The Republicans' Gamble

Change Virginia's redistricting system or roll the dice.

PARTIES THAT command the majority of state legislatures are loath to yield their right to draw district lines on the state's political map. And no wonder: Why voluntarily cede such a sweeping power? But Virginia Republicans, who control both houses of the state legislature, would do well to break the mold this year -- and not only because they would be exposed as bald-faced hypocrites for refusing.

Virginia remains in most ways a majority-Republican state. But after successive Democratic victories in races for governor and senator, plus Democratic pickups in the state legislature for most of this decade, the GOP majority is starting to look shaky. Hence the party's dilemma: If it insists on leaving redistricting in the hands of the majority, as it has in recent years, it may wake up after the 2010 Census startled to find the Democrats in charge of redrawing the political map. If, on the other hand, the Republicans agree now to create a bipartisan system, they may end up with an electoral map more to their liking than if they were left to the Democrats' mercies. The result will be better government and better politics.

It's better government because Virginia's current system has produced a quasi-democracy. Most incumbent lawmakers have districts so gerrymandered in their favor that they face no serious opponent or no opponent at all. In the last elections for the House of Delegates, in 2005, just 12 of the 100 races were competitive enough to end with a margin of victory of less than 10 percentage points; in the last state Senate elections, in 2003, just four of the 40 races were that close. Most of the real contests are in the primaries, which are decided by a tiny handful of the most partisan voters of each party. That produces winners who tend to be the most partisan candidates and the ones least interested in consensus and compromise. The result: polarization and gridlock of the sort that Virginia's legislature has been subjected to for the past several years on transportation and the budget.

Then there's the politics. Fifteen years ago, Virginia Republicans, then in the minority, introduced a constitutional amendment to establish a bipartisan redistricting commission. The commission would consist of four members named by the chief justice of the Virginia Supreme Court -- two from each party but none serving in any elective or official party capacity. The fifth member, the chairman, would be selected by the other four. The GOP's proposed amendment was killed without ado by the then-majority Democrats. The Republican sponsors, who included a certain Del. William J. Howell of Stafford County, cried foul.

Now an identical constitutional amendment, unearthed from the state archives, has been proposed by Virginia's House Democratic leader, Del. Brian Moran of Alexandria. Mr. Howell, whose Republican Party is now in the majority, is speaker of the House. Can he, with a straight face, oppose the amendment that he co-sponsored in 1992?