The new maps — drafted by a pair of experts chosen by the court, one from each party — were enacted unanimously by the seven justices. The decision is momentous.
It is the culmination of a reform approved by Virginia voters in the state’s decennial redistricting procedure that, for the first time in decades, removed the map-drawing from the exclusive hands of self-interested state lawmakers. The result is imperfect; some Democrats, who would have preferred to leverage their control of the state legislature this year for maximum partisan advantage, are incensed.
Yet the bottom line is this: The state’s new maps, the products of a radically more transparent process, are fairer. They are fairer to voters, and to the ideals of representative democracy, than any conceivable competing plan that might have been drawn by lawmakers themselves.
The court was adamant that the map be politically neutral. One may debate the definition of political neutrality: Should it mean striving for an even balance between the parties, or seeking to replicate the state’s current political tilt as best as it can be measured?
The maps approved by the court appear to lean toward the former. Republicans, who now hold just four of the state’s 11 congressional seats, might find more promising political terrain in one or two of the redrawn districts. But furious Democrats seem to have forgotten that the GOP’s 2010 gerrymander was seen as cementing Republican control over the House of Delegates — until it didn’t, after the 2019 elections. Predictions are dangerous things.
The new maps are the product of unprecedented transparency. The drafters, Sean Trende, a GOP nominee, and Bernard Grofman, picked by the Democrats, made significant edits to their initial effort, earlier in December, in response to public input. In a 63-page memo to the court, they explained their rationale for the changes in painstaking detail, including enough voting data to sate the most ardent psephologist. Not exactly a smoke-filled room.
The law that gave birth to Virginia’s new redistricting process says that the maps cannot “unduly” favor any party. Some Democrats might feel slighted that the result was a political landscape that might derail the momentum they had gained — at least until this fall’s gubernatorial election yielded a GOP victory. But the goal of the process was not to ratify the Democrats’ ostensible ascendancy, which in any event is in doubt. “One reason for employing redistricting commissions,” the special masters wrote in their memo, “is to minimize the power of politicians over the drawing of lines.” Amen.