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A big incentive for fall election

June 17, 2007 12:35 am

BY CHELYEN DAVIS

RICHMOND--The 40 state senators elected this coming November will be the senators who redraw the state's political boundaries through 2021.

Changing the geography of the districts in 2011 could determine which party will hold control of the General Assembly for the next decade.

That gives both parties extra incentive to try to win control of the Senate this year.

Even if voters aren't considering such things, politicians and parties are "absolutely" thinking that far ahead, says a political analyst.

"The Democrats and Republicans have had very powerful lessons delivered to them when they were in the minority," said University of Mary Washington politics professor Stephen Farnsworth.

"They are very mindful of how important it is to be able to draw the lines. Elected officials care greatly about being re-elected. It is the focus for many of them as they go through politics. And the single biggest threat to being re-elected as an incumbent is somebody changing the district lines on you."

Legislative-district boundaries are reset every 10 years after a national census, because legislative districts comprise a set population. Over 10 years the number of people in a district may shrink or swell, necessitating changes.

Ideally, perhaps, the composition of a district would be based primarily on that population figure, as well as other requirements that districts be "compact and contiguous" and not drawn in such a way as to disenfranchise minority voters.

But that's not how it works in practice.

In Virginia, as in many states, the elected officials themselves are the ones who determine the redrawing of the district lines. The party in power generally gets to push through the districts it wants, and it's practically expected that the majority party will draw the districts to benefit itself.

For instance, in 2001, the last time Virginia did redistricting, Republicans--who had just gained the majority for the first time since the Civil War, and had suffered under Democratic redistricting for decades--gleefully drew two powerful Roanoke Democratic delegates into the same district.

One of them, former Del. Chip Woodrum, made the mistake of telling a reporter that in fact the Republicans had gotten his address wrong and had actually not drawn him into the same district as then-House Minority Leader Dickie Cranwell.

Republicans read the paper and amended their bill that day to fix the mistake. Cranwell wound up retiring rather than fight Woodrum for the district.

Republicans in 2001, as Democrats had before them, used the redistricting power to draw districts that were as Republican as possible.

In areas that were strong Democratic strongholds, they drew districts that were as Democratic as possible, to keep Democratic voters out of more bipartisan districts.

The result of this practice, followed by both parties, is a dearth of competitive elections, Farnsworth said.

In many cases, the only real election is a primary. Districts are often otherwise too Republican or too Democratic for any candidate of the other party to stand a chance.

So both parties want to be the ones drawing those lines four years from now, since it gives the party in power an advantage when it comes to keeping power.

"Both parties feel very strongly that being in the majority makes a huge difference," Farnsworth said.

The losers, he added, are the voters.

"Politicians should not be drawing their own lines if the goal is to give voters a competitive say in elections," Farnsworth said. "The voters are the ones who get hurt. They're not given competitive elections. Redistricting gives elected officials the opportunity to pick their own voters. It's fundamentally destructive from the point of view of competitive elections."

As a result of all that, Farnsworth estimates that maybe six out of the 40 Senate seats are competitive this year. Democrats currently hold 17 seats; they would need to keep all of them and pick up at least four to have a majority.

So under the theory that most districts aren't competitive, Democrats would have to win most of the contested races to have a shot at power.

One of those is the state Senate's 28th District, in Stafford County and the Northern Neck. Sen. John Chichester's retirement has made that an open seat, and it's expected to be a competitive race between Republican Richard Stuart and Democrat Albert Pollard Jr.

Other potentially competitive races are primarily in Northern Virginia, where a changing population and high growth mean that even "safe" districts drawn in 2001 are not necessarily that way any longer.

They include Sen. Jeannemarie Devolites Davis' seat in Fairfax--Devolites Davis, a Republican, is being challenged in the 34th District by a former delegate, Democrat Chap Peterson--and Sen. Jay O'Brien's seat in the 39th District. Some pundits believe the 37th District, held by Republican Sen. Ken Cuccinelli, also may be competitive.

Outside Northern Virginia, the defeat of two incumbent Republican senators by more conservative Republicans in last week's primaries may make for competitive races as well.

Sen. Marty Williams in Newport News and Sen. Brandon Bell in Roanoke both lost challenges from more conservative Republicans. Those races are now without an incumbent, making it easier--theoretically, at least--for Democrats to have a chance at winning there.

Gov. Tim Kaine thinks so.

Those primary losses have "expanded the number of races where the Democrats will be competitive in November," he said last week. "Suddenly those are races that are worth participating in."