Llanten Democrata porque Virginia quiere tener el mismo esquema electoral que Maine...

por **Charlie319** Vie Ene 25, 2013 2:28 pm

Tremendo llanten por el plan de reforma electoral en Virginia... Total, el estado Democrata de Maine tiene el mismo esquema en el que se aporcionan los votos presidenciales por colegio electoral...

Redistricting in Virginia Hurts Blacks, Democrats SayBy TRIP GABRIEL
Published: January 23, 2013

On Monday, one of Virginia’s state senators attended the inauguration: Henry L. Marsh III, a longtime civil rights lawyer, who played hooky to witness a milestone for an African-American president.

The same day, Republicans back in the state capital, Richmond, took advantage of his absence to win a party-line vote, 20 to 19, to redraw electoral maps in a way that Democrats say dilute African-Americans’ voting strength.

The move not only has Democrats howling about a power grab, it has also been criticized by Virginia’s Republican governor and lieutenant governor.

Redrawing districts to favor the party in power is hardly new in Virginia, or elsewhere. Democrats redrew the state map in 2011 when they held the majority in the Senate, although their efforts to achieve electoral gains were less than successful: they lost control of the chamber later that year.

Republican senators say the new map increases the number of Senate districts in Virginia with black majorities to six from five and is necessary to shield the state from lawsuits under federal civil rights law. But Democrats are furious that the map also dilutes the party’s power by removing blacks from as many as a dozen districts; and under the guise of bowing to the Voting Rights Act, they say, it would pack blacks in fewer districts over all.

“This was nothing more than what I call plantation politics,” said Senator Donald McEachin, the chairman of the Democratic caucus.

The issue has reintroduced partisan rancor in the State Senate, which is evenly split, 20 to 20, between the parties. Many Virginia lawmakers had hoped to avoid conflict after last year’s divisions over a bill requiring ultrasounds for women seeking abortions cast a harsh light on the state nationally.

One displeased official is Gov. Bob McDonnell, a Republican, who needs Democratic support as he seeks to enact ambitious proposals on transportation and education in his last year in office. “This is not an issue that I advocated,” Mr. McDonnell told reporters on Tuesday. “I certainly don’t think that’s a good way to do business.”

Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling also opposed his party’s move. “He is concerned that it could create a hyperpartisan atmosphere,” said Mr. Bolling’s spokeswoman, Ibbie Hedrick.

Republicans who pushed through the map said it was needed to right historic wrongs. Although 19 percent of Virginia’s population is black, according to the census, and President Obama carried the state twice, only 5 of the 40 state senators are black. All represent districts drawn with black majorities in 1991. Since then, no other district has sent an African-American to the Senate.

The leader of the new effort, Senator John C. Watkins, said that in creating a sixth district in Southern Virginia with a black majority, the state would be protected from litigation under the Voting Rights Act. “No one can dispute that racially polarized voting is present in Virginia,” Mr. Watkins said on the Senate floor on Monday, according to a transcript of the proceedings.

Senator Richard L. Saslaw, the Democratic minority leader, used an expletive to describe Republican concerns for black voters. He said Republicans blocked efforts in 2011 to create a new Congressional district with a high percentage of blacks.

Mr. Saslaw, who is known for not holding back, said that on the Senate floor he compared the Republican move to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Both Republicans and Democrats, he said, have traditionally agreed to map districts in the back room to protect incumbents.

“When I did the redistricting I went to every single Republican, except four or five, and gave them the districts they wanted,” he said of the effort he led in 2011. By contrast, he said, the new map “guts about a dozen of our senators.”

Democrats say the extensive changes passed by Republicans, which are now before the legislature’s lower chamber, the House of Delegates, where Republicans hold a supermajority, violate the state’s Constitution. They foresee a lengthy court fight if the map is adopted. Before then, however, it must get past the governor, not a sure bet at all.

As for Mr. Marsh, who missed the vote, he rejected any notion that Republicans were acting in African-Americans’ interests. He called the plan “shameful

Finding a way out of Va. redistricting trap
By Laura Vozzella, Published: January 24
RICHMOND — Sen. Richard L. Saslaw got wind Thursday that House Democrats might force a vote on a bill to redraw Senate lines across the state, so he dashed from his chamber to make sure that didn’t happen.

