RICHMOND, Va. – In Tuesday’s midterm election, Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Virginia) is running uncontested and expected to be reelected to his 12th term in the U.S. House of Representatives for the 3rd District of Virginia. Since being first elected in 1992, Scott has only once received less than 70 percent of the vote.
But the 3rd District, which leans heavily Democratic, was ordered by a federal court to be reshaped by April. The ruling of the court stated that “constitutional rights have been injured by improper racial gerrymandering.” It also stressed that “racial gerrymandering, even for remedial purposes, may balkanize us into competing racial factions” and that “it threatens to carry us further from the goal of a political system in which race no longer matters.”
While Virginia’s Republican congressmen have appealed the ruling, which is expected to be reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court, Scott said he hoped that there won’t be significant changes to his district.
“I don’t believe my district will be changed that dramatically,” said Scott, who is the only African-American politician in Virginia’s congressional delegation. “And I hope not to lose constituents on either side of the district.” The 3rd District currently stretches all the way from Richmond to Norfolk.
“There is no final judgment at this point,” Scott said. “If the judgment stands, it’s unclear exactly what would happen.”
Scott’s constituents, like Dorothy Crenshaw, expressed their support for Scott at a recent town hall meeting in Richmond.
“He has supported all the communities he has been involved in,” Crenshaw said. She said she believed the redistricting will not impact Scott’s political career, but officials are still unclear about what the changes could bring to the 3rd District and Virginia’s congressional delegation overall.
“It is difficult to say how much impact a redrawn district will have. It could be little to nothing or a radical change,” said Richmond’s Registrar J. Kirk Showalter. While districts are determined based on the legal qualifications of equal population, contiguity and compactness, there are a number of other variables such as “community of interest,” preservation of the core of old districts, political data and incumbency that can be legally considered when drawing a district.
Showalter hopes that the changes don’t put any precincts in the city into two districts.
“In fact, some have suggested that the Richmond metropolitan region might be all in one district as it was until 1992,” Showalter said “Having the metro area represented by one congressperson certainly would have its benefits. However, the extent of the impact will depend very much on who does the drawing and the goals they have in mind.”
The federal court ruling will have no impact on Tuesday’s election.
By Abeed Rahman and Lorrie Hare
This story was reported by the “iPadJournos” mobile and social media journalism project, a cooperation between WTVR.com and VCU’s Richard T. Robertson School of Media and Culture.
