Virginia voters decide unambiguously: No more rigged redistricting
Virginia voters decide unambiguously: No more rigged redistricting
Opinion by Editorial Board
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/virginia-voters-decide-no-more-rigged-redistricting/2020/11/04/85cf70d6-1d3b-11eb-90dd-abd0f7086a91_story.html?utm_source=feedly&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=wp_opinions&utm_source=reddit.com
November 4, 2020 at 10:57 a.m. EST
ACTUAL VOTE-RIGGING — not the made-up variety conjured by President Trump — has been the norm in too many states for too long, having taken place once a decade under the anodyne-sounding rubric of congressional and legislative redistricting. On Tuesday, voters in Virginia said: Enough.
They did so despite the blatant hypocrisy of both Democratic and Republican politicians in the state, who supported reform before they opposed it (in the case of the former) and opposed it before they supported it (in the case of the latter). They did so in overwhelming numbers, across party lines and unambiguously. And they did so in a way that will be difficult to undo.
Bravo.
By a lopsided margin, Virginians approved a constitutional amendment to establish a bipartisan redistricting commission that will remove from back rooms the decennial process of drawing maps for congressional and state legislative elections, and shift it into the public realm. That alone will improve the odds that voters can choose their elected representatives rather than the other way around.
The rules governing the new commission are admittedly imperfect, and the commission will be partly composed of, and heavily influenced by, politicians and stakeholders in the political process. Its 16 members will include eight state lawmakers, four from each party, plus eight citizens selected by retired state circuit court judges (who themselves will be chosen by party leaders). The commission will be charged with drawing electoral maps for Congress as well as for Virginia’s state Senate and House of Delegates, and submitting them for an up-or-down vote in the General Assembly. Failing that, the task will fall to the state Supreme Court.
....SNIP"
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