CHARLESTON — For the first time in state history, the House of Delegates will have 100 single-member districts. The House passed HB 301 on Wednesday, creating the new map, 79-20.
It now has to go to the Senate for concurrence over there.
Debate on the bill took just over two hours. Democrats proposed six amendments. Five of them dealt with tweaks to particular districts to better preserve communities of interest, the sponsors said.
One, by Delegate Lisa Zukoff, D-Marshall, attempted to adjust the lines in new Districts 6 and 7 to place Moundsville and New Martinsville together in 7, and Benwood, McMechen and Glen Dale — which have no real ties to Moundsville, Zukoff said, in 6. It failed 25-73.
Three others failed in identical 22-76 votes, and the fourth failed in a voice vote.
Delegate Barbara Evans Fleischauer, D-Monongalia, teamed with Delegate Jim Barach, D-Kanawha, to replace the entire map with one previously presented to the Joint Redistricting Committee drawn by Charleston attorney Thornton Cooper.
Cooper, a well-known figure in the Capitol, is a longtime proponent of single-member districts, and this is his fourth redistricting session for presenting proposed maps.
Fleischauer argued that Cooper’s map is superior because it keeps population deviation among the 100 districts to less than 1% — compared to 5% for majority’s map — and does a better job of preserving communities of interest and respecting county boundaries. The majority map splits 42 counties, while Cooper’s split two.
The amendment failed in a 20-78 vote.
Turning to debate on the bill itself, Delegate Dave Pethtel emotionally lamented how Wetzel County will be chopped up and said he will not seek re-election in 2022.
Wetzel has steadily lost population, he said — falling from 21,874 residents in 1980 to 14,442 now. But it’s always been kept whole, with a single delegate, apart from a period when one precinct was attached to Monongalia.
But now, he said, Wetzel will be divided among four districts — attached to neighboring Marshall, Tyler, Doddridge, Harrison and Mon counties — and will be the minority population in all four. “To me, it’s fractional representation.”
Wetzel will never have a delegate elected under this plan, he said. “If I needed just one reason to vote against this bill, this is it.”
He’d been contemplating whether or not to run again — he will have served 30 years at the end of this term — and prayed for guidance, he said. But the new map will pit him against Zukoff in the 2022 primary and he won’t run against her. “I knew that was my sign to retire.”
He expressed gratitude to the Wetzel voters who supported him for 15 terms and the Mon County voters who supported him for 10, when that area was grafted on to the 5th District. The whole House stood to applaud him for his years of service.
Delegate Larry Rowe, D-Kanawha, echoed the thoughts of several who spoke: “A lot of us are going to have a lot of trouble trying to explain the ziggy-zaggy districts in this bill. … It just has a feel we have gerrymandering in some places.” He noted that four of five Kanawha Democrats will primary against each other in 2022.
Discussion on both sides of the aisle touched on the redrawing of District 48 to make sure that Delegate Caleb Hanna, R-Nicholas, who is Black, won’t have to campaign in or represent a portion of Pocahontas, where the neo-Nazi National Alliance is headquartered.
Delegate Danielle Walker, D-Monongalia and the only Black female legislator, commented on that discussion, noting serving in the House is not a career but a privilege granted by the voters.
She’s been the subject of racist attacks, she said, and proudly keeps the dent in her vehicle to remind her of the day someone tried to run her off the road. Her house has been egged and she’s been threatened.
“Keeping communities together is what supersedes this hate that we see,” she said.
Delegate Tom Fast, R-Fayette, supported the bill. The process has been fair, balanced and transparent, he said. “It has not been done in a smoke-filled room in a basement. … It is an attempt to keep municipalities as whole as possible. It is an attempt to keep counties as whole as possible.”
The Dominion Post was at the Capitol for the 2011 redistricting session. The Democratic majority at the time defeated 14 proposed GOP amendments and the bill passed on party lines, 55-38.
TWEET David Beard @dbeardtdp EMAIL dbeard@dominionpost.com
