Redistricting Coming Soon

Thanks to everyone for not complaining when I took the last week off for a vacation!

Virginia is getting ready for a redistricting this year, and the political class is already buzzing about who will have seats, where there will be new seats, and all the other chatter that comes with this process.  What I've noticed though is many of the legislators on both sides of the aisle view redistricting through the prism of their current seats (i.e. what precincts will change in their own district and neighboring districts) and not though the statewide process.  This has led to a number of misconceptions about what is possible in the process and I'm going to try to clear some of them up here.

There's essentially going to be three different redistricting processes for the House of Delegates, State Senate and Congressional lines. 

The first process will focus on the areas around Richmond and Hampton Roads where there is a large African American population.  The redistricting in these districts is guided around the Voting Rights Act (VRA) which was written to protect the political interests of African Americans in southern states.  But there is a big twist this year with the VRA.  The VRA requires the United States Justice Department to provide "pre-clearance" on redistricting plans- and in each redistricting since the VRA was passed (1971/Nixon, 1981/Reagan, 1991/Bush, 2001/Bush) Republicans have controlled the White House and Justice Department.  Now with Democrats in control of this process, it is likely that the Justice Department will be looking much more carefully at parts of the VRA that benefit the Democratic Party in these redistrictings.  In addition, many states saw their entire legislatures/Governorships flip to Republican control in this last election, so the Justice Department will be the only thing standing between those Republican controlled states and the final lines.  Why does this matter for Virginia?  As the first state to redistrict in time for the 2011 elections the Justice Department will be making its first rulings right here- and every state that is entirely Republican controlled will be comparing their lines to what happened in Virginia if the Justice Department approves ours and tries to reject theirs when they litigate.  This means the DOJ will be giving everything in the Virginia package an extra careful look before it is pre-approved. 

The second process will be redistricting western Virginia and other rural pockets in the state.  This is the easiest process to do as the VRA won't really apply to how the legislature chooses to draw these districts- and there are very few areas outside of Charlottesville and the City of Roanoke where strong Democratic districts could be drawn even if the legislature wanted to do so.  With population growing in many of these communities at a slower pace than the rest of the state a couple districts will need to be eliminated in the House of Delegates and probably at least one in the State Senate. 

Finally, the third process will involve redistricting Northern Virginia.  Northern Virginia is the hardest area of the state to gerrymander because of the similarity between neighboring precincts.  While other areas of Virginia have 80% Democratic precincts that sit near 80% Republican precincts, that generally is not the case in NoVA (with the exception of Rt. 1).  The lines already are drawn favorably to the GOP in NoVA and it really didn't do much for them in the last 10 years when they lost nine House seats, four Senate seats and one Congressional seat at some point this decade that they controlled in the last redistricting.

One of the keys to NoVA redistricting is the direction that districts go.  Democrats generally want long districts going east/west in the eastern part of NoVA, while they want north/south districts in the outer suburbs of Loudoun and Prince William.  Republicans want the opposite of east/west districts in the western part of NoVA, while looking for north/south districts on the eastern side.

Now that everyone understands these basic redistricting rules above we will dive in a little deeper tomorrow and start discussing some various scenarios that the computers may suggest to legislative leaders that might surprise them!

Comments

[Samuel Gilleran]

"Democrats generally want long districts going east/west in the eastern part of NoVA, while they want north/south districts in the outer suburbs of Loudoun and Prince William. Republicans want the opposite of east/west districts in the western part of NoVA, while looking for north/south districts on the eastern side."

Maybe a dumb question: why?

[James Young]

"it is likely that the Justice Department will be looking much more carefully at parts of the VRA that benefit the Democratic Party in these redistrictings."

I think I'd make this post an exhibit to any Republican challenge to DoJ's rejection of Virginia redistricting.

[Please]

Well the obvious answer to all the problems would be nonpartisan redistricting.

[Steve Vaughan]

Please: Amazing how what seems so obvious to everybody else, seems so complicated to the politicians.