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Virginia's gerrymandering debate continues to high courts, focuses on race

Supreme Court to hear case on racially motivated redistricting

<p>The role the courts should play&nbsp;in reviewing district lines is unclear and&nbsp;currently debated.&nbsp;</p>

The role the courts should play in reviewing district lines is unclear and currently debated. 

Racially motivated gerrymandering and Virginia's redistricting decisions have recently become a focus in the high courts. 

In June, the Supreme Court agreed to hear a Virginia case regarding the role of race in determining district lines. The case, Bethune-Hill v. Virginia State Board of Elections, is about a challenge which claims that the redistricting done by Republican legislators unfairly reduced the power of minority voters.

Gerrymandering is not explicitly illegal, but racial gerrymandering is forbidden in the Constitution.

Historically, gerrymandering has been practiced to some extent in several states in order to strengthen political parties’ interests since the United States was founded. Several Virginia congressmen have recently proposed redrawing some of Virginia’s current districts because they claim the current lines are gerrymandered unfairly. 

Virginia Delegate David Toscano, who represents Charlottesville, has publicly spoken against the unfairness of existing district lines before.

“We have a state that is essentially a 50-50, Republican-Democratic state and two-thirds of the House is controlled by the Republicans,” Toscano said in a press release. “That only makes sense in terms of lines that are drawn to protect the incumbent Republican majority.”

University Law Prof. Dick Howard said in an email that gerrymandering matters as much as citizens’ votes to preserve the fairness of elections.

“Over fifty years ago, the Warren Court declared that state and federal districts must be based on population — the principle of one person, one vote. But [deciding] who gets to vote is only one half of the picture,” Howard said. “How legislative district lines are drawn is the other half.”

Brian Cannon, the executive director of OneVirginia2021 — a nonprofit organization advocating against partisan redistricting in Virginia — said gerrymandering could play a crucial role in elections, as politicians could use redistricting to draw out opponents.

“Our whole republic is founded on the idea that we have elections that matter,” Cannon said. “Another premise to our republic is there is some level of competition in this.”

Gerrymandering destroys the balance between candidates of different parties in the competition, Cannon added.

“In Virginia last year, we had every incumbent member of the Virginia General Assembly win reelection, and most of them didn’t even have competition. In a few places other candidates were slightly competitive, and they spent 80 million dollars on these races; and yet nothing changed,” Cannon said. “The ultimate thing that won the day was the map.”

In Virginia, the commission which proposed revisions to the Commonwealth’s Constitution added the requirement that legislative districts must be contiguous and compact. The courts, however, have not dedicated themselves to enforcing the provision.

The role high courts may play in deciding cases involving gerrymandering — and to what extent — is not totally agreed upon.

The complexity of gerrymandering lies in whether redistricting is phrased as a political issue or a constitutional issue, and courts have historically remained minimally involved in determining if gerrymandering is legal.

Sadly, in many cases, race, as an invisible factor, motivates the redistricting. State district lines may be altered based on the locations of voters of color.

For instance, African American voters may be kept in one district rather than being separated to diminish their voting power. Opposing candidates thus have a greater advantage in surrounding districts. Moreover, when black voters have a voting preference, that party is disadvantaged because segregated districts give the opposing party more leverage in elections.

“Where district lines appear to have been drawn on the basis of race, the courts do take a more activist stance,” Howard said.

However, there is usually no clear criteria from the court when judging what the motive of the legislature is.

The fuzzy boundary between racial and political gerrymandering is a genuine debate, Cannon said.

“I am not sure if there is a way to make it clear unless you make political gerrymandering also illegal,” Cannon said.

Racial gerrymandering is a problem, but does not represent the full complexity of the issue, Cannon added.

“Racial gerrymandering is illegal, and political gerrymandering, generally speaking, is legal.” Cannon said. “Asking the court to distinguish between racial and political gerrymandering is hard to do.”

Gerrymandering results in an unfair voting system, Howard said.

“Most people live in legislative districts in which the general election verges on being meaningless because the district is noncompetitive,” Howard said. “The result is a distortion of the democratic process.”

“I want people to think of this issue as the ethical issue of the day in our politics,” Cannon added. 

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