Va. House map constitutional, federal judges rule
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Version 0 of 1. RICHMOND — A panel of three federal judges ruled Thursday that the 12 House of Delegates districts that Democrats challenged in federal court are constitutional, giving Republicans a win for now in Virginia’s fraught political map-making battle. The 2-to-1 ruling comes four months after a separate three-judge panel sided with Democrats in a similar case centered on the state’s redistricting of its congressional map four years ago. [Virginia redistricting lawsuits could cost taxpayers big bucks] The contrary rulings ensure that the redistricting battle in Virginia will continue for some time. Democrats on the losing side Thursday said they were likely to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, as Republicans already have in the case decided against them in June. “We are reviewing the court’s decision and expect to appeal,” said Marc E. Elias, a Washington lawyer who brought both Virginia cases as well as similar ones around the country. Elias is general counsel to Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential campaign and worked on the 2013 campaign of Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D). House Speaker Willliam J. Howell (R-Stafford) cheered the decision and blasted what he described as a “politically motivated lawsuit, funded by liberal billionaires.” “The lawsuit came despite the fact that the House districts were adopted with bipartisan support, including the support of a majority of the African American members in the House of Delegates at the time, and approved by President Obama’s Department of Justice,” Howell said. Both lawsuits assert that the GOP packed racial minorities into certain districts to dilute their influence elsewhere. Democrats contend that the state’s lopsided congressional and House delegations — the GOP has eight of Virginia’s 11 congressional seats and a super-majority in the House — is evidence of illegal gerrymandering. A panel of federal judges has twice found — once in October 2014, and again in June — that Republicans had illegally packed African American voters into Democrat Robert C. Scott’s 3rd Congressional District. In between, in March, the Supreme Court made a high-profile ruling in an Alabama case, requiring lower courts to look more closely at whether lawmakers make race the predominant factor in drawing new district lines since the 2010 census. The Alabama and Virginia cases all hinge on when it is legal to use race to draw district boundaries, so the earlier rulings had raised Democrats’ hopes that the court would favor their position in the case related to House districts in the commonwealth. But it did not turn out that way. The case decided Thursday challenged the constitutionality of a dozen House districts, claiming that they were the results of racial gerrymandering. The court, which held a four-day bench trial on the matter in July, found that “race was not shown to have been the predominant factor in the creation of eleven of the twelve Challenged Districts.” It concluded that race was the predominant factor in the creation in the 12th, House District 75, a rural district between Southside and Tidewater that is represented by Democrat Roslyn C. Tyler. But race was considered in a way that was allowed under the law, the court found. “In using race, the General Assembly was pursuing a compelling state interest, namely, actual compliance with federal antidiscrimination law, and that, in the process, the General Assembly used race in a manner narrowly tailored to achieve that interest,” the court ruled. Brian Cannon, executive director of OneVirginia2021, which pushes for nonpartisan redistricting, said he was surprised and disappointed by the court’s ruling. “The court had a choice between whether these districts are racially gerrymandered or politically gerrymandered,” he said. “The court chose [to rule that] this was a political gerrymander, which while completely damaging to our democracy, is completely legal. This case makes a case for reform. We’ve got to make political gerrymandering illegal.” |