Virginia Republicans’ bald-faced power grab

[Eugene]

Source: Washington Post

Virginia Republicans' bald-faced power grab

By Editorial Board, Tuesday, January 22, 8:21 PM

IN A SNEAK ATTACK notable more for its deviousness than its strategic acuity, Virginia Republicans engineered a bald-faced power grab Monday that would radically redraw the state’s electoral map without so much as a “yea,” “nay” or “maybe” from anything so trivial as a voter.

Taking advantage of the absence of a single Democratic state senator, GOP lawmakers in Richmond rammed through a radically gerrymandered map designed to hand them control of the 40-member state Senate, which is now split evenly between the two parties.

They were able to do so, on a vote of 20 to 19, because one Democratic senator was in Washington to attend President Obama’s inauguration. Touche, Republicans! Count that as a new low for hyper-partisanship, dirty tricks and the unaccountable arrogance of power.

The Republican move was executed in the style of a putsch, arising from a conspiracy and with no warning, public input or debate. Pressing their momentary numerical superiority, GOP lawmakers amended a routine House bill by tacking on a new map, devised in secret. Although this is one of the most partisan redistricting plans in Virginia’s history, the Republicans then cut off debate after 30 minutes.

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Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/virginia-republicans-bald-faced-power-grab/2013/01/22/0bd6b95e-64b3-11e2-9e1b-07db1d2ccd5b_story.html

[yourout]

1. Any chance the courts will throw it out?

[Eugene]

2. First it's up to the governor to sign it into law or veto it.

[BlueStreak]

3. The conventional "wisdom" says we can't do anything about it

That seems really defeatist thinking. We already have clear evidence that the redistricting in place for 2012 was anti-democratic. We won the house by over a million votes and still ended up in the minority. This is exactly the kind of thing that has successfully been challenged in the past. I don't know why we hear no talk of a legal challenge.

And especially as we look at this rigged system being put into place for the Electoral College in 2016, there should be some Constitutional basis for challenging it. It is clearly not representative.