Month: October 2020

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News

Party lines: A close look at the controversial gerrymandering amendment that could define a decade of Virginia politics

This cartoon, first published in 1812 in the Boston Gazette, shows Massachusetts legislator Elbridge Gerry’s district drawn in the shape of a salamander—a “gerry-mander.” We’ve been using the term ever since.

“As early as the middle of the seventeenth century, the government of Virginia was a government of the tobacco planters, by the tobacco planters, and for the tobacco planters. Restrictions on the suffrage and distribution of representative seats secured their political dominance,” writes historian Brent Tarter in his 2019 book Gerrymanders.

Four hundred years later, manipulating the “distribution of representative seats,” a process now called gerrymandering, remains a central tool with which Virginia’s ruling parties consolidate their own power. And gerrymandering has influenced the makeup of the state’s legislative bodies to an alarming degree in the last decade.

In 2011, Republicans controlled the Virginia House of Delegates and Republican Bob McDonnell sat in the governor’s mansion, so Republicans took charge of the redistricting process following the 2010 census. The maps they drew have produced some wildly disproportionate election results.

In 2012, for example, Democrats running for Congress in the commonwealth earned 48.2 percent of all votes cast. With that outcome, you’d expect them to take control of roughly half of the available seats—yet they won just three of 11 seats, a 27.3 percent yield. Later, in the 2017 House of Delegates election, the same thing happened: Democrats across the state beat Republicans by 9 percentage points, but the two parties each won 50 House seats. And in 2018, Charlottesville-Albemarle, a metro area with more than 150,000 people, voted for the Democratic congressional candidate by a 70.4 to 29.6 margin, but wound up, yet again, with a Republican representative.

Gerrymandering takes many forms. Isolated urban areas like Charlottesville can be buried in districts with hundreds of miles of rural countryside. Voters of similar demographics can be lumped into one district, concentrating their votes in a single seat and limiting their influence in a larger region. That practice is known as racial gerrymandering, and has historically been used to disenfranchise Black voters in the commonwealth.

With the 2020 census underway, our electoral districts will soon be redrawn once again. Ever since the days of the tobacco planters, the party in power has held the authority to draw the district lines. Both Republicans and Democrats have taken advantage of that power over the years, using their influence over the maps to secure electoral victory against the odds. That pattern, however, could soon change.

This fall’s ballot offers voters a chance to weigh in on an amendment to the Virginia constitution that would create a bipartisan redistricting commission, comprised of legislators and citizens, and bestowed with the power to sign off on the maps.

The amendment’s journey to the ballot has been dramatic, with supporters and opponents crossing traditional party lines to push it through. For most voters, the amendment won’t seem nearly as compelling as the names at the top of the ballot—but it will quite literally shape the politics of Charlottesville and Virginia for at least the next decade.

Divided Democrats

“The strength of this amendment is that it ends partisan gerrymandering,” says Brian Cannon, former executive director of OneVirginia2021 and current head of FairMapsVa. Cannon and these organizations have spent more than five years working full-time to bring this amendment to life. “It makes racial gerrymandering illegal under our state constitution for the first time in 401 years, and it ensures a transparent process for redistricting, so we can all be involved and be watchdogs,” he says. 

It wasn’t easy for the amendment’s proponents to reach this point. In Virginia, all new constitutional amendments must originate in the legislature—so it’s rare to pass amendments in which the majority party loses power. But 2019 was a “perfect storm,” says Cannon. “The Republicans were still in charge but saw the writing on the wall that they were likely to lose, and the Democrats were not in charge yet. So we got a pretty significant step forward on redistricting through the General Assembly.” 

The amendment passed the Senate 40 to 0 and the House 83 to 15. One passage isn’t enough, however. To amend the Virginia constitution, the same bill must pass in two separate legislative sessions, and then be voted into law by the public. 

When Democrats took control of the legislature ahead of the 2020 session, Cannon says, “My reform friends in blue states, some of them texted me, and they said, ‘Your job just got harder.’”

