There’s a redistricting question on Virginia’s ballot. Here’s what it’s all about.

How do we pick our elected officials in Virginia?

Yes, we vote for them. Or we don’t. But when we cast our ballots, are we really picking the candidate of our choice, or are they picking us?

Do we let our elected officials — whoever is in control at the time, anyway — draw their own districts and decide what kinds of voters they want in those districts? How about a group of citizens without a stake in the fight?

The answer, like all things political, is complicated.

This November, Virginia voters will decide how it happens from now on. On the ballot this year is a question, labeled “Amendment #1,” that asks (in slightly wordier language):

Should the constitution be amended to create a redistricting commission, consisting of eight state lawmakers and eight citizens that draws the districts, and, if the General Assembly or commission can’t agree on the district maps, the Supreme Court draws them?

For now, the people we elect to the Virginia General Assembly draw the state and Congressional districts every decade when new U.S. Census data is available. That means whoever controls the legislature during the years that end in 1 — right now, Democrats — decides which district each voter will be placed in for the next 10 years. Which means they can manipulate the district lines to get themselves reelected, and keep out the voters who might prevent that.

It’s called gerrymandering, and a bipartisan group of legal experts, current and former lawmakers and university professors says a citizen/legislator commission is the way to end it in Virginia in 2020 — if voters agree to it.

[ Q&A: What is the Virginia constitutional amendment to form a redistricting commission?  ]

But another group, led by most members of the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus with support from the Democratic Party of Virginia, say the proposed commission wouldn’t truly end gerrymandering or make any effort to include minority communities. And they say the new system would still give legislators a say in the process, perhaps even more so than before.

What is Amendment 1?

Amendment 1 proposes a commission that would consist of eight state lawmakers — four from each party and each chamber — and eight citizen members selected by a group of retired circuit court judges.

Party leaders in the General Assembly pick both the legislative commissioners and the judges who will then select the citizen commissioners. The party leaders also submit a list of potential citizen commissioner names to those judges to pick from.

The 16 members would propose maps to the General Assembly, but if the lawmakers won’t accept any of them, the responsibility of drawing the maps eventually goes to the Virginia Supreme Court. That will also happen if two of the commission’s Senate or House members from either party don’t agree to the map for their chamber. And sending the map drawing to the state’s top court creates a political issue of its own: the Supreme Court is currently stacked with justices selected by Republicans.

How we got here

Virginia has a long history of gerrymandering, with the most recent instance occurring in 2011, when a Republican-controlled General Assembly drew a state House of Delegates map that the U.S. Supreme Court later found unconstitutional because it illegally packed Black voters into certain districts.

Frustrated with the process, a group of voters and former lawmakers formed a group called OneVirginia2021 and proposed an alternative: a truly independent, citizen commission free of politicians, with input from Democrats, Republicans and independents who would draw Congressional and legislative maps in the open instead of behind closed doors. The concept had been adopted in other states, including in Arizona and Michigan.

To be clear, that’s not what you’re voting on this fall. The proposed commission, some of its critics say, is a watered-down version that may be an improvement on the status quo, but is far from the OneVirginia2021 plan.

Linda Perriello was one of those voters disgusted with the way politicians could pick their voters and draw their own districts.

An early supporter of OneVirginia2021, the Charlottesville resident and mother of former U.S. Rep. Tom Perriello, D-Virginia, worked the polls each Election Day, holding signs that said “You’ve been gerrymandered!” And “It’s time for Virginia to pick their representatives, not politicians picking their voters.”

In 2019, she and others at OneVirginia2021 pitched their idea of an independent commission to the legislature, which at the time was narrowly controlled by Republicans who were on the brink of losing their majority. Presented with the option of either being at the mercy of a Democratic-controlled legislature drawing their districts or having a citizen commission do it, Republicans chose the latter.

But there was a caveat: lawmakers still would be included in the process, rendering it not completely “independent” as anti-gerrymandering supporters wanted.

“I had tremendously mixed emotions about the final product,” Perriello said.

