Prince William approves magisterial districts amid gerrymandering claims

Politics entered the magisterial districting process Tuesday as Prince William County’s leaders took a party-line vote to approve new voting precincts.

A majority of Democrats favor the plan, while Republicans disapproved.

About 7,300 constituents in the Coles Magisterial District, represented by Republican Yesli Vega, will move to the Occoquan District represented by Democrat Kenny Boddye.

In exchange, about 2,500 constituents in the semi-rural Yates Ford Road area will move to Coles. A consultant hired to draw the new maps submitted its proposed versions in mid-November, and the change occurred afterward.

Maps of the county’s five other magisterial districts will see little change. Republicans say the move is political, designed to help Boddye pick up more left-leaning voters who live outside the county’s rural area.

Initially, Supervisors agreed to confer with each other about changes to the maps and decided to use a third party to remove implications of political favoritism from the process.

On November 23, Vega said she reviewed the newly proposed maps that did not include the changes to her district. On November 30, Chair-At large Ann Wheeler emailed county leaders new maps showing the land swap and did not copy the consultant, ARCBridge, in the emails.

Republicans on the Board cried foul and said Wheeler and Boddye were unwilling to discuss the changes to the maps approved last night.

“I’m sorry it’s being politicized,” said Wheeler at Tuesday’s Board of County Supervisors meeting. “There’s nothing I can do about it.”

After she sent the revised maps, Wheeler said no one called her to complain. Republicans said they chose to email rather than pick up a phone to record their objections.

In 2019, Boddye campaigned on preserving the county’s rural areas and made a speed during a televised meeting of the Board of County Supervisors held just weeks before the election. He promised to oppose development in the Rural Crescent, a tract of land from Quantico Marine Corps Base to Manassas National Battlefield.

Boddye won by 311 votes, the thinnest margin of any of the five Democrats who won seats on the Board that year. He beat Republican Ruth Anderson, who represented the Occoquan District for four years.

In January 2021, Boddye flipped his position and approved a request to rezone 340 acres of land off Route 234, clearing the way for 99 new homes. Moving the semi-rural constituents out of his district will help him during the next election cycle in 2024, Republicans said.

“Poeple wanted partisan politics taken out of the process,” said Vega.

“It’s clear the way the maps dramatically changed, and Supervisor Vega was never consulted,” said Brentsville District Supervisor Jeanine Lawson. “Anyone can conclude this is for political manipulation.”

Boddye disagreed and, on multiple occasions, cited an Insidenova.com article he said had been corrected and showed the land swap between the Occoquan and Coles districts would favor Republicans, not Democrats.

“If you think this is beneficial to Republicans… if you think it’s benefitting your our party more than yours, why not go back to the plan the [consulant] presented,” Lawson asked Boddye.

Boddye sat silent.

Already a year behind schedule due to the coronavirus pandemic, the county and state must approve new political district maps every 10 years. While state officials redraw the lines for Congressional, State Senate, and House of Delegates districts, counties must draw magisterial districts.

A handful of residents who spoke during a public hearing urged Supervisors to postpone the vote until the New Year, as it’s too close to Christmas and too few poeple would pay attention.

“We’re meeting on a night when I have no problem finding a parking space,” said Denny Daugherty of Gainesville. “Why did you make the changes? Perhaps, some of you are not proud of what you are about to do tonight?”

After his absence from a December 14 Board of County Supervisors meeting where leaders discussed the new maps, Gainesville District Supervisor Peter Candland said he asked Wheeler to schedule the vote for December 21.

Priti Mathur of ARCBridge Consulting presented the proposed maps to the Board of County Supervisors on November 9. Supervisors voted to keep the seven magisterial districts, bucking a plan to increase the number to eight, adding a new supervisor to the Board.

Each magisterial district will contain about 69,000 constituents with the increased population considered. If supervisors voted to create a new community, each would have had about 60,000 constituents.

Since 2000, more than 80,000 people have moved to Prince William, making the county the second-largest jurisdiction in Virginia. More than 482,000 people live in the county.