OneVirginia2021

Last updated
OneVirginia2021
Formation2013
TypeNon-Profit Political Advocacy
Location
Website http://onevirginia2021.org/

OneVirginia2021 is an American civic non-profit organization founded to advocate for a non-partisan redistricting of the Commonwealth of Virginia. The group was founded in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2013 and is currently based in Richmond, Virginia. [1]

Contents

2019 Constitutional amendment

In 2018, OneVirginia2021 convened a bipartisan committee of former legislators. This committee drafted a model constitutional amendment, which was proposed to the Virginia State Assembly in the 2019 session. The proposal emphasized a separate redistricting commission, transparency and citizen participation. Many of these recommendations were included in the legislation passed in the 2019 Assembly Session. [2]

In 2019, the Virginia General Assembly passed the “first read” of a constitutional amendment, Virginia Redistricting Reform Amendment (HJ615/SJ306), that would end partisan gerrymandering in the commonwealth. This bill was passed by a vote of 83-15 in the House of Delegates and 39-1 in the Virginia Senate. The main components of this include citizen involvement, transparency, and mitigation of partisan gerrymandering. It would create a sixteen-member advisory commission and establish redistricting criteria for congressional and state legislative districts. It was passed by voters in November 2020. [3] [4]

Other efforts

On September 14, 2015, OneVirginia2021 filed a suit in Vesilind v. Virginia State Board of Elections claiming 11 Virginia state districts fail the criteria of compactness outlined by the Virginia State Constitution. [5] In an official release, OneVirginia2021 executive director Brian Cannon says, “Far from having a standard, the legislature effectively ignored the Constitution on this point, and gave us distorted, weirdly shaped districts that break up communities and rig elections by depriving voters of meaningful competition”. [6] [7] The Virginia supreme court upheld the districts. [8]

In 2015, OneVirginia2021 backed SJ 284, an independent redistricting commission with non-partisan criteria co-patroned by Virginia Senators Jill Vogel (R) and Louise Lucas (D). [9]

OneVirginia2021, in conjunction with Richmond public broadcasting station WCVE, produced a documentary film about gerrymandering. The documentary examines the historical context and consequences of gerrymandering through a multi-partisan lens. [10] The documentary is titled GerryRIGGED: Turning Democracy On Its Head and was premiered on WCVE on October 24, 2016. [11] [12] [13]

OneVirginia2021 has Local Action Groups (LAGs) across the state, which promote redistricting reform in their local regions. [14]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gerrymandering</span> Form of political manipulation

In representative democracies, gerrymandering is the political manipulation of electoral district boundaries with the intent to create undue advantage for a party, group, or socioeconomic class within the constituency. The manipulation may involve "cracking" or "packing". Gerrymandering can also be used to protect incumbents. Wayne Dawkins describes it as politicians picking their voters instead of voters picking their politicians.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Virginia General Assembly</span> Legislative branch of the state government of Virginia

The Virginia General Assembly is the legislative body of the Commonwealth of Virginia, the oldest continuous law-making body in the Western Hemisphere, the first elected legislative assembly in the New World, and was established on July 30, 1619. The General Assembly is a bicameral body consisting of a lower house, the Virginia House of Delegates, with 100 members, and an upper house, the Senate of Virginia, with 40 members. Senators serve terms of four years, and Delegates serve two-year terms. Combined, the General Assembly consists of 140 elected representatives from an equal number of constituent districts across the commonwealth. The House of Delegates is presided over by the Speaker of the House, while the Senate is presided over by the Lieutenant Governor of Virginia. The House and Senate each elect a clerk and sergeant-at-arms. The Senate of Virginia's clerk is known as the "Clerk of the Senate".

Redistricting in the United States is the process of drawing electoral district boundaries. For the United States House of Representatives, and state legislatures, redistricting occurs after each decennial census.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">North Carolina's congressional districts</span> U.S. House districts in the state of North Carolina

North Carolina is currently divided into 14 congressional districts, each represented by a member of the United States House of Representatives. After the 2000 census, the number of North Carolina's seats was increased from 12 to 13 due to the state's increase in population. In the 2022 elections, per the 2020 United States census, North Carolina gained one new congressional seat for a total of 14.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Virginia's congressional districts</span> U.S. House districts in the state of Virginia

Virginia is currently divided into 11 congressional districts, each represented by a member of the United States House of Representatives. The death of Rep. Donald McEachin on November 28, 2022, left the 4th congressional district seat empty. Following the results of a special election to fill his seat on February 21, 2023, Jennifer McClellan made history by becoming Virginia's first black congresswoman.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Redistricting commission</span>

In the United States, a redistricting commission is a body, other than the usual state legislative bodies, established to draw electoral district boundaries. Generally the intent is to avoid gerrymandering, or at least the appearance of gerrymandering, by specifying a nonpartisan or bipartisan body to comprise the commission drawing district boundaries.