Newly empowered, Democrats took a longer look at the amendment they had overwhelmingly passed just 12 months prior. 

“In 2019, when that redistricting amendment came before us, it was the best we could do at that time. But it still isn’t what we need,” Delegate Jennifer Carroll Foy told C-VILLE in an interview earlier this summer. Carroll Foy is a member of the House Legislative Black Caucus, which led the charge against the amendment. 

Carroll Foy gets at the heart of an important point: In a perfect world, redistricting would be nonpartisan. Instead, this amendment proposes a commission that’s bipartisan, with four legislators from each party working with eight citizens appointed by the legislature. If the commission is deadlocked, which seems likely to happen at some point, ties would be broken by the Virginia Supreme Court—currently composed of judges appointed by Republicans. 

Members of the Black Caucus have expressed concerns that the amendment doesn’t do enough to prevent racial gerrymandering. The last round of Republican maps included illegal racial gerrymanders in the Richmond area, which were struck down in a 2019 case that went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. The official Democratic Party of Virginia has come out against the amendment, as have the Arlington Democrats and the NAACP of Virginia.

“I have always stood for a third-party, non-partisan commission being responsible for drawing our maps,” Carroll Foy says. “I can see that that’s something that’s not going to happen.”

“The thing that swayed me was the words of Delegate Jeion Ward,” she says. “She stood up and said, ‘many people who support this redistricting amendment, they’ll get up and tell you that it’s not good, that it’s good enough, that it’s the best we can do right now.’ When you have something like the Virginia constitution—our most sacred document, our foundational document—do you really put substandard amendments in the constitution? Because once you put it in, it’s almost impossible to get it out.”

Del. Jennifer Carroll Foy

Carroll Foy, a public defender and relative newcomer to the House, announced her 2021 campaign for governor earlier this year. The other state legislator who has announced a gubernatorial run, Senator Jennifer McClellan, falls on the other side of the party on the redistricting issue. 

McClellan, a longtime state politician with a reputation for legislative savvy, calls the amendment “a good example of where you have to be a little more pragmatic. There were a lot of people over the past two years who said they wanted a bipartisan commission to draw the lines, and not 140 legislators. To me that was the only way to get it done for 2021.” 

She calls the bipartisan commission “better than the status quo,” and points to a bill amending the criteria by which new lines are drawn as an important step forward on eliminating gerrymandering. That bill will take effect independent of the proposed amendment.

Sen. Jennifer McClellan

Cannon says Democrats will be able to prevent racial gerrymandering by appointing diverse members to the commission, that “the dynamics ensure diversity.”

Ultimately, the amendment passed its second vote 38 to 2 in the Senate and 54 to 46 in the House—nine Democrats joined all 45 Republicans to get the amendment on November’s ballot.

This fall’s vote is the final step on the amendment’s journey to the constitution. Objections from the Democrats have eroded some support for the measure, but haven’t flipped the script completely. In January, a poll from Mason-Dixon found 72 percent of voters supported the amendment and 17 percent opposed. This month, a poll from Christoper Newport University’s public policy center showed a 48-28 split. 

Walking the line

Delegate Sally Hudson of Charlottesville was one of the nine House democrats who broke with their party to support the amendment this year. Hudson describes herself as an Elizabeth Warren democrat—she says she’s “a person who likes plans”—and in this case, she’s comfortable playing the long game. 

“Count me among the many people who want us to get to an independent commission,” she says. Hudson feels that passing this half measure will make passing a better amendment easier down the road. Getting this through, with some Democrats on the record saying it’s not good enough, “is the leverage we’re going to need to bring Democrats back to the table and finish the job,” she says.

Del. Sally Hudson

If the amendment’s opponents had presented a concrete alternative plan that featured a fully independent commission, Hudson might have been willing to scratch this one. But neither chamber ever held a vote on an independent commission, and “that’s where I really started to get queasy about all this,” she says.

And Hudson disagrees with Carroll Foy’s reverence for the Virginia constitution. “The constitution is a constant work in progress,” she says. “It has always been a practical document that represents the best [the legislature] could get done. It’s always been loaded with frustrating compromise. That lowers the stakes a little and helps us think strategically.”

