ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, February 11, 1997 TAG: 9702110076
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
WHAT ONE branch of the federal government demanded, another has forbidden. And so sometime before the 1998 elections, the Virginia General Assembly must redo its 1991 congressional redistricting.
Specifically, the assembly must reconfigure - or leave the courts to reconfigure - the predominantly black 3rd District. The absurd 3rd is a geographically grotesque gerrymander, stretching from inner-city Norfolk to the east side of Richmond, created by the assembly allegedly on the grounds that nothing less would satisfy the U.S. Justice Department as required under the Voting Rights Act.
The U.S. Supreme Court since has ruled not only that the act requires no such thing, but also that such districts violate the Constitution. In the wake of the Supreme Court's ruling, Virginia last week became the sixth state to be told, by lower federal courts, to redraw districts in a way that does not use race as a predominant factor.
The immediate practical effect on Virginia's congressional delegation is apt to be nil. Robert Scott, the Newport News Democrat who represents the district and who is black, is an able and experienced politician with demonstrated biracial appeal: Before his election to Congress, he represented a majority-white constituency in the state Senate. He's an odds-on favorite to win re-election even if the black voting-age population of the revised district is considerably less than the current 65 percent.
Meanwhile, reconfiguring the 3rd inevitably will affect one or more of the four adjoining districts. But none of their representatives - two Republicans and two Democrats - seem likely to land in re-election trouble because of the adjustments. And in any event, the revisions are good only through the census year of 2000, after which the state's districts must again be redrawn.
It's been a heckuva way to do business. But out of a messy process has come affirmation of a valuable principle, and the making of a useful point. The principle: Americans should not be segregated by race. The point, demonstrated by the re-election of black officials after court-mandated changes in their districts: Blacks can be elected to represent white people too.
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