Local Experts Discuss Upcoming Redistricting

Saturday, January 22, 2011

At a forum on redistricting Friday, folks packed the house to hear a couple of experts talk about the upcoming process and about two nonpartisan plans that might shake things up.

Rebecca Hulse, who is in charge of William and Mary’s Election Law Program, talked to a crowd of about 50 people in a small room at the Williamsburg/James City County Community Center Friday about how the current redistricting procedures began, and why some federal voting laws have become the focus of legal debate.

Dr. Quentin Kidd, the director for Christopher Newport University’s Wason Center for Public Policy, helped start a redistricting contest among state colleges that is drawing national attention. Kidd discussed the contest and how it and the state’s plan to use a nonpartisan advisory committee in this year’s process could lead to a new way to approaching redistricting.

Hulse explained to the audience that in 1964 the Supreme Court ruled that districts in every state had to be based on roughly equal population numbers so each voter’s power would be equalized. Since then, not only do districts need to be of equal population size, but all the areas within a district need to touch and be compact.

Districts are allowed to be divided to represent existing political and geographic boundaries, and they must be sure to allow for minority representation, which has led to several court cases and drawn lots of rancor in court decisions, according to Hulse.

There were some heated audience questions after the presentations that related to partisan boundary drawing, and whether the process was fair.

Kidd said he believes voters are frustrated that the state General Assembly struggles with big policy issues such as transportation and education funding. There is no competition to incumbents in most of the state’s districts, he said, and therefore there isn’t incentive to compromise and get things done. Voters are looking for a change.

Hulse explained that voters can challenge a redistricting plan if a minority area is too divided or diluted, which led to an audience member, Edith Heard, to ask about minority representation in James City County. “Black people have no way of winning here,” she said during the question and answer session, and she wanted to know how to go about drawing districts in the area to draw out the African American vote. Neither speaker knew enough about the minority population in the county to offer an opinion, but suggested the population might be too spread out to be combined into one voting block.

There are certain states in the nation (Virginia being one) that have such a history of past voter discrimination that they need to send their redistricting plans to the U.S. Department of Justice to get the new districts approved, which is an added step in Virginia’s redistricting process, Hulse pointed out.

During his presentation, Kidd spent some time discussing the student contest he helped create, which offers a cash prize to a group of college students who create the best redistricting map for Virginia.

He expected the contest not to be very popular, but that’s not been the case – 15 teams (including two from William and Mary) have signed up to participate, and both USA Today and ABC news have decided to choose a team to follow throughout the process.

Governor Bob McDonnell and the General Assembly are interested enough in the contest that the nonpartisan advisory committee will look at the winning student maps during its redistricting discussions.

The interest in the contest, Kidd thinks, comes from public desire for reform of the redistricting system. He expects that if the new maps are successful, there might be enough support in the General Assembly to pass legislation allowing a bipartisan committee to be in charge of state redistricting in the future.

This is the first time students have been able to be involved in the redistricting process, thanks to new software available that puts all the most recent population data together into a tool anyone can use to reshape districts. Both Hulse and Kidd think the software is a great innovation that could change the way redistricting is done (access the Public Mapping Project website for more information).

“Though there’s probably a downside to 300 million people redistricting,though,” Kidd joked.

Hulse suggested people interested in learning about redistricting through hands-on fun should try The Redistricting Game online.

Districts are reworked every ten years based on the new population data collected through the census. Once the process is complete on the state and local level this spring, all the state Senate and House seats will be up for a vote in new districts. Watch a video explaining the process on the Virginia Public Access Project.