Hudson’s been in the house for less than a year, but that didn’t deter her from crossing party lines on a major vote. “I had mentors who were like, ‘You ran because you care about fairness and corruption. These are the kind of votes you got here to take,’” she says. “Some votes you take so you can look yourself in the eye.”

Charlottesville’s future

For 18 of the last 20 years, Charlottesville has been represented by a Republican in Congress. Chalk that up to the shape of Virginia’s 5th Congressional District, which contains vast swaths of rural southern and central Virginia, stops just short of Roanoke in the west, doesn’t quite enter the greater Richmond area in the east, and reaches north to grab a handful of Republican-leaning counties on the outskirts of northern Virginia. It’s been carefully composed to encompass as many contiguous rural communities as possible without including any other urban areas.

J. Miles Coleman, a political map specialist and associate editor at the UVA Center for Politics, says he doesn’t think a bipartisan commission would dramatically alter the 5th District, but that some changes could be in the works.

“If you look at what happened to the 5th District in the last round of redistricting, they added that northern part—Greene County, Fauquier, Rappahannock—I could see maybe that being taken,” Coleman says. 

Virginia’s current fifth district (light green) extends north of Charlottesville, into rural counties between here and northern Virginia. If the proposed amendment passes, a bipartisan redistricting commission could very well remove those counties from the district, reverting the fifth back to roughly its pre-2011 and creating a more competitive district.

Even shaving off a few Republican-leaning counties from the northern part of the district could make a big difference in future elections. In 2018, the four counties north of Albemarle, which were all added to the district by Republicans, cast 7,742 more votes for Republican Denver Riggleman than for Democrat Leslie Cockburn. 

This year, Democrat Cameron Webb and Republican Bob Good are polling neck and neck for the 5th. If subsequent 5th District elections are as competitive as this year’s, the outcome could certainly be swung by less than 7,000 votes. If this amendment passes, and the bipartisan commission removes those counties from the 5th, the district becomes significantly more competitive in 2022 and beyond. 

And other local seats could also change if the amendment passes. “At the state legislature, one of the districts I’m fascinated by is the state senate district that’s held by [Democrat] Creigh Deeds,” Coleman says. “It basically starts out in Albemarle county and it runs to the West Virginia border… If you’re taking a truly nonpartisan approach, that’s one of those seats where I doubt it really stands.” 

Should the amendment fail, Democrats will be able to sketch new maps with impunity. Democrats could move Charlottesville out of the 5th District and into the 7th, just to the east. That move would concede the 5th to Republicans, but lock in a strong majority for sitting representative Abigail Spanberger, who narrowly unseated a Republican incumbent in 2018. 

In the House of Delegates, Coleman says, Democrats who hope to gerrymander themselves into a huge majority would be able to make some gains, but wouldn’t be able to completely take over.

“The Democrats could squeeze maybe 60 seats out of a good map,” Coleman says. “We’re a blue state, but we’re not like a New York or a Massachusetts. The Republicans are going to have a starting floor around 40 seats.”

Coleman also notes that rapid population growth in northern Virginia and the Richmond area will make life hard for Republicans moving forward. “Even with a fair map,” Coleman says, “I think the geography of the state would still lend itself to the Democrats.”

Whether or not the amendment passes, new maps will be drawn as soon as new census data becomes available. Ideally, the 2021 House of Delegates elections would take place under redrawn districts, but the coronavirus pandemic has delayed the census, meaning new lines—whether created by the legislature or the bipartisan commission—could go into effect in the 2022 congressional cycle. 

Whatever the result this fall, a new chapter of Virginia politics is about to begin.

 

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News

Read ’em and weep: UVA library employees fear for their safety

Clemons Library was temporarily closed recently because several students removed their face masks while studying. PC: Staff photo

Late last month, UVA had to put Clemons Library in time out for bad behavior. The university shut down its largest study area for two hours, in an attempt to air the place out after staff noticed that just 75 percent of students were wearing face coverings. Then, four days later, the same thing happened, this time with 9 percent of students disobeying the requirement that they wear masks in indoor common spaces.

