Virginia's Sham Democracy

The time is ripe to reform the way political maps are drawn.

IT IS A PARODY of democracy that just 17 of the 140 seats in Virginia's General Assembly were seriously contested in last fall's elections. For that travesty, Virginia voters can thank their own representatives in the General Assembly, who, Democrats and Republicans alike, have treated the decennial ritual of drawing district political maps exclusively as an incumbent-protection project. Under this farcical scheme, officeholders get to select the constituents in their districts; who cares that the Founding Fathers clearly intended the inverse.

Shamed by increasingly savvy voters, 15 states have scrapped these overtly partisan programs, generally replacing them with bipartisan or nonpartisan commissions charged with drawing voting lines more neutrally. In Virginia, legislation to do just that sailed through the state Senate, despite initial grumbling from some Democratic leaders. The bill, now before a House subcommittee, faces a crucial test today; if it survives, it stands a chance of passing the full, Republican-controlled House and becoming law.

If ever there was a moment ripe for redistricting reform in Virginia, this is it. The Senate is controlled by Democrats; the House is held by the GOP. Neither party can be sure it will retain its advantage come 2011, after the next census. To be sure, Republicans, having suffered a string of setbacks in recent statewide and legislative races, are fearful of further defeats; they may therefore attempt to lock down their slender advantage in the House while they still can by maintaining the current, blatantly partisan system.

That would be a grave miscalculation. Whatever the computer models may show, there are no ironclad guarantees that voting patterns will hold steady. Unless House Republicans are prepared to run the risk that wrathful Democrats will recapture a majority of the lower house and take their revenge, they would be wise to cut a deal now -- one that creates a bipartisan commission on redistricting, equally divided between Democrats and Republicans, with an independent chair. The General Assembly would retain the final say over the commission's recommendations on legislative and congressional districts. But those recommendations -- drafted by law without reference to voting trends, partisan affiliations or the addresses of incumbents -- would establish a less partisan baseline that could help shame lawmakers into doing the right thing for their constituents.

The wise course for both parties is to seize on their current positions of relative strength and the distinct possibility of future weakness. Grandees from both parties have grasped that. Among Republicans, George Allen, a former governor and U.S. senator, and Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling, who plans to run for governor next year, have embraced redistricting reform. So have Gov. Timothy M. Kaine and his predecessor, Mark R. Warner, both Democrats. Lawmakers who pay lip service to good government will be exposed as bald-faced hypocrites if they do not seize the chance before them to turn elections back over to the electorate.