[EL] Lessons from “Va. Republicans push re-drawn district map through Senate”

Tue Jan 22 05:33:49 PST 2013

A couple of questions about this:

1.  Is there any publicly available information about the precise demographics of the new districts that would be created if the re-redistricting became law?

2.  I have tended to share the concern expressed by Rick and others that it's hard to come up with a workable doctrine to prevent egregious political gerrymanders, even if lots of us would agree that some such gerrymanders raise serious constitutional concerns.  Yet a re-redistricting like this, were it to go through, would probably set off lots of people's alarm bells (certainly on process, maybe -- though I'd like to know more -- on substance).  For folks who think that courts should stay out of political gerrymandering questions, I'm interested to know what legitimate practices would be imperiled by a doctrine that, focusing on some mix of process and substance concerns, would permit folks to challenge gerrymanders like this (assuming that substantively the lockup effects are as Rob suggests).  I will say that I've always been ambivalent about political gerrymandering claims and still am.  But avoiding difficult judicial line drawing is not the only important value.

Samuel R. Bagenstos
Professor of Law
University of Michigan Law School
625 S. State St.
Ann Arbor, MI  48109
sambagen at umich.edu
http://www.law.umich.edu/FacultyBio/Pages/FacultyBio.aspx?FacID=sambagen
http://disabilitylaw.blogspot.com/
Twitter: @sbagen

On Jan 22, 2013, at 7:46 AM, Rob Richie wrote:

> 
> This news item from Rick underscores just how far we can expect efforts to manipulate our electoral rules might go in some states. Those who dismiss the potential of similar powergrabs to distort the Electoral College by going to congressional district allocation of electoral votes in Democratic-leaning swing states (like Virginia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin) simply aren't paying attention,.
> 
> In sum, without any warning, 20 Republican senators took advantage of an African American state senator being in DC for the inauguration on Martin Luther King Day to jam through a Republican gerrymander designed to ensure the state senate joins all the deep south state legislative chambers in being locked up for Republicans for the next generation. Excluding Maryland, which has its own politic dynamic locking it down for Democrats, the only southern legislative chambers still in Democratic control are one house in Kentucky and two in West Virginia, both states with relatively few African Americans. I would be stunned if any of the otehr legislative chambers flip back to Democrats in the next decade, and probably not for at least two -- meaning that a majority of the nation's African Americans live in a region where their preferred state legislative candidates are nearly guaranteed to be out of power for a long time.
> 
> How Gov. McDonnell responds to this move will be very telling.
> 
> Rob Richie
> 
> On Mon, Jan 21, 2013 at 11:29 PM, Rick Hasen <rhasen at law.uci.edu> wrote:
> 
> 
> “Va. Republicans push re-drawn district map through Senate”
> 
> Posted on January 21, 2013 8:14 pm by Rick Hasen
> WaPo: “Senate Republicans pushed a re-drawn state political map past flabbergasted Democrats on Monday, pulling off what would amount to a mid-decade redistricting of Senate lines if the plan gets approval from the House and governor and stands up to anticipated legal challenges. The bill, approved 20 to 19, would revamp the Senate map to concentrate minority voters in a new Southside district and would change most, if not all, existing district lines. Democrats, still scrambling Monday night to figure out the impact, said they thought that the new map would make at least five districts held by Democrats heavily Republican. The map puts two sitting senators, R. Creigh Deeds (D-Bath) and Emmett W. Hanger Jr. (R-Augusta), into a single district.”TPM:
> 
> As mentioned earlier, seizing on the absence of a Democratic senator who happens to be a veteran of the civil rights movement and was in Washington, on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, for the second inauguration of the country’s first black president, Republicans in the evenly split Virginia state Senate pushed through a surprise mid-decade redistricting plan to try to gain decisive control of the body in the next election.
> 
> We’re not done yet.
> 
> At the end of this wild day, the “Senate adjourned in memory or (sic) General Thomas J. ‘Stonewall’ Jackson,” according to the minutes of the session. Jan. 21 is the Confederate general’s birthday.
> 
>  
> <share_save_171_16.png>
> Posted in redistricting | Comments Off
> 
> 
> 
> 
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