Lawyers argue over whether changes to Scott's district were racial, or political [Virginia's 3rd]
Source: Richmond Times-Dispatch
Lawyers fighting a lawsuit that seeks to redraw Virginia’s 3rd Congressional District told a panel of federal judges in Richmond Wednesday that the 2012 redistricting plan that increased the number of black voters in the district was not racially motivated but an act of “incumbent protection” and purely political.
“It is clear that the plan benefited Republicans in adjacent districts. It cannot possibly be that race, rather than politics, was the predominant factor,” said Michael Carvin, counsel for the eight Republican members of Virginia’s congressional delegation who had signed on to the suit as co-defendants.
Dawn Curry Page, Gloria Personhuballah and James Farkas — three residents and registered voters in the district — filed the suit in October. They accuse the General Assembly of “racial gerrymandering,” a violation of the equal protection clause of the United States Constitution, by deliberately packing African-American voters into Virginia’s only black-majority congressional district while moving white voters into adjacent districts.
The plaintiffs allege that the current boundaries of the 3rd District make adjacent districts safer for GOP incumbents by diminishing the influence of African-American voters in these areas.
Read more: http://www.timesdispatch.com/news/state-regional/lawyers-argue-over-whether-changes-to-scott-s-district-were/article_1a5432f8-e13b-11e3-831a-0017a43b2370.html
District map: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/VA/3
