Virginia Republicans look to revisit districts' lines

RICHMOND

Republicans poised to take control of the state Senate in January plan to use their newfound power to make additional changes to election district boundaries, including placing the city of Williamsburg back in Senate Republican leader Tommy Norment's district.

The plan to revisit redistricting is the latest post-election twist in the fight for Senate dominance as Republicans assert their control, and Democrats gird against losing it.

The legislature's upper chamber will be split 20-20 in January.

That gives the GOP an advantage because Republican Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling will have a tiebreaking vote, which he has said he'll use to resolve any deadlock on organizing the Senate to favor his party.

Democrats doubt Bolling's authority is that broad and last week said they'll ask the courts to resolve that question. The party also is supporting a lawsuit that calls on the courts to impose a congressional redistricting map because the legislature has failed to complete that work this year.

Minor alterations to once-a-decade legislative redistricting plans are common in the year after new maps are approved. Such realignments typically involve reuniting split precincts and other technical adjustments, explained Mary Spain, a longtime Division of Legislative Services official.

Changes Senate Republicans are suggesting this time seem more substantial than that, though Norment, R-James City County, insists he has "no desire to enter into a full-blown new redistricting debate," considering the other issues before the legislature.

Among the possible modifications to the map Democrats drew to protect their majority is a consolidation of Suffolk's representation, now divided among four senators, including Norment. Republicans say the Democrats' redistricting moved voters around and left some confused about which district they vote in.

Any changes that come, Norment said, will be informed by "good legislative management" principles, not politics.

That includes recovering Williamsburg, which Norment contends was taken from him to boost the re-election chances of Sen. John Miller, a Newport News Democrat.

Miller said Williamsburg voters' satisfaction with him as their new senator was demonstrated in this month's election - he carried the city by 123 votes.

"Virginia faces very difficult challenges and we need to be focused on creating jobs, improving the economy, looking at ways to fund transportation and improve education," he said. "The people of Virginia want us to deal with those problems and not revisit redistricting."

Democrats will fight Republican attempts to make redistricting revisions, vowed current Senate Majority Leader Richard Saslaw.

"If they move so much as one block it goes to court," declared Saslaw, D-Fairfax County - a response similar to his defiant pledge not to change a single "period or comma" on Senate Democrats' map after Gov. Bob McDonnell vetoed it last April.

Despite that, Saslaw and his colleagues ultimately made concessions on a map that didn't achieve Democrats' goal of protecting their Senate majority.

Julian Walker, (804) 697-1564, julian.walker@pilotonline.com