Drawing the lines

With a bitter battle over U.S. Congressional districts resuming today, upcoming political races are getting more complicated.

The Virginia legislature reconvenes to attempt to reconcile Senate Democrats' and House Republicans' vastly different district maps for U.S. Congress. The controversy lies in the creation of two districts in which black voters would hold sizable sway.

The Senate plan, championed by Sen. Mamie Locke (D-Hampton) creates a black majority 4th District and turns the 3rd District from a black-majority district to a district where black voters are an influential minority.

The House plan aims to protect 4th District incumbent Sen. J. Randy Forbes (R) by closely following Virginia's current map. The plan only includes one minority district, District 3, which is currently occupied by Virginia's only black senator, Robert C. Scott (D).

The Virginia ACLU, on the other hand, has proposed a map that they claim will create a black majority in both the 3rd and 4th Districts, the Washington Post reported yesterday.

The ACLU plan may have thrown a wrench in both Republican and Democrat plans because of Virginia's history of denying black voters civil rights. During the 1960s Civil Rights Movement, the Voting Act of 1965 banned Southern states from diluting minority power during redistricting. Additionally, the Voting Rights Act requires that all districts-- federal, state, and local-- must be approved by the Department of Justice after a compromise is reached.

However, Sen. Donald McEachin (D-Richmond) told the Washington Post Wednesday that the ACLU plan does not operate under the same definition of "black" as the Department of Justice. The DoJ defines "black voters" as non-Hispanic blacks over 18. By that definition, McEachin said, the percentage of black voters in each district falls around 49 percent.

"We're legally allowed to pack, but we cannot crack," said Dr. Michael Haynes, associate professor of government at Patrick Henry College. In other words, he said, Virginia lawmakers can create more powerful minority districts, but they can't disperse the minority population among majority-white districts. "You want to be very careful that you don't pull minorities out of the district when you draw the lines because that is against federal law."

The Virginian-Pilot estimates that negotiations to reach a compromise may take more than a month. And if the Department of Justice rejects the new map-- which is unlikely, Haynes said, but possible-- debate has to resume all over again.

"I would like to think that the Republican majority would be willing to see that 20 percent of the population in Virginia had adequate representation in the Congress,'' Sen. Mary Margaret Whipple told the Washington Post last Tuesday. "I'm not giving up on that until I'm sure that's not the case. They have the opportunity to do something that would be good for Virginia and good for their party. Let's see what happens."

However, Haynes questioned whether the packing strategy really benefitted minorities, saying it was "debatable."

"Yes, you do pack these people in, and yes they do have a larger chance of electing a representative of their minority, but that would be one," Haynes said. "You've concentrated them in, so did you really help them, or did you not?"

He cited an example from Charleston, W.Va., where the district lines were drawn to give minorities the deciding vote. "They elect a liberal every time, but they have not elected a minority yet," Haynes said.

"Redistricting is part of the political game. Either side, if they are the party in power, are going to draw the lines that benefit them the most. Both sides are guilty of that. It's pretty much to be expected," Haynes said. "Both sides scream that the other side is cheating every time, by the way... and I don't know if there's a way around it. I don't know if there's a way to prevent that without losing some of the rights and privileges we have as Americans."

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