Posted on 03/23/2011 7:26:42 PM PDT by Libloather
Va. black caucus pushes for second minority district
By: David Sherfinski 03/22/11 8:05 PM
The Virginia Legislative Black Caucus wants the state to draw a second high-percentage minority congressional district -- a move that could throw a proposal to protect all 11 House incumbents into chaos.
There is currently one majority-black congressional district in Virginia -- the 3rd District, held by Democratic Rep. Bobby Scott -- that encompasses part of Richmond and runs down into Hampton Roads.
For a state with a 20 percent black population to have one black member of Congress is "not representative," said state Sen. Mamie Locke, D-Hampton, who chairs the Legislative Black Caucus.
"If we don't take this opportunity now, then we've got to wait another 10 years to have this kind of discussion," she said.
Blacks comprise 54 percent of the voting-age population in Scott's district. In Rep. Randy Forbes' 4th District, which borders Scott's on the west and south, 34 percent of the voting-age population is black.
The new district could be centered in the Richmond area and claim territory coming from both Scott's and Forbes' existing districts.
Locke said the caucus is proposing creating a second "opportunity district" that maximizes minorities' opportunity to elect a candidate of their choice and not necessarily a second minority-majority district.
Michael McDonald, a professor at George Mason University who is working with Gov. Bob McDonnell's redistricting commission, said the population numbers likely aren't there to create a second minority-majority congressional district. If the opportunity exists for one, the state may have to draw it to avoid litigation or objections from the Justice Department.
Virginia is one of a handful of mostly Southern states that must preclear their redistricting plans with the Justice Department under the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Virginia is now required to maintain at least one black-majority district.
Bolstering minority representation across more than one district could scramble a proposed plan intended to protect all 11 of the state's congressional incumbents.
"If we just settle for an incumbent protection plan and do not even venture into trying [to] create competitive districts, then that's a problem, especially when we have the opportunity to do so," Locke said.
State Sen. Chap Petersen, D-Fairfax, a member of the Senate Privileges and Elections Committee, said he would welcome public input on such a proposal, and criticized the reported incumbent protection plan.
"The idea that we're just going to blindly adopt what the incumbents want just seems counterintuitive to me," he said.
I know you meant *we* as a nation.
Unfortunately our President, Attorney General, the black caucus and a whole bunch of other people can’t get over the race issue.
It certainly is representative if the voters decide who represents them.
No race is owed any percentage of seats because of their color.
If we’re going to take that logic then you’d better be prepared for a lot more white guys playing basketball and football professionally.
I think it would be funny if they split up the guaranteed minority district and spread themselves so thin that they lose both the original and the new one.
I’m really not keeping up with the ping list. Feel free to steal it from my profile page.
Such a district wouldn’t stretch from Richmond to Arlington County.
Maybe black legislators would back a plan that would dump a more Republicans into, and subtract Democrats from the 11th District (currently held by Gerald Connolly, D-Fairfax)
One advantage for Republicans: Scott has to add about 64K constituents to his seat.
Disadvantages for Republicans:
Scott won in ‘10 with 70%. So he’s getting a lot of white votes too.
Wittman lost the Hampton portion of the 1st; Forbes lost Petersburg in the 4th; Cantor lost the Richmond City portion of the 7th.
Cantor actually lives in the Richmond City portion of the 7th. So if such a district were created he’d be running in it, on much less friendly territory than he is now but probably not unwinnable.
Creating majority-minority districts has sometimes made it easier for the Republicans to increase their overall share of the seats. But if Eric Holder has to approve any district-drawing, it may be impossible to satisfy him. There may be no way to create a second district that is heavily-enough black to be a sure thing for a black Democrat to win assuming the different parts of the district are contiguous to each other. So what happens if Holder refuses to accept any plan they come up with? There is potential for mischief there when you have an Attorney General who is only thinking in terms of benefiting “my people.”
In 1982 it went to court, with the court approving a plan.
It ended up postponing the election in GA-4 and GA-5, with
the primary being on everyone else’s election day and the general election for those two seats at the end of November.
I’m trying to figure out how that case (and one that triggered it?) went down. But, the attorney general (William French Smith of all people) never approved the Georgia legislature-approved plan. I don’t know whether the court came up with its own plan, one submitted by the US DOJ, or what.
Elliott Levitas ended up losing in 1984.
How is that not a racist statement? So a white candidate running in a "black" district should not even be considered due to the color of his / her skin? What if a "white" district elects a black candidate?
Using Dave’s redistricting, I came up with a contiguous (albeit highly gerrymandered) minority-majority district in Northern Virginia which would either knock out Jim Moran or Keith Fimian. I wonder why the caucus does not want to put it there?
Va ping!
I’ve always wondered why those stats aren’t brought up more often. To be fair the racial makeup of most sports team needs to reflect more ‘diversity’. Right now anyone watching American basketball and football would think the country is 90% black.
For a state with a 20 percent black population to have one black member of Congress is "not representative," said state Sen. Mamie Locke, D-Hampton, who chairs the Legislative Black Caucus.
The assertion/assumption that people only vote for persons who are the same race as themsleves flies in the face of EVERYTHIING Martin Luther king, Jr. worked for, stood for and died for.
The statements of this woman, and the ideas upon which they are based, are some of the most racist i have heard from the mouth of a politician in Virginia since I was a small child.
They are also wholly incorrect.
More than 20 years ago the voters of Virginia elected Douglas Wilder as our governor. He was the 2nd black American serve as governor of a state in this country.
In 2008, most Virginians voted for Barack Obama to be our president.
NEITHER of the above could have occurred if white Virginians were so racist as to only be willing to vote for a white person.
PS - Bobby Scott is a leftist moonbat wacko liberal democrat.
I dislike him because of his politics, NOT because of the color of his skin.
I’ve heard THAT works too...
Yes, apparently "asshole" is a constituency now.
Race is just a skin color, a ‘social construct’ blah, blah, blah...
I hope I live to see the day when that damnable civil rights act jackboot is removed from the necks of the southern states.
Of course not. They no longer follow the lead of Martin Luther King. Politicians are to be judged by the color of their skin, not the content of their character.
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