By Mel Leonor, Jan 28, 2021
Census delays are squeezing Virginia’s timeline for reapportioning its House of Delegate seats in time for the fall elections, when all 100 seats will be up for grabs.
U.S. Census Bureau officials said this week that reapportionment data needed to redraw political boundaries will not be delivered before July 31 — weeks after the state’s scheduled June primary and just 94 days before the fall elections.
If the data arrives after July 31, Sen. George Barker, D-Fairfax and Del. Marcus Simon, D-Fairfax, members of the state’s new redistricting commission, said House lawmakers would be forced to run this fall under the current maps, which the courts updated in 2019.
If lawmakers run in the current districts, the state would have two options: ask delegates to run again under new maps in a 2022 special election and then again in 2023, or keep the districts as they are until the next regularly scheduled House elections in 2023.
In a call with state leaders from across the country Wednesday, U.S. Census Bureau official Kathleen Styles said delays largely related to the pandemic will push back reapportionment data from its planned March 31 timeline to late July or later.
“We don’t have a final date yet,” Styles said. “But … I would like to sort of plant a bug in your ears, not to assume that you will be able to get redistricting data by July 31.”
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