Mere hours before this year’s short session of the General Assembly session, Gov. Bob McDonnell has finally decided to act on his campaign promise of bipartisan redistricting. Having allowed last year’s legislative session to go by without a word in favor of any of the bills that would have reformed redistricting—back when it would have been possible to change the process prior to getting the results of last year’s census—he’s left covering his reputation with this fig leaf. His bipartisan eleven-member commission will advise him on redistricting. Which would be really cool, if he were in charge of redistricting. But he’s not. That’s up to the legislature. Hammering home their irrelevance, the all-volunteer commission has no staff, no budget, and just two months in which to engage in the mind-bogglingly complex process of redistricting.
House Republicans are going to draw districts that benefit them, while Senate Democrats are going to draw districts that benefit them. McDonnell’s commission will meet, have little to no impact on those districts, and that’ll be that. We’ll have another ten years in which 90% of incumbents are reelected, thanks to legislators selecting their constituents, rather than vice-versa.
None of this, incidentally, is to impugn the folks serving on this commission. I have friends who are members, and I don’t doubt that they’re all well-intentioned and will do their best work. But that doesn’t change the fact that this commission is “more like a charity operating a carnival than managing a process likely to have much influence in the real world of power politics and partisan gerrymandering,” as the Post editorial board put it today.