BREAKING: Three Judge Panel Releases New VA Congressional Maps

Word is breaking this afternoon from Richmond that the three judge panel overseeing the court ordered redistricting of Virginia’s Congressional District lines has completed it’s work.

The latest is from Andrew Cain of the Richmond Times Dispatch, who tweeted out updates.

3 judges pick expert’s proposal to drop black voting age population in Scott’s 3rd District to 45.3% and raise it in Forbes’ 4th to 40.9%.

— Andrew Cain (@AndrewCainRTD) January 7, 2016

We are waiting to get the lines to see the damage done to other districts around the 3rd and 4th. At first blush, just by looking at those numbers, they will have made the 4th District slightly more competitive for Democrats, raising the percentage of blacks of voting age from the current 33.3% to 40.9%. At the same time, they will have made the 3rd District slightly more competitive by reducing the black percentage from 56.4% to 45.3%.

It’s hard to say whether these lines will withstand an appeal – at first blush it appears that they may have changed the 3rd District enough that it is no longer majority-minority, and that may run afoul of past Supreme Court precedent on retrogression.  That appeal is pending right now before the Supreme Court.  Judge Robert Payne, one of the three judges on the panel, declined to join his colleagues, arguing that with the Supreme Court review pending, releasing the lines now would cause confusion.  I think he’s right.

We will get the maps up as soon as we get them.

More from RTD here.

MAPS

Modification 16 here is the map accepted by the Three Judge Panel.

 

 

As you can see here, significant numbers of voters are moved around in the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 7th Districts.

The 5th, 6th, 8th, 9th, and 10th districts are unchanged.

ADDITIONAL UPDATE

Here’s a great interactive map from RVANews.com.