Republicans may well see themselves set to lose a congressional district in Virginia and deservedly so given the obscene gerrymandering that was forced through by the Republican controlled House of Delegates. Tomorrow, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on the case and Republicans will have to convince the Court - likely an impossible task given the even split now on the Court - that the deliberate loading of black voters into the 3rd District to create a safe district for Randy Forbes is not illegal. Here are highlights from the Daily Press:
Virginia's long-running legal battle over the state's 3rd Congressional District lines will be taken up Monday before the U.S. Supreme Court.
This is the last hurrah for Republican members of Congress hoping to block a redrawn map likely to send an extra Virginia Democrat to Congress
later this year. Already U.S. Rep. Robert C. "Bobby" Scott's old
district has been found unconstitutional, twice, by a lower court.
The Supreme Court agreed to take
up the case, and set oral arguments for Monday. But the court declined to keep
the old lines in place while the matter was pending. Election preparations are
proceeding under the new lines a three judge panel approved in January.
The new map took black voters out
of Scott's district, moving them to the 4th District and making it a likely
Democratic pickup.
The high court's decision to proceed toward June
Congressional primaries with that new map in place signaled, to some, that
reversal is unlikely. But the court is hard to predict, though Justice Antonin
Scalia's death last month changed the math.
With his seat vacant, eight
justices will hear the case. "I think it's a four-four
issue at best," said Brian Cannon, executive director of OneVirginia2021,
a redistricting reform group that has a separate lawsuit targeting House of
Delegates districts in Virginia.
"I think the new districts
will stay in place," Cannon predicted.
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