The Virginia Redistricting Commission met for the second time this morning for two hours to discuss their proposed timeline, receive training from the Freedom of Information Advisory Council, and hear public comment. The Division of Legislative Services (DLS) will be uploading a recording of the meeting here later today.
Greta Harris chaired the meeting, setting the tone for the Commission’s commitment to accountability, inclusivity, and integrity. In discussing the timeline of their work, their desire to be thorough is clear. Importantly, Meg Lamb, DLS Counsel, clarified that the 45 day window to produce the State Senate and the House of Delegates districts will be triggered by the receipt of census data in August. This “legacy” data will be formatted slightly differently than the data that will be received in September, but Ms. Lamb confirmed that the software the Commission will be using (Citygate) is still capable of processing it. This means that Virginia’s redistricting timeline is moved up slightly, but still without sufficient time to produce new districts for the 2021 House of Delegates elections.
The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) training was comprehensive, and it’s important that the public was able to watch the training alongside the commissioners. The top line takeaways are: 1) legislators are subject to the same laws as the citizen commissioners and do not have legislative privilege in their capacity as redistricting commissioners, and 2) the commission should be guided by the principle, “when in doubt, give it out”. FOIA compliance basically ensures that all commissioner communications are considered public information, but for more information we recommend you watch the training. We’ve included two key screenshots from the presentation below.
Finally, 12 citizens gave oral public testimonies which accompanied eight written comments submitted via email. This included comments from Phillip Thompson, Executive Director of National Black Non-partisan Redistricting Commission, Jeff South, President of the Virginia Coalition for Open Government, Erin Corbett, Redistricting Coordinator for the Virginia Civic Engagement Table and Chris De Rosa from the League of Women Voters Virginia, as well as several private citizens. The public comments expressed a clear and unified desire for maximum transparency and effort to engage and inform the public. Liz White, Executive Director of OneVirginia2021, also spoke to the letter we sent to the commission, co-signed by a number of organizations working for fair and transparent redistricting.
Today’s meeting provided a good look into what future meetings will look like (a mix of planning, training, and public comment) and we look forward to continuing to monitor and publicize these meetings as the Commission’s work picks up.