Vieth v. Jubelirer, 541 U.S. 267 (2004), was a United States Supreme Court ruling that was significant in the area of partisan redistricting and political gerrymandering. The court, in a plurality opinion by Justice Antonin Scalia and joined by Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Justices Sandra Day O'Connor and Clarence Thomas, with Justice Anthony Kennedy concurring in the judgment, upheld the ruling of the District Court in favor of the appellees that the alleged political gerrymandering was not unconstitutional. Subsequent to the ruling, partisan bias in redistricting increased dramatically in the 2010 redistricting round.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Emmett Hanger</span> American senator

Emmett Wilson Hanger Jr. is an American politician of the Republican Party. He was a member of the Virginia House of Delegates from 1983 to 1991, when he was unseated by Creigh Deeds. Since 1996 he has been a member of the Senate of Virginia, representing the 24th district. This district, located in the central Shenandoah Valley and nearby sections of the Blue Ridge Mountains, includes the independent cities of Staunton, and Waynesboro, as well as Augusta County, Greene County, Madison County, and parts of Rockingham County and Culpeper County.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gerrymandering in the United States</span> Setting electoral district boundaries to favor specific political interests in legislative bodies

Gerrymandering is the practice of setting boundaries of electoral districts to favor specific political interests within legislative bodies, often resulting in districts with convoluted, winding boundaries rather than compact areas. The term "gerrymandering" was coined after a review of Massachusetts's redistricting maps of 1812 set by Governor Elbridge Gerry noted that one of the districts looked like a mythical salamander.

The National Democratic Redistricting Committee (NDRC) is a US organization that focuses on redistricting and is affiliated with the Democratic Party. The organization coordinates campaign strategy, directs fundraising, organizes ballot initiatives and files lawsuits against state redistricting maps. At launch, the organization announced that it intends to support Democratic candidates for local and state offices in order for them to control congressional map drawing in the redistricting cycle following the 2020 United States census.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2020 United States redistricting cycle</span>

The 2020 United States redistricting cycle is in progress following the completion of the 2020 United States census. In all fifty states, various bodies are re-drawing state legislative districts. States that are apportioned more than one seat in the United States House of Representatives are also drawing new districts for that legislative body.

Gill v. Whitford, 585 U.S. ___ (2018), was a United States Supreme Court case involving the constitutionality of partisan gerrymandering. Other forms of gerrymandering based on racial or ethnic grounds had been deemed unconstitutional, and while the Supreme Court had identified that extreme partisan gerrymandering could also be unconstitutional, the Court had not agreed on how this could be defined, leaving the question to lower courts to decide. That issue was later resolved in Rucho v. Common Cause, in which the Court decided that partisan gerrymanders presented a nonjusticiable political question.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Redistricting in Virginia</span> Overview of redistricting in Virginia

Redistricting has been a controversial topic in Virginia due to allegations of gerrymandering. In the 2017 Virginia General Assembly, all of the redistricting reform bills were killed.

Bethune-Hill v. Virginia State Bd. of Elections, 580 U.S. ___ (2017), was a case in which the United States Supreme Court evaluated whether Virginia's legislature – the Virginia General Assembly – violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution by considering racial demographics when drawing the boundaries of twelve of the state's legislative districts.

Gaffney v. Cummings, 412 U.S. 735 (1973), is a Supreme Court decision upholding statewide legislative apportionment plans for Connecticut. The Court admitted that these plans entailed "substantial inequalities in the population of the representative districts." It observed that "the States have made virtually no attempt to justify their failure 'to construct districts ... as nearly of equal population as is practicable." It was a Fourteenth Amendment case. At issue was whether the election districts had been gerrymandered in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution.

Benisek v. Lamone, 585 U.S. ____ (2018), and Lamone v. Benisek, 588 U.S. ____ (2019), were a pair of decisions by the Supreme Court of the United States in a case dealing with the topic of partisan gerrymandering arising from the 2011 Democratic party-favored redistricting of Maryland. At the center of the cases was Maryland's 6th district which historically favored Republicans and which was redrawn in 2011 to shift the political majority to become Democratic via vote dilution. Affected voters filed suit, stating that the redistricting violated their right of representation under Article One, Section Two of the U.S. Constitution and freedom of association of the First Amendment.

