OH, VA Look Toward Redistricting       10/31 06:16

   

   (AP) -- Mid-cycle congressional redistricting efforts could move forward 
Friday in two more states amid growing maneuvering to influence which party 
will control the U.S. House after next year's midterm elections.

   A Republican-controlled Ohio commission is meeting to consider a proposed 
map that could give the GOP a chance at winning two more seats. Meanwhile, 
senators in the Democrat-led Virginia General Assembly are expected to vote on 
advancing a proposed constitutional amendment that would let them temporarily 
bypass a bipartisan commission and redraw congressional districts to their 
advantage.

   Their scheduled vote comes after the Virginia House passed the same 
resolution on Wednesday. President Donald Trump kicked off the redistricting 
fray this summer by urging Republican-led states to redraw voting districts 
ahead of next year's congressional elections. Republicans in Texas, Missouri 
and North Carolina already have done so. Voters in Democratic-led California 
are deciding on new districts.

   GOP-controlled Ohio commission considers new map

   In Ohio, the map proposed by the commission appears to increase Republican 
chances in districts held by Democratic U.S. Reps. Greg Landsman in Cincinnati 
and Marcy Kaptur around Toledo, an area that voted for Trump in last year's 
presidential election. Kaptur won a 22nd term last fall by about 2,400 votes, 
or less than 1 percentage point, while Landsman was reelected with more than 
54% of the vote.

   If the Ohio commission fails to adopt a map, the job goes to the 
Republican-led Legislature, which could enact a map designed to bolster the 
size of the state's GOP congressional delegation, now with a 10-5 Republican 
majority.

   In Virginia, the proposed constitutional amendment being considered by 
senators is in its early stages. After Friday, the resolution would need to 
pass the state Legislature again next year, then go before voters by way of a 
referendum.

   Along with California, Virginia would be one of the few states with a 
Democratic-led statehouse to enter the national redistricting battle.

   "There's a double standard for Democrats in authority that somehow we have 
to lay down while Donald Trump seizes power that we've never seen, and the 
Republicans run the play," Virginia House Speaker Don Scott said this week.

   Through the constitutional amendment, Virginia's Legislature would have the 
power to create a new congressional map only when other states do so between 
now and 2030. Democrats have not unveiled their planned map.

   Asked about whether his party has begun drafting new districts, Scott said: 
"You're not naive."

   The developments come as Virginia has statewide elections Tuesday, where all 
100 seats in the House of Delegates are on the ballot. Democrats would need to 
keep their slim majority in the lower chamber to advance the constitutional 
amendment next year.

   The party's bullish approach to redistricting reflects members' confidence 
in holding onto power. There are roughly a dozen Republican-held seats that are 
vulnerable to being flipped this year, with Democrats vying to expand their 
legislative edge.

   Conservatives in the statehouse and in Congress blasted Democrats for 
undoing efforts to put the maps in the hands of a bipartisan commission, 
arguing the proceedings went against a Virginia custom of bipartisanship and 
decorum.

   Republican U.S. Rep. Jen Kiggans, who represents a competitive seat, said 
earlier this week that "there's partisan games in Washington that it seems like 
the partisan games have now trickled down here in Richmond."

   A new Virginia way?

   Virginia Republican Minority Leader Terry Kilgore said: "Because we have a 
disagreement with the President of the United States, we're going to throw 
Virginia's constitution to the wind."

   Still, most Republicans rebuking Democrats curtailed their anger when it 
came to Trump's role in the national redistricting fight. One GOP Virginia 
delegate was a prominent exception.

   "Candor requires admitting that this bad idea of mid-decade redistricting 
did get its 2025 watch by the President," Del. Lee Ware said, though he later 
added: "To travel down this tortuous path is to transgress long-standing 
precedent in Virginia. It is to turn our backs on the Virginia way."

   Democratic Del. Cia Price, the first Black woman to chair the House's 
elections committee, rebuffed Ware's argument.

   "I know, that as a student of history, that the Virginia way was once used 
to quiet dissent in the guise of decorum, but I'm living for the future," she 
said. "That's why new times and unprecedented times call for a new Virginia 
way. "