Virginia’s Amendment 1
New policy will prevent gerrymandering through creation of bipartisan redistricting commission
The League of Women Voters of Virginia has been working to encourage informed and active participation in government since it was formed in 1920. As its president, one of my top priorities has been to put power back in the hands of voters to participate in an open and inclusive redistricting process.
Virginia’s Constitution mandates that lawmakers draw their own district lines. This has inevitably led to partisan gerrymandering, when politicians manipulate the borders of election districts to cherry-pick the people they represent. The result takes power away from voters. It is one of America’s oldest forms of voter suppression.
Voting has already begun in Virginia, and whether they’re doing so in-person or via absentee, this year’s ballot is filled with stark choices. One of those choices is straightforward: will Virginia finally end partisan gerrymandering, or not?
Amendment 1 does just that through the creation of a bipartisan redistricting commission — led by citizens, not politicians.
Amendment 1 is historic.
For the first time in history, redistricting will be fully transparent. Past efforts have been woefully inaccessible to voters.
This measure would require the commission to hold open meetings across Virginia and make all of its data publicly available. No more backroom deals.
For the first time in history, specific civil rights protections for minority voters will be written into the Virginia
Constitution. Justin Levitt, a former Obama administration Justice Department official, said it well. “The amendment requires adherence to the Voting Rights Act,” he wrote earlier this year, “And then goes beyond.”
For the first time in history, Virginia will end partisan gerrymandering. The commission’s makeup is balanced by parties, and the rules require a supermajority of commissioners to approve final maps. This prevents one partisan faction from overpowering the process, ensuring that districts do not favor one party over another.
By any objective measure, Amendment 1 is a vast improvement over our broken system.
For LWV-VA, this isn’t a political issue. Partisan gerrymandering is wrong, no matter which party does it. Ending these unfair and discriminatory laws isn’t about right vs. left — it’s about right vs. wrong.
But politics can sometimes get in the way of progress. Some politicians think Virginia would be better served if we rejected the referendum and waited for a perfect plan sometime down the road. They’re working overtime to convince voters that Amendment 1 is a step backwards. The League of Women Voters flatly rejects this assertion.
Amendment 1 is the culmination of over a decade of grassroots advocacy by our members and would be the single most significant redistricting reform improvement in Virginia’s 401 years of representative democracy.
Misinformation campaigns tend to pop-up whenever big, structural change is on the horizon — no matter the issue.
This is why we have to press forward — because the choice isn’t between this plan and a perfect plan that doesn’t exist. It’s a choice between this plan and the status quo.
There’s a reason Amendment 1 has also been endorsed by a long bipartisan list of Virginiabased advocacy groups such as the ACLU and AARP; to national antigerrymandering organizations such as the Brennan Center, Campaign Legal Center and Common Cause. We know that passing this referendum is the only way to stop politicians from gerrymandering next year.
Recent history shows that politicians are instinctively driven by selfinterest. In 2011, Virginia drew electoral maps that so blatantly harmed communities of color, federal judges struck them down. Those gerrymandered districts were approved by both parties.
It is critical that citizens lead the commission, have a say in the mapdrawing process, and put an end to this partisan power-grab.
LWV-VA was founded on the idea that fairness should be the cornerstone of our democracy, and it is abundantly clear to our organization that the current system is broken.
With Amendment 1, Virginians can finally choose people over politicians, fairness over favoritism, and equity over exclusion. Vote Yes.
Deb Wake is the president of the League of Women Voters of Virginia.