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Wisconsin gerrymandering case could have profound effect in Virginia

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The Supreme Court said Monday it will consider whether gerrymandered election maps favoring one political party over another violate the Constitution, a potentially fundamental change in the way American elections are conducted.

While the Supreme Court case comes out of Wisconsin, political experts say the effect in Virginia could be groundbreaking.

“If the Supreme Court decides that partisan gerrymandering is unconstitutional, that would have a revolutionary impact on the reapportionment process in Virginia,” said Stephen Farnsworth, a political science professor at the University of Mary Washington.

The justices regularly are called on to invalidate state electoral maps that have been illegally drawn to reduce the influence of racial minorities by depressing the impact of their votes. A Virginia case based on race led to new districts being drawn in Hampton Roads, including U.S. Rep. Robert C. “Bobby” Scott’s 3rd District. U.S. Rep. Donald McEachin, a Henrico Democrat, was elected in the redrawn 4th District, changing the state delegation from eight Republicans and three Democrats to seven Republicans and four Democrats.

But the Supreme Court has never found a plan unconstitutional because of partisan gerrymandering. If it does, it would have a revolutionary impact on the reapportionment that comes after the 2020 election and could come at the expense of Republicans, who control the process in the majority of states.

In Virginia, elections would almost certainly become more competitive if the court decides that partisan gerrymandering is unconstitutional, Farnsworth said. Democrats consistently win statewide elections in Virginia, he said, pointing to both senators and the three statewide offices of governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general. But Republicans have an almost two-to-one majority in the House of Delegates, he said.

In the 2016 congressional election, more Virginians voted for Democrats than Republicans by a scant margin — 1,859,426 to 1,843,010 — but those votes resulted in the seven-four Republican majority.

“Do district lines have anything to do with those differences? I think it’s undoubtedly true that they do,” said Jesse Richman, an associate professor of 1political science at Old Dominion University.

Hampton Roads has some competitive districts but not many, Farnsworth said. Del. Marcia “Cia” Price, D-Newport News, won almost 77 percent of the vote against an independent candidate in the 95th District during the 2015 election, while Dels. Gordon Helsel, R-Poquoson, and Brenda Pogge, R-Norge, ran unopposed.

Del. David Yancey, R-Newport News, won in a more competitive race, with 57.5 percent of the vote against his Democratic opponent.

“If you have a dominant party nomination and a pulse in the other, you’re going to Richmond,” Farnsworth said.

Three lawsuits have been filed raising questions about gerrymandering in Virginia. One of them, funded by a nonpartisan redistricting reform group called OneVirginia2021, argued that Republican legislators drawing the maps were more concerned with designing ways to get elected than with the “compactness” of the district, which the state constitution requires.

A Circuit Court judge dismissed the OneVirginia2021 lawsuit in April, ruling that the 11 challenged districts were properly drawn. Brian Cannon, the group’s executive director, said OneVirginia2021 filed its notice of appeal last month, and briefs from both sides are due by the end of June. The state Supreme Court’s three-judge panel will likely hear the case by the end of August, he said.

Cannon said the OneVirginia2021 case does not single out either party as both have drawn gerrymandered maps. “The real question is, do politicians have a right to discriminate against citizens because of their political viewpoint?” Cannon said.

“Fundamentally, the question here is, to what extent do we want to have the legislators picking the voters versus having the voters picking the legislators?” Richman said.

The two other Virginia lawsuits, both federal, argue that the legislature concentrated too much on race in drawing districts. One ended with the redrawing of districts in Hampton Roads. The other made the racial gerrymandering argument against state legislative districts. Its final outcome is pending.

In Wisconsin, the Republican administration contends that while the state is purple in national elections, its geography favors Republicans in legislative elections. Democratic voters are clustered in cities such as Milwaukee and Madison, while Republican voters are more evenly spread across the state. Any method of drawing districts will favor Republicans, they contend.

Staff writer Reema Amin and The Washington Post contributed to this story.