Newman, GOP plan to buck Democratic redistricting plan

Republican senators whose districts would be altered significantly by a Democrat-drawn redistricting plan held strategy sessions Monday to talk about ways they can respond during the special General Assembly session that continues today.

Every tactic from legal challenges to changing residences was on the table.

“I believe this map has severe conservative attacks in it,” said Sen. Steve Newman, R-Lynchburg.

“Every conservative senator … is either spread out or eliminated,” except for Sen. Mark Obenshain, R-Harrisonburg, Newman said.

The map proposed by the Senate’s Democratic majority would put both Newman and Sen. Ralph Smith, R-Botetourt County, into a redrawn 23^rd District that stretches from Lynchburg to Craig County and the West Virginia line.

About 75 percent of Newman’s current constituents live in the redrawn 23^rd District.

But Smith wasn’t throwing in the towel on Monday.

“I expect to be here next year and the years after that,” he said.

If the proposed districts are approved, Smith could do one of three things: stay in his Botetourt County residence and seek the Republican nomination against Newman; move to Roanoke; or move to a newly drawn Senate District 19, where more than 50 percent of Smith’s current constituents reside.

Smith said he owns residences in all three districts and could move to one of them.

“I’ve done that before,” Smith said.

A move to Roanoke would put Smith in a district now represented by Sen. John Edwards, D-Roanoke. Smith is a former mayor of Roanoke.

Edwards said he didn’t know what will happen next, but added that “I’ll be ready” for a challenge. Edwards has been in the Senate since 1996.

Republican Bill Stanley, who won a special election in January, represents the current 19^th District. That makes a move into the proposed new 19^th District less likely for Smith.

Newman was playing the strategy game, too.

“Wherever they send me, even if it is very close to West Virginia, I will be glad to serve,” Newman said.

“However, I think it is very important that we give to the Senate Democrats and the governor the deep flaws that are in the Senate plan,” Newman said.

He cited four flaws:

Bodies of water, without bridges over them, separate some of the proposed
Senate districts in the Hampton Roads area. That separation violates the legal principle of contiguous districts, Newman said.

Minority voters could be diluted in several proposed Senate districts, he said. Black residents would make up less than 55 percent of the population in some districts in the Richmond and Hampton Roads areas. Several of those districts now have a clear majority of residents who are black — a characteristic that is required for some districts under the federal Voting Rights Act.

Communities — and in some cases, precincts — are split under the Senate redistricting plan, and that violates the legal requirement for grouping communities of interest together, Newman said.

Some of the proposed districts are too large geographically, he said, and that would violate the legal requirement for compact districts.

“When you end up with someone in Craig County wanting to see their state senator, and having to get in a car and travel for hours to Lynchburg, that’s an unfortunate thing,” Newman said.