The situation in the libraries has left library employees worried about the health and safety of students and staff.

“Indoor spaces are the least safe spaces regarding coronavirus and transmission,” says one full-time library employee, who wishes to remain anonymous. “We knew there would still be risk, and we knew people would break the rules.”

While library staff have taken a range of precautions, such as spacing out furniture, visitors can still come in close contact with each other, he says.

Working in person is technically voluntary, but library staff have felt pressure from the dean of libraries and the rest of the UVA administration to show up.

“I have more colleagues now who are working in person, who don’t have the luxury to work from home, [who] are full of fear and anxiety, fearing for their potential job security,” he says. And with the libraries already understaffed due to a hiring freeze, “they are stretching us very thin.”

“What’s worse is that there’s no transparency,” he adds.“Staff are not being told how many times we would go through this…before UVA would even question libraries being open anymore.”

UVA Libraries communications director Elyse Girard says that if the university ever moves into its “short-term restricted operations” phase, which would implement a set of additional restrictions, library spaces could be closed to the public. And while materials would be available for contactless pickup, all other services would be moved online.

There is currently no specific threshold that would move the university into this phase.

Every hour, an employee—often a student—walks around the library and records how many people are wearing face coverings. If compliance is less than 95 percent, a warning is issued over the intercom. And if that number does not rise to at least 95 percent after several more checks and warnings, the library closes for two hours.

One student says the plexiglass shield at the front desk, where she sits during most of her shift at Clemons, helps her to feel comfortable working in person. However, she is occasionally required to do mask checks, which she says have caused her stress and anxiety.

During her shift last weekend, she says Clemons almost had to shut down when a group of students inside of a study room would not put their masks back on—even after she gave a warning over the intercom.

Though employees are not required to approach individuals who aren’t wearing a face covering, another student worker, whose shift was scheduled to start, spoke with the group directly, in order to avoid another closure.

“It’s pretty frustrating seeing people [not complying], especially since we have signs everywhere and make announcements on the intercom pretty often. People for some reason think that they’re an exception,” she says. “I don’t really feel unsafe in my job…but I’ve also never been there when we had to shut down.”

“Students in Clemons have sort of figured out the routine and how the library workers are counting,” explains another full-time library employee who also wished to remain anonymous. “So they’re taking their masks off and putting them back on when they see a librarian coming to count…Most students are doing what they’re supposed to be doing, but there’s [usually] a couple who are not.”

“In an ideal world, the university wouldn’t have come back and tried to have people on Grounds at all this semester,” she adds. “I’m hoping that looking towards the spring semester, there are ways that…maybe there are fewer students on Grounds, and we can have fewer—or no—library spaces open.”

In mid-September, United Campus Workers of Virginia at UVA also published an open letter demanding the libraries be shut down, and all employees—including students—be allowed to work remotely.

“We’ve spent decades and millions of dollars buying electronic materials, books, journals, and other databases,” explains the first employee, who is in favor of closing the libraries. “And we provide virtual reference services.”

But for the student worker, shutting down the libraries could put her out of a much-needed campus job. “I’m not on work study,” she says. “A lot of student workers rely on the libraries being open.”

When asked about safety at the libraries, Girard emphasized that the university aims to “keep students and the UVA community as safe as possible” by complying with social-distancing guidelines, as well as the mask mandate.

To ensure that face coverings are not removed—unless a person is alone in a private space—food and drink are not allowed in the libraries, she added.

Down between the shelves, however, “people are feeling rather expendable and sacrificial,” says the first employee.

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News

In brief: Remembering John Conover, flicking off UVA, and more

Former city councilor John Conover, pictured here in 2007 with his wife, Virginia Daugherty, passed away on October 4. PC: Eze Amos

A fond farewell

Charlottesville superstar John Conover, 74, passed away over the weekend. Conover arrived in town in 1970 and started a printing press, before serving as a city councilor from 1980 to 1984. He later worked as an attorney with the Legal Aid Justice Center, served on the board of Live Arts, and helped spearhead the creation of the Rivanna Trail.

