Redistricting reform dies a familiar death

Anne Sterling of the League of Women Voters gave her usual shout-out to democracy Tuesday morning as she pleaded with state delegates to support modest reforms to the process for drawing legislative districts.

"This doesn't subtract a single bit of authority from you," she said at a House subcommittee meeting. "It simply allows a bit of sunshine into the process."

It's a compelling argument, but unfortunately she was forced to make it in a small, windowless room at 7 a.m. Clearly sunshine is not a priority for lawmakers, who killed the bill on a party-line vote. Every year, the same lawmakers hear the same bill at the same cranky, crack-of-dawn hour, and the result is always the same.

But this year should have been different. Gov. Bob McDonnell last fall reversed his longtime opposition to redistricting reform and joined with Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling to support the creation of a bipartisan commission to increase public participation in the process. Neither McDonnell nor Bolling nor any of their representatives managed to rouse themselves in time to speak in support of the proposal.

A similar ambivalence was detectable in the Senate, even though a bipartisan majority in that chamber voted for reform. Both Democrats and Republicans sponsored redistricting bills this year, but the Senate's Democratic leaders opted to send one authored by Creigh Deeds to the GOP-controlled House. Deeds ran against McDonnell in last year's gubernatorial contest.

They chose Deeds' bill over a similar one sponsored by Sen. Jill Holtzman Vogel, an up-and-coming young Republican. Vogel is an election lawyer who helped represent former President George W. Bush in the 2000 Florida recount. Deeds said his bill was chosen because he filed first. But this is politics, not kindergarten. It's hard not to wonder whether senators truly wanted the bill to pass when its failure allows them to draw their own districts next year.

While Vogel's bill would have made things interesting, the reality is her bill would still have died. House Speaker Bill Howell sends all redistricting measures to a six-member subcommittee hand-selected to snuff out all reform efforts. Del. John Cosgrove of Chesapeake is chairman of the panel and Del. Chris Jones of Suffolk serves up the annual motion to table the bills. Jones, not coincidentally, is the Republican assigned to draft the new maps for his party.

If this year's results look depressingly like every past effort, there are at least glimmers that state leaders are starting to feel public pressure for a more open process. McDonnell has promised to create his own advisory group to help him make recommendations. Lawmakers are offering to expand the public hearing process in order to get feedback before and after the maps are drawn.

That's all positive, but the final deal will clearly be cut in the same windowless back rooms as always. With Democrats in control of the Senate and Republicans equally entrenched in the House of Delegates, the chances for more competitive legislative elections are even less likely.

Both sides will draw districts designed to protect incumbents. A majority of legislators will continue to run unopposed or with nominal third-party opposition. And on Election Day, voters will yawn, hit the snooze buttons and go back to sleep.