Republicans had rammed the measure through the Senate on Monday in a sneak attack that Saslaw had compared to Pearl Harbor. And ever since, the Senate Democratic leader from Fairfax has been quietly pressing House Speaker William J. Howell (R-Stafford) to do away with it, according to legislators and Capitol staffers.

Even though they were in close contact, Saslaw was not sure where Howell stood on the bill, which the speaker could kill with a procedural move. And with good reason.

Howell and Gov. Robert F. McDonnell (R) are conflicted about how to get out of a mess that members of their party had thrust them into, according to two Republicans and a Democratic senator familiar with their thinking but not authorized to speak publicly on the issue.

The governor and speaker are said to be struggling over whether to advance the plan or kill it. If they opt to do it in, the question becomes whether Howell should dispatch it by way of a parliamentary ruling or McDonnell by way of a veto.

“They just don’t know what they’re going to do yet,” said a GOP strategist familiar with their thinking. “They’re human beings, just handed this proposal.”

As the governor and speaker try to decide on a course, Saslaw has been appealing to Howell, his political opponent but friend.

“Dick thinks maybe this can be settled short of a confrontation,” said a Democratic senator who spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to speak candidly.

McDonnell, Howell and Saslaw all declined to comment on their conversations.

The redistricting shocker that Senate Republicans sprang on unsuspecting Democrats came as no less a surprise to McDonnell and Howell.

The plan has the potential to give Republicans greater sway over the now evenly divided Senate — something the speaker and governor would normally welcome. But it also threatens to derail a proposed transportation-funding overhaul, which is central to McDonnell’s bid for the sort of grand legacy that can set a governor on a path to the White House.

The House is considering legislation that Senate Republicans muscled through Monday. Taking up a bill that called for minor “technical adjustments” to House district boundaries, they amended it on the floor to make changes to all of the Senate’s 40 districts.

Republicans said the new maps would correct gerrymandered districts that Democrats pushed through in 2011 when they controlled the Senate. Democrats said the plan runs afoul of the state constitution, which specifies that redistricting take place after the decennial census in years ending in one.

The new map, which would take effect in 2015, creates an additional majority-black district in Southside but also disperses the black vote elsewhere, making other districts more heavily Republican.

If McDonnell and Howell kill the map, they could enrage fellow Republicans — a group already wary of their transportation plan, which would eliminate the gas tax but raise the sales tax and certain fees.

If they let it go, the governor and speaker will infuriate Democrats, who also look skeptically on the transportation proposal because it reallocates money that could be spent on schools and other “core” government services to roads.

No matter which route they go, they must consider timing. Should they get it over with? Wait to see if public outcry dies down? Do it during the session, when the bill could be used as a bargaining chip on transportation? Or wait until afterward, when the governor would have more time to decide on a veto?

McDonnell, who has cultivated a national image as a results-
oriented pragmatist, is said to be leery of being tied to a partisan power grab, particularly one that has taken on a story line tinged with race.

Republicans were able to push their plan through the 20-20 Senate by taking it up on Monday when a Democrat was absent.

Sen. Henry L. Marsh III, who decades ago argued school desegregation cases and who was Richmond’s first black mayor, was attending President Obama’s inauguration in Washington.

Democrats and even a late-night comedian have seized that angle.

“They waited until a Democratic senator and longtime civil rights leader left town on Martin Luther King Day to attend President Obama’s inauguration,” comedian Stephen Colbert said as he named the Senate Republicans his “alpha dogs of the week.” “In the words of Dr. King, ‘I have been to the mountaintop, and while I was there, they heavily redistricted the promised land.’ ”

Virginia Republicans were similarly lampooned on national TV during last year’s session for a bill that, as originally proposed, would have required women to get a vaginal ultrasound before an abortion. The uproar was widely seen as torpedoing McDonnell’s chances of being picked as Mitt Romney’s running mate.

On Thursday afternoon, when Saslaw dashed to the House, he learned that Democrats there had decided not to force a vote on the matter — a vote that would have brought to a head the question of whether the Senate amendment violated legislative rules.

For the second day in a row, the House voted to pass over the bill for the day without any objection.

As he headed back to the Senate, Saslaw waved off questions about the House’s decision to put off action. “Bill Howell doesn’t need me to tell him how to do his own business,” Saslaw said.