After a tight 3 percent margin of victory in 2011, state Sen. John Miller (D-1st District) would have an even tougher election battle in 2015 if the Republican plan to redistrict Virginia is signed into law.
On Monday, the Senate Republicans took advantage of Sen. Henry Marsh’s absence to pass legislation that would redraw the district lines two years after redistricting was approved using data from the 2010 U.S. Census. Marsh (D-16) was in Washington, D.C., on Monday for the inauguration of President Barack Obama.
Senate GOP leaders argue the new lines would increase the number of districts with a black majority from five to six and protect the state from federal civil rights lawsuits; Democrats have pushed back, calling the move a power grab, unconstitutional and a violation of civil rights laws by compacting blacks into fewer districts throughout the state.
With the proposed new district lines, Miller’s district would become more than 11 percent more Republican, according to Virginia Public Access Project. VPAP calculated whether districts would become more Republican or Democrat using election results from the 2009 gubernatorial race.
Miller will have the steepest percentage change among the Democrats and earned one of the slimmest margins of victory at 3 percent in his last election. In 2009, 54.27 percent of voters in the First District favored Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell over Democratic state Sen. R. Creigh Deeds. More than 66 percent of voters in the precincts proposed for the First District chose McDonnell.
The First District, which Miller has represented since 2008, now covers portions of James City and York counties, along with the City of Williamsburg and portions of Newport News, Suffolk and Hampton cities. The proposal, now being considered in the House of Delegates, would strip Miller of most of his current precincts — though he would retain 20 of the 32 precincts he now represents in Newport News City as well as a handful of other precincts — and put him in the more rural, and Republican, counties of Isle of Wight, Prince George and Southampton. He would no longer represent James City County or the City of Williamsburg, but would have nine precincts in York County.
State Sen. Tommy Norment (R-3rd District), the Senate Majority Leader, would represent all of James City County and the City of Williamsburg with the proposed redistricting plan. The Third District would remain largely the same, but would stretch farther west into Hopewell and Henrico County, and north to Essex County.
The proposal would make the Third District 4.1 percent more Democratic. The 2011 redistricting plan made the Third District more Republican by about 5.6 percent.
The House of Delegates, which the GOP controls with a 68-32 margin, is now considering the legislation. Though McDonnell has publicly expressed surprise at his party’s decision to pass the bill with one Democratic member absent, he has not yet made a definitive statement on whether he would sign the bill into law if passed through the House.
