See below for the Virginia Redistricting Commission fiasco, in graphics, courtesy of VPAP. A few key takeaways include:
- “A consensus that Virginia’s new Redistricting Commission must achieve to adopt new legislative maps mostly has eluded the 16-member panel in a series of policy and procedural votes.” In other words, depending on how one looks at it, the commission’s either NOT working as intended or working *exactly* as intended. Depending on how cynical one is, perhaps?
- “On 15 procedural and rule votes so far, Republican members have been more unified than Democrats.” So basically, Republicans are in lockstep, while Democrats – as is their wont – are…not so much.
- The graphic on citizen member independence is fascinating, as it shows that three Democratic appointees – James Abrenio, Brandon Hutchins and Greta Harris – broke ranks with their party’s legislative members 5 or 6 times so far, while the four Republican citizen members are overwhelmingly in lockstep with the legislators who put them on the commission.
- As for “the eight legislative members, only two (both Democrats) have broken with their party so far on votes determining rules and procedures.” Sen. George Barker, who was a huge proponent of this commission and who is heavily responsible for the gerrymandered maps we got the last time around, broke with his party on several votes (e.g., “Should delegate-members help draw Senate maps and vice versa; “Approve complete draft of redistricting criteria; “Allow incumbent addresses to be considered when drawing maps”; “Issue three RFPs to hire counsel: GOP, Democratic, nonpartisan”) to side with Republicans…and with a worse, more partisan, more gerrymandered process.
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