Steve Burns
WMAL.com
ALEXANDRIA (WMAL) — A lawsuit being heard in Federal Court in Alexandria will decide if the Virginia House of Delegates illegally packed too many African-American voters into 12 districts, in order to reduce their influence in the other 88.
“We know they’re sympathetic to the fact that a 55% threshold is considered racial gerrymandering and it violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment,” said Brian Cannon of One Virginia 2021. The group is advocating for redistricting by the next time census data is released.
“All we need is census data to make these lines make sense,” he said. “For the bulk of redistricting, all you need is a basic population number.”
In a similar case last month, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the General Assembly to draw new congressional maps because the existing boundaries illegally pack voters into the 3rd Congressional District.
“This isn’t fair for those communities to be packed in and the other communities to be bleached of African-American support,” Cannon said.
He’s confident the legislature will be forced to draw a new map. He said it’s a bipartisan problem, since it’s being done by both parties, with the main priority of getting certain candidates elected or re-elected.
“You have to get it out of the politicians’ hands,” Cannon said. “Letting them draw their own districts is like letting the batter call balls and strikes for themselves.”
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