|
State Sen. Creigh Deeds, who is running for governor, and Del. Shannon Valentine, D-Lynchburg, teamed up in a news conference Tuesday to criticize Republicans who voted down an attempt at bipartisan redistricting.
“Today at 7 o’clock this morning, Republicans on the House Privileges and Elections subcommittee failed to see beyond the end of their nose,” Deeds said, referring partly to the subcommittee’s meeting time.
Deeds said the bills he and Valentine sponsored were intended to make legislative districts compact units, rather than being designed to string together precincts that vote heavily Democratic or heavily Republican.
“That’s what the framers of the Constitution had in mind,” Deeds said, and he promised to change the process to create compact, nonpartisan districts when he is elected governor.
“This is a way to ensure fairness for all parties,” Deeds said.
Del. Steve Landes, R-Weyers Cave, was the bill’s strongest critic during the subcommittee hearing. Landes said Deeds’ proposal could have been unconstitutional because it allowed a seven-member commission to draft the district boundaries, instead of having them drawn by the legislature.
Landes said he also objected because Deeds’ measure would have brought the commission’s
recommendation back to the legislature, where it would become subject to political influences again.
Deed’s bill had passed in the Senate by a 39-0 vote.
Valentine, who had a bill identical to Deeds’ that was killed in the same subcommittee on the same 4-2 party-line vote on Jan. 19, said today’s configuration of districts hurts government and citizens.
“We are not working together on issues that are truly important to the citizens of Virginia,” including education, transportation and health care, she said.
“We have created districts that are so polarized that we don’t have to listen to each other and we don’t have to work together,” Valentine said.
Deeds cited his Senate district as an example. It starts in Bath County’s Allegheny Mountain range and reaches eastward across the Shenandoah Valley and Blue Ridge Mountains to take in Charlottesville, its only population center.
Deeds said a Republican legislator asked him last year why he sponsored bipartisan redistricting when he, as a member of the Senate’s majority party, could design his own district in 2011.
“I said to her, it’s not about you, it’s not about me, it’s about something bigger than me,” Deeds said. “We have a chance to fix politics in Virginia.”
Valentine said she liked her own district, which consists of Lynchburg and Madison Heights.
“My district is compact and contiguous,” she said, “but we have so many polarized districts in Virginia.”
|
