With voting in the Virginia redistricting amendment referendum underway through April 21, here’s a vote-YES argument, by Charlottesville City Council member (and former Mayor) Lloyd Snook that I think makes a lot of sense. Check it out:
My friends have been asking how I intend to vote on the redistricting referendum, and I will summarize this way — I don’t like gerrymandering, but I am voting “yes.”
We know that this is entirely a response to the move to redistrict in Texas. Texas is presently 25 Republican seats to 13 Democratic seats. If the Congressional representation were to match the Presidential vote (56% for Trump), there would be 21 Republican seats to 17 Democratic seats. The Trump plan would construct districts that favor Republicans in 30 districts, to 8 for the Democrats. That would be 79% to 21%. The already gerrymandered Texas district maps would become laughable — 17 more Republican representatives than the statewide percentages would suggest would be appropriate.
Donald Trump made very clear what he wanted Texas to do, and why — their redistricting is an essential step to allow a deeply unpopulat Republican administration to retain its majority in the House of Representatives.
The opposition to Virginia’s redistricting proposal comes from two camps — the “good government” folks who oppose gerrymandering as a matter of principle (mainly Democrats; I have historically been in this camp), and Republicans who privately clutch their pearls about what Texas has done but who are outraged that Virginia might do the same thing. This response says, in essence, “We Republicans are allowed to do anything to preserve our majority, but you Democrats need to play by more restrictive rules.” Or, in more descriptive terms, “We’re bringing a knife to this fistfight, but you can’t.”
The reality is that this is not a “Virginia only” vote — it is part of the national effort to claw our country back from the totalitarian Trump Administration. I see what has been happening in Washington over the last 15 months as an existential threat to our democracy, and we cannot just wring our hands about how unfortunate it all is. Like it or not, this is a knife fight.
I don’t like gerrymandering one bit, but I’m voting “yes.”