She didn’t like the idea of lawmakers still being involved in the process, and thought the amendment didn’t do enough to ensure all Virginians — regardless of race, ethnicity, gender or geographic location — were included in the process. She also objected to independents not being included.

“At the end of the day, you have to ask: Are you giving power to the people, or are you giving power to the politicians? Sadly, this amendment to me is written to look like reform, but it still keeps control with the elected politicians,” she said.

Only a dozen Democrats, 11 of them members of the Black caucus, voted against the idea at the time. But when it came for a second vote in 2020 — as required for any amendments to the state constitution — Democrats had taken control of the General Assembly, and would be in control in 2021 when the districts were redrawn. And many of them said they changed their minds about the proposed commission, citing some of the same objections as Perriello.

‘Fatally flawed’

Del. Cia Price, D-Newport News, consistently voted against the amendment, calling it “fatally flawed.”

She and other members of the Black caucus have been outspoken about their opposition to the amendment, and now support the Fair Districts campaign, which is pushing for a “no” vote. The Democratic Party of Virginia officially opposed the amendment in June, although Senate Democrats still support it.

“Some people believe that the existence of the commission will end gerrymandering,” Price said. “That is the most naive and short-sighted version of this. There’s nothing that makes people do the right thing other than laws that say you can and can’t do this. Sixteen people showing up to a table does not make them stop gerrymandering.”

She said party leaders in the General Assembly can recommend their allies to the commission, and there’s nothing in the amendment to make the commission fully represent the interests of all Virginians. Lawmakers will also want to remain in good graces with the eight selected legislator commissioners, Price said.

“We’re creating eight demigods,” she said. “Nobody wants to challenge them.”

Legislators could pass a law explicitly defining who can be on the commission — banning lobbyists or relatives of elected officials, for example — but laws can be changed.

Price also objected to the permanency of changing the constitution. For it to be amended, a bill needs to pass in two General Assembly sessions separated by an election and then approved by voters. So the idea of going back and fixing the amendment before the next census count in 2030 is daunting.

“I am upset that people are trying to make the constitution about 2021,” Price said. “Why are we doing an amendment that needs an amendment?”

‘Universally better’

Brian Cannon, who launched OneVirginia2021 in 2013, acknowledged having legislators on the commission isn’t ideal, and the amendment could be improved.

“No amendment is ever perfect because it had to go through the legislature,” he said. He’s now leading Fair Maps VA, the political fundraising arm of OneVirginia2021 that is pushing for a yes vote on Amendment 1.

Cannon argues that because the amendment offers checks and balances from the citizen commissioners and the map-drawing process will be done in public, it eliminates the possibility of lawmakers gerrymandering their own maps.

The amendment relies heavily on legislation passed by Democrats in 2020 that lays out the criteria for how the districts should be drawn either by the commission or legislators — with equal representation, with regards to race and minority groups, and without favoring one political party, for example — and Cannon said that criteria will be key to getting “good” maps.

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But unlike the permanency that comes with amending the constitution, the redistricting criteria is a law that can be changed much more easily by the party in control of the General Assembly. If Republicans — who voted against the criteria — were to regain enough seats in the legislature to have control, they could repeal the law, say before the 2031 map drawing, Price said.

Still, Cannon said the proposed commission is a vast improvement from the status quo, and scholars agree.

Alex Keena, a Virginia Commonwealth University political science professor who studied the district maps drawn by commissions and by legislators around the country, found that when one party doesn’t get to draw the maps by itself, the maps are “universally better.”

And a VCU poll from April found that 65% of voters who responded said they strongly or somewhat approved of the proposed constitutional amendment. A Sept. 24 poll from CNU’s Wason Center for Public Policy found that 48% approve of the amendment, 28% oppose it, and 20% were undecided.

“Considering that the Democratic Party of Virginia opposes this amendment, there seems to be a real disconnect with voters at the grassroots about reforming the way legislative districts are drawn,” said Wason Center Research Director Rebecca Bromley-Trujillo.

The full language of the amendment can be found at www.elections.virginia.gov/proposed-constitutional-amendment-2020.

Marie Albiges, 757-247-4962, malbiges@dailypress.com