DATE: Tuesday, July 1, 1997                 TAG: 9707010278

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A12  EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY WARREN FISKE, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: RICHMOND                          LENGTH:   33 lines

ALLEN RULES OUT SPECIAL SESSION TO FASHION NEW U.S. DISTRICTS

Gov. George F. Allen said Monday that he would not convene a special session of the General Assembly this year to redraw congressional district boundaries.

The state was ordered Friday to draw a new political map when the U.S. Supreme Court upheld findings that the state's only majority-black congressional district - which includes portions of Norfolk, Portsmouth and Suffolk - was racially gerrymandered.

The General Assembly must redraw the boundaries before next year's congressional elections. The process is expected to have a domino effect that will force alterations in other districts across the state.

The 225-mile 3rd Congressional District has a 62 percent black voting-age population. It is represented by Democrat Robert C. Scott, the only black Virginia congressman this century. The district stretches from Portsmouth north through Essex County, with tentacles curling into minority sections of Richmond and Petersburg.

Despite urging from Scott and other congressmen to move quickly in fashioning a new plan, Allen said he saw no reason to convene the full legislature before its next scheduled meeting in January.

``I don't think the legislature will be ready to vote on district lines before then,'' he said.

In the meantime, Allen said, legislative committees should begin work drafting new political maps and holding public hearings on them. ``Once all that work is done, I see no reason why the legislature couldn't vote on it the first week of the session'' in January.

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