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Va. Dems Have Concerns About Redistricting Commission Rules

In this July 26, 2017 photo, a member of the gallery tries to display her sign while lawmakers convene during a joint select committee meeting on redistricting in Raleigh, N.C. (AP Photo/Gerry Broome)

Virginia's effort to shift its political mapmaking tasks to a non-partisan commission is getting a second look, and it comes as many in North Carolina are considering a similar way to address gerrymandering.

Maps drawn by North Carolina's GOP legislature have been in and out of the courts for most of the decade, and judges have found racial and partisan gerrymandering. And that's led to election delays and confusion for voters.

Some voting-rights advocates have pushed to take the map-drawing responsibilities out of legislators' hands and give the authority to a non-partisan redistricting commission.

Such a measure was passed in Virginia this year. But now there are some questions about how it might work. 

The Washington Post reports that a few Democrats in the Virginia Legislature who originally supported the idea may not be so sure anymore. 

Here's why: the new amendment would allow the state Supreme Court to decide political boundaries if the commission's maps don't win legislative approval. A majority of the current Virginia justices were chosen by Republicans.

And that leads to fears that partisanship could return.

Paul Garber is a Winston-Salem native and an award-winning reporter who began his journalism career with an internship at The High Point Enterprise in 1993. He has previously worked at The Augusta (Ga.) Chronicle, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, The News and Record of Greensboro and the Winston-Salem Journal, where he was the newspaper's first full-time multimedia reporter. He won the statewide Media and the Law award in 2000 and has also been recognized for his business, investigative and multimedia reporting. Paul earned a BA from Wake Forest University and has a Master's of Liberal Arts degree from Johns Hopkins University and a Master's of Journalism and Mass Communication from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He lives in Lewisville.

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