Currently, the Virginia General Assembly draws all of the district lines in Virginia.
What does this mean? It means that the politicians you’re voting for get to draw the districts you vote in, potentially deciding who your elected representatives are, as they’re allowed to draw the districts to advantage or disadvantage whomever they chose.
Districts lines in Virginia have come under intense scrutiny recently, as the Supreme Court and a three federal-judge panel sided with a lawsuit that asserted that the Virginia Congressional districts were racially biased.
The districts were thrown out, and will have to be redrawn in a special session by Sept. 1. A similar lawsuit regarding gerrymandering for House lines goes to trial on July 9.
But this means that the same Virginia politicians will be drawing the district lines again.
“Ultimately, if you gave politicians the opportunity to draw the lines to advantage themselves, they will do just that,” said University of Mary Washington professor and director of the Center for Leadership and Media Studies Stephen Farnsworth.
Can anything be done to make district lines more balanced?
With the outcome of the lawsuit on the Congressional districts as they’re currently drawn, the question remains – is there a way to make districts more balanced and competitive?
One potential solution, according to Governor Terry McAuliffe, is to have an independent and non partisan redistricting committee create Virginia’s district map.
“Listen – the map is totally gerrymandered today. All I want are fair lines, as close to 50/50 as you can get because competition’s good. I have competition every day. When these members, up to 90% of them don’t have elections, that’s not good for democracy – it’s not good for Virginia.I have always been for non partisan redistricting committees to figure this out. Take politics out of the whole thing. I have always advocated for that, and there will be a suit in the first two weeks of July for the House of Delegates seats [districts]. Same issue – packing African Americans in a district – which is not allowed under the law, and I’m sure the [suit] will prevail and we’ll be drawing designs [for the House],” said McAuliffe.
The call for an independent committee is not unprecedented.
Currently five states use an independent commission for drawing district maps, and yesterday the Supreme Court upheld a case in Arizona, where their state law gives all power in redistricting to an independent commission.
“I think the [Supreme Court] opinion removes the claim of those who gerrymander that only a legislature can draw its own lines. I think momentum is building across the country and in Virginia against gerrymandering and legislators can no longer say that independent commissions are not to be allowed. This moves the ball forward at least a little bit toward a day when more districts can be competitive,” said Executive Director for the Sorensen Institute for Political Leadership Bob Gibson.
Though as it currently stands, the only way that an independent redistricting commission could take the reigns would be if the Virginia General Assembly were to give up the redistricting power willingly, and vote on an amendment to the Virginia constitution.
“Former Governor [Robert] McDonnell also wanted to have a greater role for independent assessments in line drawing. But the control of the process by the legislature meant that independent designs for districts were ignored in the process. Under the [Virginia] Constitution, the legislature has the authority to draw the lines. For there to be an independent redistricting authority that would to be decisive in Virginia, it would require a constitutional amendment. So the legislature would have to decide to give away that power, and that’s not something the legislature is really likely to do,” said Farnsworth.
What could happen to Virginia’s district map?
While only one of the redistricting lawsuits has been decided, the General Assembly will need to redraw the Congressional lines.
According to McAuliffe, the House will draft a map, and if the House cannot agree, he will draw the map.
The General Assembly does not have override power over the governor, as Congress does over the president, but if a map drafted by the Governor is not approved, then the map will be handed to the courts for redrawing.
“This story may very well end with the governor refusing to accept any Republican plan, and if the state can’t reach a consensus on drawing the lines, then it goes to the courts. And the Democrats may fare better if the judges are the line drawers of last resort,” said Farnsworth.
Farnsworth stated that the House’s draft of the map will likely show little change to the current map, because it is not in their best interest to make drastic changes.
“My guess is the legislature will try and draw lines that are as much like the old lines as possible. There’s no doubt about it – the Democrats have more leverage now in redistricting than after the 2010 census, because there’s a Democratic governor now. The Democrats have more authority than they did the last go around. The governor doesn’t have much incentive to compromise with the Republicans on the [district] lines, unless he were to get something else in exchange,” said Farnsworth.
While the map was drafted by the Republican majority in the House, there are also Democrats who favored and approve of their own gerrymandered seats.
“There were Democrats who did support the Republican plan, because they liked the districts they ended up with. Because when you gerrymander to create these Republican seats, the way to do that is putting a lot of Democrats in districts, which then creates safe Democratic seats. To a significant degree, redistricting is a piece of incumbent protection legislation,” Farnsworth commented.
How do we stack up to other states?
It’s important to note that several states gerrymander districts in varying degrees and Virginia is not alone in this issue. But according to Farnsworth, Virginia is one of the more gerrymandered states.
“There are various measures to determine how badly gerrymandered a state is – and Virginia, by various measures – is at the high end,” said Farnsworth.
Overall, the people who lose out with Virginia’s gerrymandered districts are the voters.
The voters, who rely on their representatives to vote on their behalf, have no say in the redistricting process and when the lines are drawn to greatly favor one party or another, the voters – and their vote – get little say in who represents them at all.
“The real losers in redistricting are voters. They’re deprived of the opportunity to have competitive elections where they might. They’re deprived of the opportunity to have districts that are fully focused on their jurisdiction. These are some of the bi-products of redistricting that are really damaging,” said Farnsworth.
