Washington Post: Virginia Democrats face choice between idealism and revenge in vote on gerrymandering
Washington Post: Virginia Democrats face choice between idealism and revenge in vote on gerrymandering
The lines are adjusted every 10 years after the national census. Republicans across the country have benefited from additional seats in the U.S. House and state legislatures because they controlled the process in most states after the 2000 and 2010 counts.
Democrats have the majority in Richmond this year, and their voters have to decide: Do we strike a blow for nonpartisan maps or stick it to the GOP as they have stuck it to us? …
Democrats are just as willing as Republicans to gerrymander when they have the power to do so. Maryland Democrats pilfered a congressional seat from the GOP in 2012 by committing one of the country’s most blatant gerrymanders.
But Republicans nationwide have benefited most in recent years, because they have controlled more state legislatures and went about gerrymandering in a more systematic way.
“It isn’t that the Democrats don’t try to do it,” said Kathay Feng, national redistricting director for Common Cause. “It’s just that the Republicans had a plan to secure partisan state control of state legislatures in the 2010 cycle.”