State’s Citizens Are the Losers in Redistricting

Drawing new legislative district lines every 10 years has been an exercise in raw political power. The party in control of the House and Senate realigns the districts to strengthen their grip at the polls. The process serves the interests of the politicians and not those of the voters.

Early one morning last week, the Republican majority on a House subcommittee made sure that the process would not change this year. The 4-2 vote along party lines killed a measure that would have changed the way Virginia redraws its voting districts.

The people, as usual, were the losers.

More often than not, the redistricting process has little to do with whether the jurisdictions in the districts are contiguous or whether they have shared interests. The most important element — as was the case when Republicans in the General Assembly drew the current districts in 2001 — was to give the majority party enough votes to ensure electoral victories for the next decade.

That helps explain why in 2007 only 17 of the 140 seats in the Assembly had any real competition.

Historically, such tactics have not been the exclusive realm of the Republicans. The Democrats, who held majorities in both chambers for decades from the 1950s to the early 1990s, were masters at drawing districts designed to perpetuate their majority rule.

On the eve of virtually every redistricting process, a few quiet voices emerged suggesting there was a better way to draw new lines to accommodate the federal law that requires states to redraw their districts every 10 years based on new census data.

Those voices suggested the redistricting process could be less political if it were turned over to a nonpartisan panel that would look at population changes and draw new lines accordingly. The new districts, supporters have argued, would be created without regard to the strength of one party or the other.

The process, supporters of change conceded, would never be removed entirely from partisan politics because the Assembly would have the final say on the new districts as ordered by the state Constitution.

State Sen. Creigh Deeds, D-Bath County, proposed a bipartisan redistricting commission to take on the job of drawing new districts in 2011. His bill, which passed the Senate by a 39-0 vote, would have established a commission with an equal number of members appointed by leaders of both parties. The six appointees then would have selected a seventh independent member.

It is not an untried concept. Seventeen states have some form of bipartisan or nonpartisan reapportionment system.

Del. Shannon Valentine, D-Lynchburg, sponsored a companion redistricting bill in the House. She said the existing process has entrenched parties and discouraged legislative cooperation. “We have created districts that are so polarized that we don’t have to listen to each other and we don’t have to work together,” she said.

That has become evident a number of times since 2001 when Republicans in the House voted with their leaders based on not what was in the best interests of the state, but on what was consistent with Republican Party philosophy.

“Over the years, there are many instances where you could say Democrats did it to Republicans (or) Republicans did it to Democrats,” Valentine said. But the “truth is we’re creating a system where legislators and politicians are actually choosing their voters rather than voters choosing their leaders.”

She makes an excellent point.

Among the four Republicans voting against the redistricting proposal were Dels. Chris Jones of Suffolk and Jeff Frederick of Prince William, who is also chairman of the state GOP. Jones said he didn’t see anything wrong with the current redistricting process.

It could be that he — and his colleagues — just hasn’t looked at it closely enough.