WaPo: “The decades-long incumbent-protection scheme known as redistricting is finished in Virginia, at least for now. Good riddance.
Its death sentence was pronounced by the state’s Supreme Court, which last week approved new voting maps for Congress and the state legislature with little regard to safeguarding existing seats for politicians who, in many cases, have held them for years. Nearly half of sitting state senators and delegates have been doubled or tripled up in redrawn districts. Three members of Congress — Democratic Reps. Elaine Luria and Abigail Spanberger and Republican Rep. H. Morgan Griffith — were drawn out of their current districts; others remain in districts now redrawn in electorally perilous configurations.
The new maps — drafted by a pair of experts chosen by the court, one from each party — were enacted unanimously by the seven justices. The decision is momentous.”