Virginia Democrats face choice between idealism and revenge in vote on gerrymandering

The lines are adjusted every 10 years after the national census. Republicans across the country have benefited from additional seats in the U.S. House and state legislatures because they controlled the process in most states after the 2000 and 2010 counts.

Democrats have the majority in Richmond this year, and their voters have to decide: Do we strike a blow for nonpartisan maps or stick it to the GOP as they have stuck it to us?

Democratic voters in other states will soon confront the same challenge as they consider anti-gerrymandering proposals. The party has gained adherents since 2010 and must decide how ruthless it wants to be in seeking to reverse past Republican gains.

In Virginia, the proposed amendment would create a 16-member, bipartisan commission of legislators and citizens to draw the electoral maps, which the General Assembly currently controls.

A yes vote would mean Virginia joins a growing number of states that have adopted similar commissions or other measures to block or hamper efforts to rig the system.

“This can’t just be a one-party domination exercise every 10 years,” said Sen. Adam P. Ebbin (D-Alexandria), who supports the amendment. “The only way this [gerrymandering] game is ever going to end is when we come up with reform, and it’s time for it to end.”

A no vote might deprive Democrats of a chance to redraw the state’s congressional map to safeguard one or two House seats they gained in the 2018 midterm elections. The Democrats’ virtual statewide convention in June approved a resolution warning that the amendment could cost the party its majority in the House of Delegates as early as 2021, and the state Senate by 2023.

“This would not be the first time or only issue where Democrats are called suckers,” said Del. Marcia S. “Cia” Price (D-Newport News), who opposes the amendment. She also faulted the amendment for having “so many loopholes” that “it’s not the progress that it’s made out to be.”

Republican leaders are urging their supporters to vote yes, because for them principle and pragmatism are aligned. Paradoxically, a Christopher Newport University poll last month found Republican voters overall oppose the amendment, whereas Democrats support it. Lawmakers and activists said views may change as people learn more about the measure.

Democratic legislators and other party leaders are divided, which is typical of any majority party asked to give up its clout on behalf of fairness.

“No matter where you are operating, the party that gains power and [still] advocates redistricting reform may also be injured by it,” said Stanford Law School professor Nathaniel Persily, an elections expert. “That doesn’t mean they’re wrong to do so. It just means there’s a political cost to trying to protect democracy.”

The Democrats’ temptation to keep all the power for themselves is strengthened by their awareness that the Republicans did not hesitate to wield theirs to maximum advantage following the last two censuses, especially after 2010.

Democrats are just as willing as Republicans to gerrymander when they have the power to do so. Maryland Democrats pilfered a congressional seat from the GOP in 2012 by committing one of the country’s most blatant gerrymanders.

But Republicans nationwide have benefited most in recent years, because they have controlled more state legislatures and went about gerrymandering in a more systematic way.

“It isn’t that the Democrats don’t try to do it,” said Kathay Feng, national redistricting director for Common Cause. “It’s just that the Republicans had a plan to secure partisan state control of state legislatures in the 2010 cycle.”

Gerrymanders in three states — Texas, Ohio and Florida — enabled the Republicans in 2018 to win about 10 U.S. House seats more than their popular vote totals justified, according to an analysis by the Princeton Gerrymandering Project.

That may have been slightly offset by a Democratic gerrymander in New Jersey, where the Democrats gained two more seats than their votes justified, but the data is less clear-cut in that state, according to Sam Wang, the project’s director.

“It is true that partisan Republican gerrymandering has really helped the Republicans in the last two cycles, especially after 2010,” Wang said.

Critics of the Virginia amendment say the commission would not be genuinely independent, because eight of its members would be partisan legislators, and party leaders would help pick the eight citizen members.

Also, because a supermajority is required to approve a map, as few as two legislators of the same party could kill it, even if the other 14 members agreed.

“The folks who support it because they think it’s somehow taking redistricting out of the legislature and giving it to the public, this plan clearly falls short of that,” said Bob Holsworth, a retired political science professor and commentator, who chaired a Virginia advisory panel on redistricting in 2011.

If the commission can’t agree on a map, then the decision passes to the Supreme Court of Virginia — where critics note that Republican appointees have a majority.

“The idea of it being independent and nonpartisan is just not true,” Price said. “Every person in this has a self-interest, from the state legislators to the judges.”

Ebbin countered that the Supreme Court is not as partisan as it’s being painted. In recent decisions, he noted, it has backed Gov. Ralph Northam (D) in upholding mask requirements, extending a moratorium on evictions and removing Confederate monuments.

“It’s just fear tactics to say the Supreme Court is made up of partisan hacks,” Ebbin said. “They’re judges who’ve taken an oath to uphold the constitution.”

Wang, the Princeton expert, said Democrats generally benefit less than Republicans from gerrymandering, partly because their voters are concentrated in metropolitan areas.

“It’s easier to draw lines around Democrats than Republicans,” Wang said. “There’s a natural advantage that Republicans have if they want to pull a fast one.”

He also said that by taking the high road, Virginia Democrats could encourage neighboring states like North Carolina to do the same.

“Virginia has a chance to play a leadership role in the South and pave the way for fairer districting there,” Wang said. “Honestly, it’s not necessarily worth it for [Democrats] to go low.”

Virginia Democrats strongly supported bipartisan redistricting when they were in the minority. Now they have a chance to prove they aren’t hypocrites by adhering to principle.

But a lot of people would understand if they chose otherwise.