a black candidate.
But Lisa Handley, a political scientist and adjunct professor at George Washington University, said her analysis of past voting records indicate a black candidate in Virginia could not be elected to Congress in a district that was just 40 to 50 percent black.
Much testimony focused on the weird shape of the district in light of the Supreme Court's requirement that such districts be geographically compact. The 3rd District is about 100 miles long and just 40 feet wide in spots, including one place where the only thing connecting two areas is an exit ramp. In other places, the district contains no voters because it follows a river to connect two predominantly black areas.
Donald Moon, a white Republican, and Robert Smith, a black resident, filed the lawsuit last year, even before the Supreme Court's rulings on such districts.
KEYWORDS: GERRYMANDERING REDISTRICTING 3RD DISTRICT by CNB