Articles

Originally published in: ARLnow

A new bill with the backing of U.S. Rep. Don Beyer is seeking to redraw congressional lines to combat gerrymandering and improve representation.

The measure, called the Fair Representation Act, was introduced by Beyer and Maryland Democrat Jamie Raskin on July 23. It would involve creating larger congressional districts with multiple representatives, elected through ranked-choice voting.

In Virginia, for instance, the whole northern portion of the state might vote as a single bloc — electing three members of the commonwealth’s 11-member congressional delegation from a single district.

It’s a strategy that, Beyer argues, would lead to a more pragmatic political environment.

“Hyperpartisan gerrymandering has suppressed meaningful electoral competition, which in turn has allowed extremist ideologies to hijack our political discourse and sown public distrust of our political system,” Beyer said in a statement.

The bill calls for multi-member congressional districts in states with more than six current single districts. Representatives would be elected in districts of three to five members.

One proposal from the advocacy group FairVote calls for Virginia’s current 11 single-member districts to be carved up this way:

A three-member district encompassing Northern Virginia

A three-member district running down the I-95 corridor and taking in the Richmond and Hampton Roads areas and the Eastern Shore

A five-member district containing the rest of the commonwealth

FairVote estimates electing members via those districts would result in a Virginia congressional composition of six Democrats and five Republicans.

The present split is five Democrats and five Republicans with one vacancy.

The 11th District, which has been vacant since the death of Rep. Gerald Connolly, skews heavily Democratic. The election of Democratic nominee James Walkinshaw in September would return the split to 6-5 Democratic, while the election of Republican Stewart Whitson would give the GOP a 6-5 edge.

The Beyer/Raskin bill was sent to a number of House committees, where it likely will remain until the session ends in December 2026.

The same lingering death has befallen similar bills in the past, regardless of which party has had control of Congress.

Izzie Taveras, a Beyer spokesperson, told ARLnow it could take time for the proposal to gather steam.

“It’s common practice to reintroduce bills every Congress to keep them alive and build support,” she said.

The bill also would mandate that congressional elections be held under ranked-choice voting, rather than the traditional winner-take-all format in place in Virginia and most states for federal elections.

Liz White, executive director of the advocacy group UpVote Virginia, said her organization was pleased with the proposals contained in the measure.

“The Fair Representation Act is a straightforward way to solve a lot of problems at once,” she said.

“It all but eliminates gerrymandering at the congressional level — multi-member districts are much harder to gerrymander,” White said. “The addition of ranked choice voting for congressional elections ensures that multimember districts are opportunities for accurate representation, not the problematic relics from the past.”

The U.S. Constitution does not specify a method for electing members of the legislative branch. But in a series of laws enacted by Congress from the 1840s to the 1960s, single-member districts evolved as the only viable option.

In Virginia, there was one exception, and it played out more than 90 years ago.

Following the 1930 federal census, Virginia lost one of its 10 seats in the House of Representatives as other states leapfrogged it in population. When the legislature and courts in 1932 deadlocked on how to redraw the map with nine districts, it was decided to hold a statewide at-large election to determine representation.

The election attracted 24 candidates including Democrats, Republicans, members of the Socialist and Prohibition parties and independents.

All nine elected in 1932 were Democrats, who received between 201,474 and 206,631 votes each. The six Republicans on the ballot garnered between 78,662 and 92,586 votes.

In 1934, Virginia reverted to voting by congressional districts but Democratic Party dominance continued until the early 1950s.

In 1952, three Virginia Republicans — including Joel Broyhill in the newly created 10th District that then included Arlington — were swept in on the coattails of Dwight Eisenhower’s presidential victory. Broyhill would retain his seat until his defeat at the hands of Democratic County Board member Joseph Fisher in 1974.

Ten states, including Maryland and West Virginia, currently use multi-member districts to select members of their state legislatures, according to Ballotpedia. Virginia used to be among them, but abolished multi-member districts several decades ago.