Rucho v. Common Cause, No. 18-422, 588 U.S. ___ (2019) is a landmark case of the United States Supreme Court concerning partisan gerrymandering. The Court ruled that while partisan gerrymandering may be "incompatible with democratic principles", the federal courts cannot review such allegations, as they present nonjusticiable political questions outside the remit of these courts.

Virginia House of Delegates v. Bethune-Hill, 587 U.S. ___ (2019), was a case argued before the United States Supreme Court on March 18, 2019, in which the Virginia House of Delegates appealed against the decision in 2018 by the district court that 11 of Virginia's voting districts were racially gerrymandered, and thus unconstitutional. The Court held the "Virginia House of Delegates lacks standing to file this appeal, either representing the state's interests or in its own right." In other words, the court upheld the decision made by a federal district court ruling in June 2018 that 11 state legislative districts were an illegal racial gerrymander. This was following a previous (2017) case, Bethune-Hill v. Virginia State Bd. of Elections.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2018 Michigan Proposal 2</span>

Michigan Proposal 18-2 was a ballot initiative approved by voters in Michigan as part of the 2018 United States elections. The proposal was created in preparation of the 2020 United States Census, to move control of redistricting from the state legislature to an independent commission. The commission consists of thirteen members selected randomly by the secretary of state: four affiliated with Democrats, four affiliated with Republicans, and five independents. Any Michigan voter can apply to be a commissioner, as long as they have not been, in the last six years, a politician or lobbyist. Proponents argued that Michigan's current districts are gerrymandered, giving an unfair advantage to one political party. Opponents argued that the process would give the secretary of state too much power over redistricting, and that the people on the commission would be unlikely to understand principles of redistricting. The proposal was approved with 61.28% of the vote.

The 2010 United States redistricting cycle took place following the completion of the 2010 United States census. In all fifty states, various bodies re-drew state legislative districts. States that are apportioned more than one seat in the United States House of Representatives also drew new districts for that legislative body. The resulting new districts were first implemented for the 2011 and 2012 elections.

References

  1. CO+LAB. "About Us - OneVirginia2021". OneVirginia2021. Archived from the original on 2016-11-08. Retrieved 2016-12-07.
  2. "A.E. Dick Howard column: Redistricting Commission amendment is a landmark, but work remains to put it in the Virginia Constitution". Richmond.com. 2019-03-19. Archived from the original on 2019-06-07. Retrieved 2019-06-07.
  3. "The Constitutional Amendment". OneVirginia2021. Archived from the original on June 7, 2019. Retrieved June 7, 2019.
  4. "Virginians approve turning redistricting over to bipartisan commission". Washington Post. Archived from the original on November 11, 2020. Retrieved November 7, 2020.
  5. "New Lawsuit Filed Over Va. House and Senate District Boundaries". Archived from the original on 2016-12-20. Retrieved 2016-12-07.
  6. "UPDATE: The Politics of Self-Preservation". richmondmagazine.com. 2015-09-15. Archived from the original on 2016-12-20. Retrieved 2016-12-07.
  7. "Advocates fight in Supreme Court to end gerrymandering". The Henrico Citizen. Archived from the original on 2022-07-09. Retrieved 2018-03-05.
  8. "Vesilind v. Board of Elections". Justia. Archived from the original on 2019-11-07. Retrieved 2019-11-07.
  9. "Bill Tracking - 2015 session > Legislation". leg1.state.va.us. Archived from the original on 2017-12-01. Retrieved 2016-12-07.
  10. Fields, Lanny (2016-02-19). "Documentary on Redistricting Reform Coming to WCVE PBS This Fall". Community Idea Stations. Archived from the original on 2016-12-20. Retrieved 2016-12-07.
  11. "GerryRIGGED: Turning Democracy On Its Head". Archived from the original on 2016-12-20. Retrieved 2016-12-07.
  12. "Documentary "Gerryrigged" conveys electoral line-drawing at its worst. And Virginia takes the spotlight". The Virginian-Pilot. Archived from the original on May 25, 2017. Retrieved May 24, 2017.
  13. "New Va. film calls for action against gerrymandering". The Daily Progress. April 2017. Archived from the original on April 2, 2017. Retrieved Apr 1, 2017.
  14. "Local Action Groups". OneVirginia2021. Archived from the original on June 7, 2019. Retrieved June 7, 2019.