As Virginia lawmakers prepare for a politically charged fight over redistricting, it doesn’t appear likely that they will create a second black-majority district. The Legislative Black Caucus had called on the state to add a second congressional district with a mostly black population in hopes of electing a second black member of Congress, but experts say it now appears that there isn’t sufficient black population to support two minority-majority districts.
Lawmakers are now focused on the possibility of creating a district that has a large black minority that would at least increase the chances of an African-American being elected, though they conceded that accomplishing that may require reducing the black population in the state’s sole minority-majority district, the 3rd District now held by Rep. Bobby Scott, a Democrat.
The second district would “certainly have to be above 40 percent” in black population, said state Sen. Mamie Locke, D-Hampton, who chairs the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus.
One plan now being developed by state Senate Democrats would reduce the black voting-age population in Scott’s district to below 50 percent and shift black voters to the neighboring 4th District, which represented by Republican Randy Forbes.
Another map that came from Gov. Bob McDonnell’s bipartisan redistricting commission would actually move the state’s minority-majority district south, so that it touches the North Carolina border, though it would still encompass part of Forbes’ current district.
Del. Lionell Spruill, D-Chesapeake, while supportive of the concept of increasing black representation, said that he wouldn’t support a plan that weakens the black majority in the 3rd District.
The creation of another black-majority district or even a district with a sizable black minority could scramble plans of the state’s 11 incumbent congressmen — eight Republicans and three Democrats — who have agreed on a proposal that would largely protect all of them in their re-election battles next year.
The issue of minority representation is particularly thorny for Virginia, which is one of a handful of mostly Southern states that, because of past racial discrimination at the polls, must get their redistricting plans approved by the Justice Department under the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
The state is now required to maintain at least one minority-majority district, and tinkering with the lines too much could invite scrutiny from the U.S. Department of Justice. Section 2 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act forbids tactics that dilute the vote of minority populations.
“The difference between one and two [districts] — that’s a gray area where the Justice Department might intervene and might not,” said Stephen Farnsworth, a professor of communication at George Mason University.
