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By JOHN GOOLRICK
About 19 percent of Virginia’s population is black, according to the Bureau of the Census, a fact that along with political considerations lies at the heart of Virginia General Assembly redistricting efforts of 1991.
The federal Voting Rights Act of 1965, broadened in 1984, doesn’t care a whit whether Democrats screw Republicans or Republicans screw Democrats in the reapportionment process, but clearly mandates the U.S. Department of Justice ensures, insofar as possible, the equitable treatment of minorities.
There are those who wonder why Virginia is still one of the states strictly policed by Justice for past transgressions when the black governor it elected is the only one ever elected in the nation in modem times. But that is another issue.
Two weeks ago the Justice Department rejected a proposed House of Delegates redistricting plan, practically ordering the legislature to create a new black-majority district in the Richmond area. Meeting a few days later in special session the Assembly meekly complied, though it had alreaded boosted from nine to 11 the number of black majority seats in the 100-member House.
Presumably, with 12 black majority districts, a dozen blacks will be elected and comprise 12 percent of the membership of the General Assembly, still 7 percent less than their total numbers in the state.
Yet the fact it is possible to create 12 such districts that are reasonably compact - though a few are a bit serpentine - speaks volumes about the continuation of heavily segregated housing patterns in the Old Dominion and elsewhere.
If racially mixed housing were prevalent it wouldn’t be possible to map out just a fraction of that dozen. There are 816,000 people in Fairfax County and just 61,000 blacks; 215,000 in Prince William County and 20,000 blacks; 30,864 in Buchanan County and 22 blacks; 2,622 in Highland County and only four blacks. By contrast, 104,166 of Norfolk’s 264,718 residents are black* 117,874 of Richmond’s 201,166 are black, 56,346 of Newport News’ population of 168,118 are blacks.
For differing reasons, such demographics didn’t escape the attention of the NAACP, ACLU or the Virginia Republican Party. The first two groups have historically devoted themselves to securing for minorities more political clout in proportion to their numbers. Republicans decided racial justice could be combined with an instinct for political survival and conquest.
After Democrats again won the governorship in 1989, Republicans were up the proverbial creek and almost without a paddle as 1991 redistricting approached. A GOP governor could have provided a safety net from a Democratic-controlled legislature determined to do a gerrymandering hatchet job on Republicans. But left without the threat of a veto, apprehensive Republicans had to find other self-defense tools.
Though the Republican State Central Committee had passed a resolution pledging the party would
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