Conover was a “creative and quirky thinker,” said City Councilor Lloyd Snook at council’s Monday meeting. “I didn’t always agree with him, but I always listened to him…His was a full life, a life of service to the community and the poor.”

Conover’s personality shines through in all of the stories written about him during his time in Charlottesville—in a 2004 interview with The Hook, Conover said his perfect day featured “some competition, some reading, some affection,” and that his proudest accomplishment was “consistency in love and community.”

Court conflict 

For nearly 25 years, the Charlottesville Albemarle Adult Drug Treatment Court has helped local residents struggling with addiction get the treatment they need, rather than punish them with jail time. However, one aspect of the court has been a recent point of contention: Participants must plead guilty to their charges in order to enter the program.

Charlottesville attorney Jeff Fogel has brought up the issue numerous times to City Council, leading Charlottesville Commonwealth’s Attorney Joe Platania and Deputy Public Defender Liz Murtagh to give a presentation on the program during Monday’s meeting.

“With the post-plea docket, there’s an acceptance of responsibility and a desire for intensive treatment very quickly,” said Platania. “That is a component that leads to more success.”

Mayor Nikuyah Walker, who worked directly with clients battling substance abuse while at Region Ten, pushed back on Platania’s definition of responsibility.

“They don’t walk in the door, even after those guilty pleas, saying ‘I’m going to change my life and I’m thankful…’ All the people usually know at that time is that they don’t want to go back into jail, which they know does not serve them well either,” she said.

During public comment, community organizer Ang Conn urged council to think about the many people who did not graduate from the program, and in turn were given a sentence, as it considers future changes.

Since there have been only 400 graduates in the program’s history, “that’s approximately 16 successful cases per year,” said Conn. “That doesn’t seem to be a successful program to me.”

_________________

Quote of the week

“Even if businesses fail, they can start another business…What we cannot do is bring someone back to life if they die.”

—Mayor Nikuyah Walker, on her Facebook post suggesting that indoor dining should be banned

__________________

In brief

Disproportionate contact

For the third year in a row, crime charges dropped in Charlottesville—yet Black residents continue to be disproportionately arrested. According to the Charlottesville Police Department’s new annual report, 52 percent of the people arrested last year were Black, even though only about 18 percent of the city is Black. In 2018, 57 percent of people arrested were Black. Meanwhile, complaints made against the department have resulted in few repercussions: Out of the 50 internal affairs cases conducted last year, only 10 percent were sustained.

Sign up

UVA prez Jim Ryan penned an open letter to the university community this week, expressing his distaste for the controversial “Fuck UVA” sign on a student’s Lawn room door. Ryan didn’t like the profanity and also didn’t appreciate that the sign “fail[s] to acknowledge any of the progress that this University has made.” Though the sign is protected under the First Amendment, Ryan claimed UVA admin would consider “additional regulations” for the Lawn before next school year. Many students have pointed out that, ironically, last week the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education ranked UVA the No. 6 university for “open climates for free speech” in 2020.

Blair with me, here

With Dr. Tarron Richardson’s resignation finalized last week, Charlottesville’s new interim city manager appeared at Monday’s council meeting for the first time—or rather, appeared for the first time as a city manager. John Blair has been the city attorney since 2018, and has been a fixture at City Council meetings, sorting out the council’s procedural questions in a measured, deliberate drawl.

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Arts Culture

Worth the struggle: The Glorias takes a long look at Steinem’s stalwart activism

The Glorias tells the life story of activist, journalist, and Ms. magazine co-founder Gloria Steinem through four periods of her life, during which she is portrayed by Julianne Moore (above), Ryan Kira Armstrong, Lulu Wilson, and Alicia Vikander. Image: Roadside Attractions

Like the movement it depicts, The Glorias cares so deeply for its subject that it persists through all obstacles and missteps, because where it’s going is worth the struggle. It’s overlong but it’s passionate. It’s uneven but it’s determined. It ultimately ties itself too neatly to a specific moment in recent history, but it’s a moment worth remembering. And like its protagonist, The Glorias is less interested in being admired than it is in being right.

