THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, June 14, 1996 TAG: 9606140602
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY WARREN FISKE, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: 123 lines
Thursday's Supreme Court decision striking down minority voting districts in North Carolina and Texas could have a major impact on the way Hampton Roads elects its congressional representative.
Next month, a panel of three federal judges is scheduled to hear arguments that Virginia's 3rd Congressional District - a 225-mile strip winding through portions of Portsmouth and Norfolk all the way to Essex County with tentacles stretching into parts of Richmond and Petersburg - was unconstitutionally designed to maximize the voting power of blacks.
Sixty-two percent of the voting age population in the district is black. Since its inception in 1992, it has been represented by Democrat Robert C. Scott, the first African American to be elected this century to represent Virginia in Congress.
In a prepared statement Thursday Scott said, ``I am disappointed with today's court decision regarding the Texas and North Carolina voting districts. However, I see nothing in either ruling which would raise questions about the legality of the third district. We expect to prevail in the current challenge to the third district.''
The suit was filed late last year by two Republican activists - Don Moon of Hampton and Robert Smith of Norfolk - who claim the district was ``racially gerrymandered'' and unfairly split the populations in 16 municipalities to maximize the black vote.
``These decisions are two more nails in the coffin of racial gerrymanders,'' said Stephen A. Katsurinis, a Richmond lawyer representing Moon and Smith. ``What happened in North Carolina and Texas is the same thing that happened in Virginia.''
But Kent Willis, state director of the American Civil Liberties Union, which is helping to defend the case, said the ruling may not effect Virginia.
Willis said politics and incumbency protection played a more important role than race when the General Assembly created the 3rd District.
Some analysts said Thursday that the Supreme Court ruling could be applied broadly to state legislature and even city council races. But others disagreed, and it was not immediately clear whether the ruling could eventually affect Norfolk's ward system.
Norfolk redistricted the city in 1991 under the watchful eye of the U.S. Justice Department, after federal courts ruled the city's at-large system diluted minority voting strength.
The city's ward system, with seven districts, was drawn specifically to create three majority-black districts.
City Attorney Philip R. Trapani refused to speculate on the implications of the court's decision.
``Without me having seen the full supreme court decision, it would be impossible for me to say whether it is applicable to Norfolk,'' Trapani said.
As for municipal districts, Katsurinis said, ``We don't see the evidence that this kind of racial gerrymandering has gone on. . . . Cities really haven't had as their goal the creation of majority-minority city council districts.''
Willis took solace in an opinion written by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor that special cases could arise where it is legal to draw a district predominantly on race.
``We feel that would be a strong issue in Virginia,'' said Willis. He said Virginia has a long history of racially polarized voting patterns and that the three largest cities in the district - Norfolk, Richmond and Newport News - were all ordered to form ward systems to help blacks get elected to city councils.
For years, many state legislatures - which draw congressional districts - interpreted the Voting Rights Act of 1965 as essentially saying that minority districts must be created whenever possible.
Thursday's ruling reaffirms last year's landmark high court decision that race should not be the ``predominant'' reason to draw boundaries. The court said other factors - such as maintaining compactness and keeping communities intact - are important.
A spokesman for Atty. Gen. James S. Gilmore III, who is defending the case for the state, declined to comment Thursday, saying the office needed more time to review the high court ruling.
In papers filed last month in U.S. District Court, Deputy Atty. Gen. Frank S. Ferguson said that the Democratic-controlled legislature's first priorities in 1991 were creating a new district in Northern Virginia, protecting its own officeholders and pairing incumbent Republican congressmen against each other.
Edward Blum of Campaign for a Colorblind America opposes that view. ``It looks to me like the defendant in Virginia has a totally hopeless chance of prevailing,'' said Blum, whose group has been the impetus and a financial backer for some of the legal work against minority districts. He'll sit at the plaintiff's table as an adviser when the Virginia case is heard.
Thursday's ruling, Blum said, ``could relate to every representative district in the country whether it's a citywide election district or a countywide district or a statewide district. Most districts, as they are drawn today, will not be affected by the ruling because most districts aren't as bizarrely drawn as Virginia's third congressional district.
``The court is moving toward the day when race and ethnicity and religion do not play a role in our public policy and our public life. The decision settles a great conflict of vision - Americans truly must use their brain and not their skin when they elect the men and women who will represent them.''
Theodore Shaw of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund had said of the two cases, ``What's at stake here is nothing less than whether we are going to have a racially integrated Congress and racially integrated state legislatures, even racially integrated city councils.''
He said that if the congressional districts were declared unconstitutional as redrawn, others where minority voters have had recent success in electing candidates of their choice would be endangered as well.
``The Congressional Black Caucus will be able to meet in the back seat of a taxicab,'' Shaw said.
Shaw was not immediately available for comment today.
The principles espoused in any ruling about minority districts could ultimately be applied to local and statehouse districts across the country, including some in Virginia - notably the 18th Virginia Senate district represented by Democrat L. Louise Lucas of Portsmouth. That district was previously challenged and was allowed to stand.
But that challenge predated these national cases. ``It certainly could be challenged again,'' said Katsurinis, stressing he has no plans for such legal work. ``These cases are expensive.'' ILLUSTRATION: Graphic
The Virginian-Pilot
NORTH CAROLINA AND THE OTHER DISTRICTS AFFECTED
WHAT DOES IT MEAN?
THE LOCAL IMPACT
[For complete graphic, please see microfilm]
KEYWORDS: U.S. SUPREME COURT DECISIONS VOTING
DISTRICTS GERRYMANDERING by CNB