Racism and Redistricting

By Andrew Schwartz | Friday, November 18th, 2011 | Policy, Southside, Virginia

A new controversy over redistricting is rearing its head. Democrats are now worried that because they lost the 2011 elections, control of the senate, and virtually every mechanism available to them to stall legislative efforts, that those who won the 2011 elections, control of the senate, and available means to pass legislation (viz., Republicans), will use their legislative authority to create favorable congressional districts.

J. Gerald “Gerry” Hebert has filed suit against the State Board of Elections, Gov. Bob McDonnell, Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling, and Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli on behalf of six Virginia residents, arguing that a three-judge panel must decide the congressional boundaries because Virginia’s legislature will not have the districts redrawn by year’s end. Virginia’s Constitution requires that the “General Assembly shall reapportion the Commonwealth into electoral districts…in the year 2011 and every ten years thereafter.”

But Hebert’s agenda isn’t a concern with the Constitution. If it were, he might advocate a special session of the General Assembly that could not be prorogued or adjourned until they had met their constitutional requirements. For nowhere in the Constitution does it say that if the General Assembly fails to meet this requirement then the judicial branch may assume legislative powers. (It does authorize special sessions to operate longer than 30-60 days in odd-even respective years, however.)

No, Hebert, a staunch Alexandrian Democrat, fears more than anything what will happen when the new General Assembly takes its post in January. He fears a loss—or even a stagnation—of Democratic power and will do everything he can to reverse the decennial genius of the people, including race-baiting, to gain more influence for his party.

The argument for Hebert and Virginia Senate Democrats goes, that since Virginia is made up of nearly 20% blacks, they should be represented in 1/5^th of Virginia’s 11 representative districts.

Never mind the math… They are willing to settle for a map in which, according to the Virginian Pilot, they can “create opportunities for minorities to represent two seats in the delegation” [emphasis mine].

Do they admit that they want only two districts in which blacks and other minorities can be representatives? That sounds kind of racist to me. I want eleven districts in which blacks and other minorities can be representatives. But the Democrats’ plan uses an immutable genetic characteristic as the sole criterion for representation—i.e., blacks can only be properly represented by blacks, and by an inference of the converse, only blacks can properly represent blacks.

This is racist to its core (if you don’t believe me, replace “black” with “white” in the above paragraph), and it is an opportunity to show conclusively that Democrats have used racial tensions to advance their own political agenda. They admit that redrawing Randy Forbes’s 4^th District to include a black majority would tilt the district toward Democrats, acknowledging their belief that a certain race is predisposed to believe, think, and act a certain way.

The alternative is to judge constituents not on the color of their skin, but rather on the character of their content—by which I mean, disregard all racial demographics and presuppositions, and draw boundaries simply by numbers and existing political subdivisions. Tell Barack Obama and Herman Cain that they could only count on support from blacks. Tell Ron Villanueva that his victory would only be possible in an Asian-majority district. Tell Rep. Allen West, whose district only has a 3.8% black population, that he must pander to his own race in order to win. And tell those who are in Messrs. Villanueva’s and West’s districts that they can only be properly represented by a citizen of similar ethnicity.

It is absolutely absurd to assign a proportionate number of districts based on racial demographics. If we must, then we should also have one district that favors a Hispanic candidate. We should also have half a district in which Asians are favorably represented – or at least a district that favors a half-Asian candidate…. (The other half would have to be American Indian/Pacific Islanders/mixed race.) No, the real issue for Senate Democrats and Mr. Hebert is that their party failed to convince Virginians that they could legislate and govern better than another party. Since they failed, they seek to resolve the issue through an unconstitutional pursuit of welding the judicial and legislative branches of our Commonwealth’s government.

Tags: 4th Congressional District Allen West Barack Obama General Assembly Herman Cain J. Gerald "Gerry" Hebert Racism Randy Forbes Redistricting Ron Villanueva Virginia Senate