The Glorias, directed by Julie Taymor from a script by Taymor and Sarah Ruhl, tells the story of activist, journalist, and Ms. magazine co-founder Gloria Steinem. The film credits Steinem’s memoir My Life on the Road, and is structured as a dialogue between Steinem at four periods of her life: childhood (Ryan Kira Armstrong), adolescence (Lulu Wilson), young adulthood (Alicia Vikander), and today (Julianne Moore). It is very much a collaboration between the three, with Taymor’s heightened yet emotionally rooted reality, Ruhl’s skillful weaving of how one’s immediate actions impact the bigger picture, and Steinem’s fundamental belief in listening to the unheard.

Steinem’s story is inseparable from the story of the political movements most closely associated with her. It’s in many of these sequences that the The Glorias truly shines, whether as fantastical vignettes or stirring historical procedurals. One of the greatest moments comes when a talk show host piggishly calls her a “sex object” on live television, and the film becomes a fever dream of sometimes humorous, always confrontational imagery before Steinem decides not to tear him a new one. On a realistic side, the events leading up to the failure of the Equal Rights Amendment are exhilarating. Most films tell the collapse of hopeful momentum as a tragedy, but that’s not how it feels to be in that room, believing that history was being written in real time.

Between moments like these, there is an uneasy relationship between layered political biography and hagiography. The first 30 minutes of the film—it must be said, even by someone who enjoyed it quite a bit—felt interminable, a mishmash of too-familiar biographic tropes and thin characterizations. For too long, The Glorias seems like it might veer into the slick yet hollow mold of musical biographies propelled only by good performances (Ray, Bohemian Rhapsody). We spend a great deal of time with young Gloria and her parents (Timothy Hutton, Enid Graham), and it’s not clear until nearly an hour later why. Younger viewers, who may know Steinem’s name but not her achievements, will start to wonder who this person is and why we need to know all of this. Older viewers who know Steinem better will worry that such an iconic individual who led an exciting and varied life is getting such a conventional movie.

Though The Glorias occasionally relies on familiar biopic moments with pat conclusions, once the concept of the bus containing the four Steinems congeals, so does the rest of film. We know her as one thing, but her life has been one of constant movement and reflection. She is fiercely intelligent, but the film credits her wisdom to her willingness to listen to those who have suffered—and unwillingness to grant injustice any leeway. She will put herself on the frontlines to draw attention to the issues, but places the interests of the movement before herself. One could argue that she is fulfilling the destiny of her mother, a talented journalist who never got the credit she deserved, with the tenacity of her wheeling-and-dealing father who never stayed in one place very long—but the film doesn’t reduce her to such a two-dimensional figure. Even when it is formulaic in structure, the biopic is in service to condensing complicated issues and making them accessible, a cause that the famously straightforward Steinem herself advocates.

There is a lot to love in The Glorias: terrific performances, much of the visuals, and the filmmakers’ understanding that no part of Steinem’s life is apolitical. There is no facade to deconstruct, no underlying reason for her beliefs to unpack. We are challenged to accept that she is who she is, not because of any outside force that molded her. Though sometimes similar in form to other biopics, The Glorias stands apart for respecting the independence of Steinem’s character.

Many influential figures like Dorothy Pitman Hughes (Janelle Monáe), Bella Abzug (Bette Midler), and Dolores Huerta (Monica Sanchez) make appearances, which is a great addition for those who may be less familiar with their legacies. The famous image of Steinem and Hughes with fists raised has been reproduced by Vikander and Monáe for the promotional art, though when these characters’ narrative role is finished, we do not see them again. There may be no better way to involve these individuals from marginalized groups, particularly in a film based on an individual’s memoir, but their political contributions are respected on their own terms, not just how they affected the white protagonist. Steinem’s politics are intersectional, and so are the film’s.

The Glorias / R, 139 minutes

Streaming (Amazon Prime)