LISTEN: VA Lawmakers Meet In Richmond To Fix Gerrymandering

Steve Burns
WMAL.com

RICHMOND – (WMAL) Virginia state lawmakers will be coming together for a special session on Monday to re-work the state’s Congressional District map. A federal court has already ruled one of the districts, the third, is unconstitutional.

“The 3rd District basically takes every African-American voter in downstate Virginia and trie to put them in one Congressional District. On its face it’s racial gerrymandering and I just think it’s wrong,” State Senator Chap Petersen (D-Fairfax) told WMAL. “Whether it’s legally wrong or morally wrong, it’s wrong and we have to change it.”

It’s still unclear whether lawmakers will look to change just the 3rd District, or re-work the entire map from scratch. Petersen would like to see the latter.

“We have a really historic opportunity to create some non-partisan districts, and districts that would lead to some competitive races.” Asked how the borders of a district should be determined, Petersen said it should center around communities.

“You have 11 Congressional Districts in Virginia. How do you set them up so that the representative for that district will be representing people that have things in common?”

He mentioned Richmond as an example. “Instead of taking all the south Side neighborhoods which tend to be African-American and putting them in the 3rd, and putting the rest of the neighborhoods in the 7th, you actually have the city have one Congressional District. I think it would be very balanced and you’d have a lot more exciting races.”

But in the area he represents, Petersen said the districts are already drawn fairly. “I think by and large, the Northern Virginia districts are pretty logical. They’re in pretty good shape right now.”

In the end, whatever the House of Delegates and Senate passes has to go through the Governor, who has veto power. “I think that’s a major possibility,” Petersen said. “Any Districts that are re-drawn are going to have to be submitted to the Governor, who has the ability to either approve them or veto them. So he can veto them and kick it over to Federal Court.”