2020 Census and Redistricting Thread: Virginia

[windjammer]

So Virginia Democrats just signed Luria’s and Spanberger’s death warrants. Nice.

To be honest,
Democrats appointed 3 of the 7 Justices. I'm not sure if all republicans appointed justices are such partisan hacks.

[windjammer]

I doubt that the every GOP justice would want to throw away their credibility, future, and gravitas for the congressional GOP. And before anyone says "of course they will, they're GOP justices!", we've already seen Republican justices go against the party when it comes to gerrymandering all the time, from NC to OH to PA.

Whats more likely is just a rather bland, fair-ish map. Its not the gerrymander that the Dems could have made, but its at least a bit more kind to the Democrats than the current map.

In NC the case was decided on partisan lines and in PA it was one D judge joining the 2 Republican judges.

I was referring to all of the court cases that have dealt with gerrymandering, such as ones that have faced superior courts, not just the ones that the supreme courts of each state have faced.

True although this case isn't really a case but rather the VA supreme court directly gets it and is the tiebreaker for the case if there's a deadlock, atleast to the viewer's eye the map looks reasonably clean and it does limit COI splits so I think a VA supreme court thats GOP stacked would support this map.

(g) If the Commission fails to submit a plan for districts by the deadline set forth in subsection (d), the Commission shall have fourteen days following its initial failure to submit a plan to the General Assembly. If the Commission fails to submit a plan for districts to the General Assembly by this deadline, the districts shall be established by the Supreme Court of Virginia.

If the Commission submits a plan for districts within fourteen days following its initial failure to submit a plan, the General Assembly shall take a vote on the bill embodying such plan within seven days of its receipt. If the General Assembly fails to adopt such bill by this deadline, the districts shall be established by the Supreme Court of Virginia.

From what I'm reading, the Supreme Court wouldn't act as a tie breaker. They wouldn't choose between two maps, choosing the least evil. They would completely draw a new map.

[windjammer]

If the Commission fails to submit a plan for districts by the deadline set forth in subsection (d), the Commission shall have fourteen days following its initial failure to submit a plan to the General Assembly. If the Commission fails to submit a plan for districts to the General Assembly by this deadline, the districts shall be established by the Supreme Court of Virginia.

So kept on reading this amendment,
https://ballotpedia.org/Virginia_Redistricting_Commission_Amendment_(2020)

We do know the Virginia Supreme court is almost all republican just like the NC court is all democrat so I would expect a similarly partisan decision as their reappointment depends on a GOP general assembly.
Anyway by this point Im pretty sure what will happen in 2021/2022
All commisioners chosen,
GOP commisioners deadlock on any map that isn't their preferred map which they show too.
Therefore no map goes to the assembly to vote on so it goes directly to the Virginia Supreme court where they just say the GOP map looks clean enough and they pick that.

I don't think this is likely at all. The VA supreme court won't choose between two maps, they will appoint someone to draw the maps.

[windjammer]

If the Commission fails to submit a plan for districts by the deadline set forth in subsection (d), the Commission shall have fourteen days following its initial failure to submit a plan to the General Assembly. If the Commission fails to submit a plan for districts to the General Assembly by this deadline, the districts shall be established by the Supreme Court of Virginia.

So kept on reading this amendment,
https://ballotpedia.org/Virginia_Redistricting_Commission_Amendment_(2020)

We do know the Virginia Supreme court is almost all republican just like the NC court is all democrat so I would expect a similarly partisan decision as their reappointment depends on a GOP general assembly.
Anyway by this point Im pretty sure what will happen in 2021/2022
All commisioners chosen,
GOP commisioners deadlock on any map that isn't their preferred map which they show too.
Therefore no map goes to the assembly to vote on so it goes directly to the Virginia Supreme court where they just say the GOP map looks clean enough and they pick that.

I don't think this is likely at all. The VA supreme court won't choose between two maps, they will appoint someone to draw the maps.

They dont have to appoint someone,they can make up random constitutional bs just like nc ds did last year.

I don't think they will. They aren't forced to pick a map between the republican and democrat proposals. I'm not even sure republicans will try to do that considering the risk of any SC maps screwing up incumbents

[windjammer]

Hot take coming, but I anticipate whatever the commission draws is going to get tossed out if the GOP doesn't like it, if they get a bad map, they'll take their chances with a 5-1 R court, which is probably a smart gamble from their perspective.

(shaded by 2016 presidential data)
Which of the following does this look like? D gerrymander, R gerrymander, competitive-mander (gerrymander designed to produce competitive seats), fair-proportional map, fair-non-partisan map.

little bit of everything, compact in Fairfax, R gerrymander in NoVA and D gerrymander in Richmond and the Hampton Roads area. Also I wonder if that Newport News seat is VRA compliant.

For the record the VA supreme court is composed by 4 republicans and 3 democrats. One of the republicans (Mims) have very good relations with the dems