OPINION:
So Virginia’s new bipartisan redistricting committee is giving up on its mapping effort because the two political parties couldn’t agree on a “fair” political apportionment (“New redistricting committee all but gives up map effort,” Metro, Oct. 22). Well, duh.
A truly independent commission would simply partition Virginia’s 11 congressional districts into geographically compact areas using existing county lines and major highways as boundaries — without political considerations.
It would first carve out the southwest-Virginia geographic “dogleg” into one district, then work northward and eastward. Sparsely populated rural counties could be grouped together in districts meeting the acceptable tolerance of population over/undercount within their existing county boundaries. In more densely populated areas, such as Northern Virginia, major natural barriers such as the Capital Beltway and other highways are top picks for those regions where using county boundaries would cause a major overcount.
If such a geographically sensible map were drawn, neither party could dispute the results and the public would be more amenable — which. of course, may be the reason this wasn’t done in the first place. Well, color me cynical.
DAVID SWINK
Vienna, Va.
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